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It does not become me to\nsay anything further in its favour, than that the sustained interest of\nthe narrative, which has been regarded as the charm of stories referring\nto life in the desert and prairie, has not been departed from in this\ninstance. The stories themselves supply an innate proof of the writer's\ncorrectness to Nature, and, in truth, many of the scenes are so\nstartling that they must be the result of personal observation.\n\nIn conclusion, I may be permitted to thank the Press generally for the\nkindly aid they have afforded me in making the English translation of\nAimard's volumes known to the British reading public, and the hearty way\nin which they have recognized the merits of the previous series. It\nwould be an easy task to collect paragraphs, expressing a belief that\nAimard is second to none of the writers who have hitherto described\nIndian life and scenery; but I prefer to rest my hopes of success on the\ninherent qualities of his stories.\n\n LASCELLES WRAXALL.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n PART I. RED CEDAR PART II. EL PRESIDIO DE SANTA FE\n\n\n I.--The Virgin Forest I.--El Rancho de Coyote\n II.--The Contest II.--The Cuchillada\n III.--Don Miguel Zarate III.--The Hunters\n IV.--The Peccaries IV.--Sunbeam\n V.--The Wound V.--The Adoption\n VI.--The Squatter's Shanty VI.--The Missionary\n VII.--The Rangers VII.--The Interview\n VIII.--The Valley of the Buffalo VIII.--The Prison\n IX.--The Assassination IX.--The Embassy\n X.--The Sachem of the Coras X.--The Presentation\n XI.--Conversation XI.--Psychological\n XII.--El Meson XII.--Diamond Cut Diamond\n XIII--Red Cedar XIII.--A Stormy Discussion\n XIV.--The Two Hunters XIV.--The Mystery\n XV.--Fray Ambrosio XV.--The Ambuscade\n XVI.--Two Varieties of Villains XVI.--A Friendly Discussion\n XVII.--El Canyon Del Buitre XVII.--Nathan\n XVIII.--Father Seraphin XVIII.--The Wounded Man\n XIX.--Unicorn XIX.--Indian Diplomacy\n XX.--The Hunt of Wild Horses XX--The Stranger\n XXI.--The Surprise XXI.--General Ventura\n XXII.--The Meeting XXII.--The Comanches\n XXIII.--The Abduction XXIII.--Negotiations\n XXIV.--The Revolt XXIV.--Free\n XXV.--The Meeting\n XXVI.--Dona Clara\n XXVII.--El Vado del Toro\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTRAIL HUNTER BY GUSTAVE AIMARD.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nTHE VIRGIN FOREST.\n\n\nIn Mexico the population is only divided into two classes, the upper and\nthe lower. There is no intermediate rank to connect the two extremes,\nand this is the cause of the two hundred and thirty-nine revolutions\nwhich have overthrown this country since the declaration of its\nindependence. Why this is so is simple enough. The intellectual power is\nin the hands of a small number, and all the revolutions are effected by\nthis turbulent and ambitious minority; whence it results that the\ncountry is governed by the most complete military despotism, instead of\nbeing a free republic.\n\nStill the inhabitants of the States of Sonora, Chihuahua, and Texas have\nretained, even to the present day, that stern, savage, and energetic\nphysiognomy which may be sought in vain among the other States of the\nConfederation.\n\nBeneath a sky colder than that of Mexico, the winter, which frequently\ncovers the rivers of the region with a thick layer of ice, hardens the\nmuscles of the inhabitants, cleanses their blood, purifies their hearts,\nand renders them picked men, who are distinguished for their courage,\ntheir intelligence, and their profound love of liberty.\n\nThe Apaches, who originally inhabited the greater portion of New Mexico,\nhave gradually fallen back before the axe of the pioneers; and after\nretiring into the immense deserts that cover the triangle formed by the\nRio Gila, the Del Norte, and the Colorado, they ravage almost with\nimpunity the Mexican frontiers, plundering, firing, and devastating all\nthey meet with on their passage.\n\nThe inhabitants of the countries we alluded to above, held in respect by\nthese ever-shifting savages, are in a state of continual warfare with\nthem, always ready to fight, fortifying their haciendas, and only\ntravelling with weapons in their hands.\n\nEl Paso del Norte may be regarded as the outpost of the civilised\nportion of Mexico. Beyond that, to the north and north-west, extend the\nvast unfilled plains of Chihuahua, the _bolson_ of Mapimi, and the arid\ndeserts of the Rio Gila. These immense deserts, known by the name of\nApacheria, are still as little investigated as they were at the close of\nthe eighteenth century. El Paso del Norte owes its name to its situation\nnear a ford of the Rio Del Norte. It is the oldest of all the New\nMexican settlements, and its establishment dates back to the close of\nthe sixteenth century. The present settlement is scattered for a\ndistance of about ten miles along the banks of the Del Norte, and\ncontains four thousand inhabitants at the most. The _plaza_, or village\nof the Paso, is situated at the head of the valley: at the other\nextremity is the Presidio of San Elezario. All the interval is occupied\nby a continuous line of white, flat-roofed houses, buried in gardens,\nand surrounded by vineyards. About a mile above the ford the stream is\ndammed up, and led by a canal into the valley, which it waters.\nApacheria begins only a few miles from this settlement.\n\nIt is easily seen that the foot of civilised man has only trodden\ntimidly and at rare intervals this thoroughly primitive country, in\nwhich nature, free to develop herself under the omnipotent eye of the\ncreator, assumes an aspect of incredible beauty and fancifulness.\n\nOn a lovely morning in the month of May, which the Indians call \"the\nmoon of the flowers,\" a man of high stature, with harsh and marked\nfeatures, mounted on a tall, half-tamed steed, started at a canter from\nthe plaza, and after a few minutes of hesitation, employed in realising\nhis position, resolutely buried his spurs in the horse's flanks, crossed\nthe ford, and after leaving behind him the numerous cottonwood trees\nwhich at this spot cover the river banks, proceeded toward the dense\nforest that flashed on the horizon.\n\nThis horseman was dressed in the costume generally adopted on the\nfrontiers, and which was so picturesque that we will give a short\ndescription of it. The stranger wore a pelisse of green cloth,\nembroidered with silver, allowing a glimpse of an elegantly-worked\nshirt, the collar of which was fastened by a loosely-knotted black silk\nhandkerchief, the ends passed through a diamond ring. He wore green\ncloth breeches, trimmed with silver, and two rows of buttons of the same\nmetal, and fastened round the hips by a red silken scarf with gold\nfringe. The breeches, open on the side half way up the thigh, displayed\nhis fine linen drawers beneath: his legs were defended by a strip of\nbrown embossed and stamped leather, called _botas vaqueras_, attached\nbelow the knee by a silver garter. On his heels enormous spurs clanked.\nA _manga_, glistening with gold, and drawn up on the shoulder, protected\nthe upper part of his body, while his head was sheltered from the\nburning sunbeams by a broad-leafed hat of brown stamped felt, the crown\nof which was contracted by a large silver _toquilla_ passed twice or\nthrice round it.\n\nHis steed was caparisoned with graceful luxuriousness, which heightened\nall its beautiful points: a rich saddle of embossed leather, adorned\nwith massive silver, on the back of which the _zarape_ was fastened;\nwide Moorish silver stirrups, and handsome water bottles at the\nsaddle-bow; while an elegant _anquera_, made of openwork leather, and\ndecorated with small steel chains, entirely covered the horse's croup,\nand sparkled with its slightest movement.\n\nThe stranger appeared, judging from the luxury he displayed, to belong\nto the high class of society. A _machete_ hung down his right side,\ntwo pistols were passed through his girdle, the handle of a long knife\nprotruded from his right boot, and he held a superbly damascened rifle\nacross the saddle in front of him.\n\nBending over the neck of his galloping steed, he advanced rapidly\nwithout looking round him, although the landscape that lay extended\nbefore him was one of the most attractive and majestic in those regions.\n\nThe river formed the most capricious windings in the centre of a terrain\ndiversified in a thousand strange ways. Here and there on the sandy\nbanks enormous trees might be seen lying, which, dried up by the sun,\nevidenced, in their washed-out appearance, that they had been dead for\ncenturies. Near the shallow and marshy spots, caymans and alligators\nwandered about awkwardly. At other places, where the river ran almost\nstraight, its banks were uniform, and covered with tall trees, round\nwhich creepers had twined, and then struck root in the ground again,\nthus forming the most inextricable confusion. Here and there small\nclearings or marshy spots might be detected in the midst of the dense\nwood, often piled up with trees that had died of old age. Further on,\nother trees, which seemed still young, judging from their colour and the\nsolidity of their bark, fell into dust with the slightest breath of\nwind.\n\nAt times, the earth, entirely undermined beneath, drawn down by its own\nweight, dragged with it the wood which it bore, and produced a crashing,\nconfused sound, which was returned on all sides by the echo, and\npossessed a certain degree of grandeur in this desert, whose depths no\nman has ever yet ventured to scrutinise.\n\nStill the stranger galloped on, with his eye ardently fixed before him,\nand not appearing to see anything. Several hours passed thus: the\nhorseman buried himself deeper in the forest. He had left the banks of\nthe river, and only progressed with extreme difficulty, through the\nentanglement of branches, grass, and shrubs, which at every step\narrested his movements, and forced him to make innumerable turnings. He\nmerely reined in his horse now and then, took a glance at the sky, and\nthen started again, muttering to himself but one word:\n\n\"_Adelante_! (Forward!)\"\n\nAt length he stopped in a vast clearing, took a suspicious glance around\nhim, and probably reassured by the leaden silence which weighed on the\ndesert, he dismounted, hobbled his horse, and took off its bridle that\nit might browse on the young tree shoots. This duty accomplished, he\ncarelessly lay down on the ground, rolled a maize cigarette in his\nfingers, produced a gold _mechero_ from his waist belt, and struck a\nlight.\n\nThe clearing was of considerable extent. On one side the eye could\nsurvey with ease, through the trees, the widely extending prairie, on\nwhich deer were browsing with security. On the other side, the forest,\nwilder than ever, seemed, on the contrary, an impassable wall of\nverdure. All was abrupt and primitive at this spot, which the foot of\nman had so rarely trodden. Certain trees, either entirely or partially\ndried up, offered the vigorous remains of a rich and fertile soil;\nothers, equally ancient, were sustained by the twisted creepers, which\nin the course of time almost equalled their original support in size:\nthe diversity of the leaves produced the strangest possible mixture.\nOthers, containing in their hollow trunk a manure which, formed of the\nremains of their leaves and half-dead branches, had warmed the seeds\nthey had let fall, and offered, in the young shoots they contained, some\ncompensation for the loss of their father tree.\n\nIn the prairies, nature, ever provident, seems to have been desirous to\nshelter from the insults of time certain old trees, patriarchs of the\nforest which are crushed beneath the weight of ages, by forming them a\ncloak of greyish moss, which hangs in festoons from the highest branches\nto the ground, assuming the wildest and most fantastic shapes.\n\nThe stranger, lying on his back, with his head resting on his two\ncrossed hands, was smoking with that beatitude, full of ease and sloth,\nwhich is peculiar to the Hispano-Americans. He only interrupted this\ngentle occupation to roll a fresh cigarette and cast a glance around,\nwhile muttering:\n\n\"Hum! He keeps me waiting a long time.\"\n\nHe emitted a puff of bluish smoke, and resumed his first position.\nSeveral hours passed thus. Suddenly, a rather loud rustling was heard in\nthe thicket, some distance behind the stranger.\n\n\"Ah, ah!\" he said, \"I fancy my man is coming at last.\"\n\nIn the meanwhile, the sound became louder, and rapidly approached.\n\n\"Come on, hang it!\" the horseman shouted, as he rose. \"By our Lady of\nPilar! You have surely been keeping me waiting long enough.\"\n\nNothing appeared: the clearing was still deserted, although the sound\nhad attained a certain degree of intensity. The stranger, surprised at\nthe obstinate silence of the man he was addressing, and specially by his\ncontinuing not to show himself, at length rose to see for himself the\nreason. At this moment, his horse pricked up its ears, snorted\nviolently, and made a sudden effort to free itself from the lasso that\nheld it; but our new acquaintance rushed toward it and patted it. The\nhorse trembled all over, and made prodigious bounds in order to escape.\nThe stranger, more and more surprised, looked round for an explanation\nof these extraordinary movements, and was soon satisfied.\n\nScarce twenty yards from him a magnificent jaguar, with a\nsplendidly-spotted hide, was crouched on the main branch of an enormous\ncypress, and fixed on him two ferocious eyes, as it passed its\nblood-red, rugged tongue over its lips with a feline pleasure.\n\n\"Ah, ah!\" the stranger said to himself in a low voice, but displaying no\nfurther excitement, \"I did not expect you; but no matter, you are\nwelcome, comrade. _Caray_! We shall have a fight for it.\"\n\nWithout taking his eye off the jaguar, he convinced himself that his\nmachete quitted its scabbard readily, picked up his rifle, and, after\nthese precautions were taken, he advanced resolutely toward the\nferocious brute, which saw him coming without changing its position. On\narriving within ten yards of the jaguar, the stranger threw away the\ncigarette he had till now held between his lips, shouldered his rifle,\nand put his finger on the trigger. The jaguar drew itself together and\nprepared to leap forward. At the same moment a hoarse yell was heard\nfrom the opposite side of the clearing.\n\n\"Wait a minute,\" the stranger said to himself with a smile; \"it seems\nthere are two of them, and I fancied I had to do with a bachelor jaguar.\nThis is beginning to grow interesting.\"\n\nAnd he threw a glance on one side. He had not deceived himself: a second\njaguar, rather larger than the first, had fixed its flashing eyes upon\nhim.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE CONTEST.\n\n\nThe dwellers on the Mexican frontiers are accustomed to fight\ncontinually with wild animals, both men and brutes, that continually\nattack them. Hence the stranger was but slightly affected by the\nunexpected visit of the two jaguars. Although his position between his\ntwo ferocious enemies was somewhat precarious, and he did not at all\nconceal from himself the danger he ran alone against two, he did not the\nless resolve to confront them bravely. Not taking his eye off the jaguar\nhe had first seen, he went back a few steps obliquely, so as to have his\nfoes nearly opposite him, instead of standing between them. This\nmanoeuvre, which demanded some little time, succeeded beyond his hopes.\nThe jaguars watched him, licking their lips, and passing their paws\nbehind their ears with those graceful movements peculiar to the feline\nrace. The two wild beasts, certain of their prey, seemed to be playing\nwith it and not over eager to pounce on it.\n\nWhile keeping his eye on the watch, the Mexican did not yield to any\ntreacherous feeling of security: he knew that the struggle he was about\nto undertake was a supreme one, and he took his precautions. Jaguars\nnever attack a man unless forced by necessity; and the latter tried,\nbefore all, to seize the horse. The noble animal, securely fastened by\nits master, exhausted itself in efforts to break the bonds that held it,\nand escape. It trembled with terror on scenting its ferocious enemies.\n\nThe stranger, when his precautions were completely taken, shouldered his\nrifle for the second time. At this moment the jaguars raised their\nheads, while laying back their ears and snuffing anxiously. An almost\nimperceptible sound was audible in the bushes.\n\n\"Who goes there?\" the Mexican asked in a loud voice.\n\n\"A friend, Don Miguel Zarate,\" was the reply.\n\n\"Ah! It is Don Valentine,\" the Mexican continued. \"You have arrived just\nin time to see some fine sport.\"\n\n\"Ah, ah!\" the man who had already spoken went on. \"Can I help you?\"\n\n\"It is useless; but make haste if you want to see.\"\n\nThe branches were sharply drawn aside, and two men appeared in the\nclearing. At the sight of the jaguars they stopped, not through alarm,\nfor they quietly placed the butts of their rifles on the ground, but in\norder to give the hunter every facility to emerge victoriously from his\nrash combat.\n\nThe jaguars seemed to comprehend that the moment for action had arrived.\nAs if by one accord, they drew themselves up and bounded on their enemy.\nThe first, struck in its leap by a bullet which passed through its right\neye, rolled on the ground, where it remained motionless. The second was\nreceived on the point of the hunter's machete, who after discharging his\nrifle, had fallen on his knee, with his left arm folded in his blanket\nin front, and the machete in the other hand. The man and the tiger\nwrithed together in a deadly embrace, and after a few seconds only one\nof the adversaries rose: it was the man. The tiger was dead: the\nhunter's machete, guided by a firm hand, had passed right through its\nheart.\n\nDuring this rapid fight the newcomers had not made a sign, but remained\nstoical spectators of all that was taking place. The Mexican rose,\nthrust his machete in the grass to clean the blade, and turning coldly\nto the strangers, said:\n\n\"What do you say to that?\"\n\n\"Splendidly played,\" the first answered; \"it is one of the best double\nstrokes I ever saw in my life.\"\n\nThe two men threw their rifles on their shoulders, and walked up to the\nMexican, who reloaded his piece with as much coolness and tranquillity\nas if he had not just escaped from a terrible danger by a miracle of\nskill.\n\nThe sun was sinking on the horizon, the shadow of the trees assumed a\nprodigious length, and the luminary appeared like a ball of fire amid\nthe limpid azure of the heavens. The night would soon arrive, and the\ndesert was awaking. On all sides could be heard, in the gloomy and\nmysterious depths of the virgin forest, the hoarse howling of the\ncoyotes and the other wild beasts, mingled with the song of the birds\nperched on all the branches. The desert, silent and gloomy during the\noppressive heat of the day, emerged from its unhealthy torpor on the\napproach of dark, and was preparing to resume its nocturnal sports.\n\nThe three men in the clearing collected dried branches, made a pile of\nthem and set fire to it. They doubtlessly intended to camp for a portion\nof the night at this spot. So soon as the flames rose joyously, skyward\nin long spirals, the two strangers produced from their game bags maize\ntortillas, jerked meat, and a gourd of pulque. These various comestibles\nwere complacently spread out on the grass, and the three men began a\nhunter's meal. When the gourd had gone the round several times, and the\ntortillas had disappeared, the newcomers lit their Indian pipes, and the\nMexican rolled a papelito.\n\nAlthough this meal had been short, it lasted, however, long enough for\nnight to have completely set in ere it was ended. Perfect darkness\nbrooded over the clearing, the ruddy reflections of the fire played on\nthe energetic faces of the three men, and gave them a fantastic\nappearance.\n\n\"And now,\" the Mexican said, after lighting his cigarette, \"I will, with\nyour permission, explain to you why I was so anxious to see you.\"\n\n\"One moment,\" one of the hunters answered. \"You know that in the deserts\nthe leaves have often eyes, and the trees ears. If I am not mistaken in\nyour hints, you invited us here that our interview might be secret.\"\n\n\"In truth, I have the greatest interest in nothing of what is said here\nbeing overheard, or even suspected.\"\n\n\"Very good. Curumilla, to work.\"\n\nThe second hunter rose, seized his rifle and disappeared noiselessly in\nthe gloom. His absence was rather long; but as long as it lasted, the\ntwo men left at the fire did not exchange a syllable. In about half an\nhour the hunter returned, however, and seated himself by his comrades'\nside.\n\n\"Well?\" the one who had sent him off asked him.\n\n\"My brother can speak,\" he replied laconically; \"the desert is quiet.\"\n\nOn this assurance the three men banished all anxiety. Still prudence did\nnot abandon them: they took up their pipes, and turned their backs to\nthe fire, so that they might watch the neighbourhood while conversing.\n\n\"We are ready to listen to you,\" the first hunter said.\n\n\"Listen to me with the greatest attention,\" the Mexican began; \"what you\nare about to hear is of the utmost importance.\"\n\nThe two men bowed silently, and the Mexican prepared to speak again.\n\nBefore going further we must introduce to the reader the two men we have\njust brought on the stage, and go back a few paces in order to make it\nperfectly understood why Don Miguel Zarate, in lieu of receiving them at\nhis own house, had given them the meeting in the heart of the virgin\nforest.\n\nThe two hunters seemed at the first glance to be Indians; but on\nexamining them more attentively, you could recognise that one of them\nbelonged to those white trappers whose boldness has become proverbial in\nMexico. Their appearance and equipment offered a singular medley of\nsavage and civilised life. Their hair was of a remarkable length; for in\nthose countries, where a man is frequently only fought for the glory of\nlifting his scalp, it is considered the thing to wear it long and easy\nto seize.\n\nThe hunters had their hair neatly plaited, and intertwined with beaver\nskins and bright ribbons. The rest of their garb harmonised with\nthis specimen of their taste. A hunting shirt of bright red calico fell\ndown to their knees; gaiters decorated with woolen ribbons and bells\nsurrounded their legs; and their feet were shod with moccasins\nembroidered with beads which the squaws know so well how to make. A\nstriped blanket, fastened round the hips by a belt of tanned deer hide,\ncompleted their clothing, but was not so closely drawn that at their\nevery movement the butt of the pistols and the hilt of the machetes\nmight be seen glistening. As for their rifles, useless at this moment,\nand carelessly thrown on the ground by their side, if they had been\nstripped of the plume-worked elk skin that covered them, it would have\nbeen possible to see, with what care their owners had decorated them\nwith copper nails painted of various colours; for all about these two men\nbore the imprint of Indian habits.\n\nThe first of the two hunters was a man of thirty-eight at the most, tall\nand well-built; his muscular limbs denoted great bodily strength, allied\nto unequalled lightness. Although he affected all the manners of the\nredskins, it was an easy matter to perceive that he not only belonged to\nthe unmixed white race, but also to the Norman or Gaulish type. He was\nfair; his large, blue and pensive eyes, adorned with long lashes, had an\nexpression of undefinable sadness: his nose was slightly aquiline; his\nmouth large, and filled with teeth of dazzling whiteness; a thick\nchestnut beard covered the lower part of his face, which revealed\ngentleness, kindness, and courage without boasting, though the whole\nwere combined with a will of iron.\n\nHis companion evidently belonged to the Indian race, all the\ncharacteristic signs of which he displayed; but, strange to say, he was\nnot coppery like the American aborigines of Texas and North America; and\nhis skin was brown and slightly of an olive hue. He had a lofty brow, a\nbent nose, small but piercing eyes, a large mouth and square chin; in\nshort, he presented the complete type of the American race, which\ninhabits a limited territory in the South of Chili. This hunter had\nround his brow a purple- fillet, in which was thrust over the\nright ear a plume of the Andes Eagle, a sign which serves to distinguish\nthe chiefs of the Aucas.\n\nThese two men, whom the reader has doubtless already recognised, as they\nplayed an important part in our previously published works[1], were\nValentine Guillois, an ex-noncommissioned officer in the Spahis, and\nCurumilla, his friend--Ulmen of the Great Hare tribe.\n\nWe will introduce a parenthesis to explain their present position, and\nwhich is indispensable for a right understanding of what follows. The\nmoment is capitally selected, by the way, for opening this parenthesis;\nfor the three hunters are gaily talking round their fire, the night is\ngloomy, the forest quiet, and it does not appear likely that anything\nwill arise to disturb them.\n\n\n\n[1] \"The Chief of the Aucas,\" \"The Tiger Slayer,\" \"The Gold Finders,\"\n\"The Indian Chief.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nDON MIGUEL ZARATE.\n\n\nWere Mexico better governed, it would be, without contradiction, one of\nthe richest countries on the face of the globe. Indeed the largest\nprivate fortunes must still be sought in that country. Since the United\nStates Americans have revealed to the world, by seizing one-half of\nMexico, whither their ambition tends, the inhabitants of that fine\ncountry have slightly emerged from the torpor they enjoyed, and have\nmade great efforts to colonise their provinces, and summon to their\nsoil, which is so rich and fertile, intelligent and industrious\nlabourers, who might change the face of affairs, and cause abundance and\nwealth to abound at spots, where, prior to their arrival, there was\nnaught save ruin, desolation, carelessness, and misery.\n\nUnfortunately, the noble efforts made up to the present day have,\nthrough an inexplicable fatality, remained without result, either owing\nto the natural apathy of the inhabitants, or the fault of the Mexican\nGovernment itself. Still the large landowners, comprehending all the\nadvantages of the proposed measure, and how much it is to their interest\nto combat the deadly influence of the American invasions, have\ngenerously devoted themselves to the realization of this great question\nof social economy, which, unluckily is growing more and more\nunrealisable.\n\nIn fact, in Northern America two hostile races--the Anglo-Saxon and the\nSpanish--stand face to face. The Anglo-Saxons are devoured by an ardour\nfor conquest, and a rage for invasion, which nothing can arrest, or even\n. It is impossible to see without amazement the expansive\ntendencies of this active and singular people, a heterogeneous composite\nof all the races which misery or evil instincts expelled from Europe\noriginally, and which feels restricted in the immense territory which\nits numerical weakness yet prevents it entirely occupying.\n\nImprisoned within its vast frontiers, making a right of strength, it is\ncontinually displacing its neighbours' landmarks, and encroaching on\nterritory of which it can make no use. Daily, bands of emigrants abandon\ntheir dwellings, and with their rifles on their shoulders, their axes in\ntheir hand, they proceed south, as if impelled by a will stronger than\nthemselves; and neither mountains, deserts, nor virgin forests are\nsufficient obstacles to make them halt even for an instant. The Yankees\nimagine themselves generally the instruments of Providence, and\nappointed by the decrees of the Omnipotent to people and civilise the\nNew World. They count with feverish impatience the hours which must\nelapse ere the day (close at hand in their ideas) arrive in which their\nrace and government system will occupy the entire space contained\nbetween Cape North and the Isthmus of Panama, to the exclusion of the\nSpanish republics on one side, and the English colonies on the other.\n\nThese projects, of which the Americans make no mystery, but, on the\ncontrary, openly boast, are perfectly well known to the Mexicans, who\ncordially detest their neighbours, and employ all the means in their\npower to create difficulties for them, and impede their successive\nencroachments.\n\nAmong the New Mexican landowners who resolved to make sacrifices in\norder to stop, or at least check, the imminent invasion from North\nAmerica, the richest, and possibly, first of all, through his\nintelligence and the influence he justly enjoyed in the country, was Don\nMiguel Acamarichtzin Zarate.\n\nWhatever may be asserted, the Indian population of Mexico is nearly\ndouble in number to the white men, and possesses an enormous influence.\nDon Miguel descended in a straight line from Acamarichtzin, first king\nof Mexico, whose name had been preserved in the family as a precious\nrelic. Possessed of an incalculable fortune, Don Miguel lived on his\nenormous estates like a king in his empire, beloved and respected by the\nIndians, whom he effectively protected whenever the occasion presented\nitself, and who felt for him a veneration carried almost to idolatry;\nfor they saw in him the descendant from one of their most celebrated\nkings, and the born defender of their race.\n\nIn New Mexico the Indian population has very largely increased during\nthe past fifty years. Some authors, indeed, assert that it is now more\nnumerous than prior to the conquest, which is very probable, through the\napathy of the Spaniards, and the carelessness they have ever displayed\nin their struggles against it. But the Indians have remained stationary\namid the incessant progress of civilization, and still retain intact the\nprincipal traits of their old manners. Scattered here and there in\nmiserable ranchos or villages, they live in separate tribes, governed by\ntheir caciques, and they have mingled but very few Spanish words with\ntheir idioms, which they speak as in the time of the Aztecs. The sole\napparent change in them is their conversion to Catholicism--a conversion\nmore than problematical, as they preserve with the utmost care all the\nrecollections of their ancient religion, follow its rites in secret, and\nkeep up all its superstitious practices.\n\nThe Indians--above all, in New Mexico--although called _Indios fideles_,\nare always ready on the first opportunity to ally themselves with their\ndesert congeners; and in the incursions of the Apaches and Comanches it\nis rare for the faithful Indians not to serve them as scouts, guides,\nand spies.\n\nThe family of Don Miguel Zarate had retired to New Mexico, which country\nit did not leave again--a few years after the conquests of the\nadventurer Cortez. Don Miguel had closely followed the policy of his\nfamily by maintaining the bonds of friendship and good neighbourhood\nwhich, from time immemorial, attached it to the Indians, believers or\nnot. This policy had borne its fruit. Annually, in September, when the\nterrible red warriors, preceded by murder and arson, rushed like a\ntorrent on the wretched inhabitants, whom they massacred in the farms\nthey plundered, without pity of age or sex, Don Miguel Zarate's estates\nwere respected; and not merely was no damage inflicted on them, but even\nif at times a field were unwittingly trampled by the horses' hoofs, or a\nfew trees destroyed by plunderers, the evil was immediately repaired ere\nthe owner had opportunity for complaint.\n\nThis conduct of the Indians had not failed to arouse against Don Miguel\nextreme jealousy on the part of the inhabitants, who saw themselves\nperiodically ruined by the _Indios Bravos._ Earnest complaints had been\nlaid against him before the Mexican Government; but whatever might be\nthe power of his enemies, and the means they employed to ruin him, the\nrich hacendero had never been seriously disturbed: in the first place,\nbecause New Mexico is too remote from the capital for the inhabitants to\nhave anything to fear from the governing classes; and secondly, Don\nMiguel was too rich not to render it easy for him to impose silence on\nthose who were most disposed to injure him.\n\nDon Miguel, whose portrait we drew in a previous chapter, was left a\nwidower after eight years' marriage, with two children, a boy and a\ngirl, the son being twenty-four, the daughter seventeen, at the period\nwhen our story opens. Dona Clara--such was the daughter's name--was one\nof the most delicious maidens that can be imagined. She had one of those\nMurillo's virgin heads, whose black eyes, fringed with long silky\nlashes, pure mouth, and dreamy brow seem to promise divine joys. Her\ncomplexion, slightly bronzed by the warm sunbeams, wore that gilded\nreflection which so well becomes the women of these intertropical\ncountries. She was short of stature, but exquisitely modelled. Gentle\nand simple, ignorant as a Creole, this delicious child was adored by her\nfather, who saw in her the wife he had so loved living once more. The\nIndians looked after her when she at times passed pensively, plucking a\nflower before their wretched huts, and scarce bending the slants on\nwhich she placed her delicate foot. In their hearts they compared this\nfrail maiden, with her soft and vaporous outline, to the \"virgin of the\nfirst loves,\" that sublime creation of the Indian religion which holds\nso great a place in the Aztec mythology.\n\nDon Pablo Zarate, the hacendero's son, was a powerfully built man, with\nharshly marked features, and a haughty glance, although at times it was\nimprinted with gentleness and kindness. Endowed with more than ordinary\nstrength, skilled in all bodily exercises, Don Pablo was renowned\nthrough the whole country for his talent in taming the most spirited\nhorses, and the correctness of his aim when on the chase. A determined\nhunter and daring wood ranger, this young man, when he had a good horse\nbetween his legs, and his rifle in his hand, knew none, man or animal,\ncapable of barring his passage. The Indians, in their simple faith,\nyielded to the son the same respect and veneration they entertained for\nthe father, and fancied they saw in him the personification of\n_Huitzilopochtli_, that terrible war god of the Aztecs, to whom 62,000\nhuman victims were sacrificed in one day, upon the inauguration of his\n_teocali_.\n\nThe Zarates, then, at the period when our story opens, were real kings\nof New Mexico. The felicity they enjoyed was suddenly troubled by one of\nthose vulgar incidents which, though unimportant in themselves, do not\nfail to cause a general perturbation, and a discomfort possessing no\napparent cause, from the fact that it is impossible to foresee or\nprevent them. The circumstance was as follows:--\n\nDon Miguel possessed, in the vicinity of the Paso, vast estates\nextending for a great distance, and consisting principally of haciendas,\nprairies, and forests. One day Don Miguel was returning from a visit to\nhis haciendas. It was late, and he pressed on his horse in order to\nreach ere night the ford, when, at about three or four leagues at the\nmost from the spot to which he was proceeding, and just as he was\nentering a dense forest of cottonwood trees, through which he must pass\nere reaching the ford, his attention was attracted by cries mingled with\ngrowls emerging from the wood he was about to enter. The hacendero\nstopped in order to account for the unusual sounds he heard, and bent\nhis head forward to detect what was happening. But it was impossible for\nhim to distinguish anything through the chaos of creepers and shrubs\nwhich intercepted vision. In the meanwhile, the noise grew louder, and\nthe shouts were redoubled, and mingled with oaths and passionate\nexclamations.\n\nThe Mexican's horse laid back its ears, neighed, and refused to advance.\nStill Don Miguel must make up his mind. Thinking that a man was probably\nattacked by wild beasts, he only consulted his heart; and, in spite of\nthe visible repugnance of his steed, he compelled it to go forward and\nenter the wood. He had scarce gone a few yards ere he stopped in\namazement at the strange spectacle that presented itself to him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHE PECCARIES.\n\n\nIn the middle of the clearing lay a ripped up horse, which six or eight\npeccaries were rending, while a dozen others were attacking with their\ntusks the stem of an enormous tree, in the topmost branches of which a\nman had sought shelter.\n\nLet us explain to our readers, who probably know little about them, what\nsort of animals the peccaries are. The peccaries hold the intermediate\ngrade between the domestic pig and the wild boar. Although this animal\ndoes not exceed two feet in height, and is not more than three feet long\nfrom the end of the snout to the beginning of the tail, it is\nindubitably one of the most dangerous animals in North America. The\nanimal's jaw is provided with tusks rather like those of the boar, but\nstraight and sharp, their length varying between four and six inches. In\nthe shape of the body it resembles a pig, but the bristles scattered\nover its warty hide are in strips; the part nearest the skin is\nwhite, and the point of a chocolate tinge. So soon as the animal is\nenraged, these bristles stand out like the quills of a porcupine.\n\nThe movements of the peccaries are as quick and sharp as those of a\nsquirrel. They ordinarily live in herds of fifteen, thirty, and even\nfifty. The strength of the head, neck, and shoulders is so great when\nthey charge, that nothing can resist the impetuosity of their attacks. A\nremarkable peculiarity of this genus is the clumsy wart they have on\ntheir backs, whence a musty fluid evaporates when the animal is in a\nfury.\n\nThe peccary lives in preference on acorns, roots, wheat, sugar cane, and\nreptiles of every description. It is a proved fact that the most\nvenomous serpents are devoured by them without their feeling in the\nslightest degree incommoded.\n\nThe mode in which the peccary forms its lair is very singular. This lair\nis generally in the midst of tufted and impenetrable canes, found in\nmarshy spots round the monarchs of the forest, which still stand like\ncrushed giants, with their grappling lines of creepers and virgin vines.\nThe trunks of these trees, which at times measure forty feet in\ncircumference, are nearly all hollow, and thus afford a convenient\nshelter for the peccaries, which retire to them every night in herds of\ntwenty to twenty-five, entering the cavity one after the other\nbackwards; so that the last has the end of its snout placed just at the\nentrance of the hole, thus watching, as it were, over the rest of its\ncompanions.\n\nThe peccaries are unboundedly ferocious: they know not danger, or at\nleast despise it completely. They always attack in herds, and fight with\nunequalled rage until the last succumbs, no matter the nature of their\nfoe.\n\nHence men and animals all fly a meeting with these terrible beasts: the\njaguar, so strong and redoubtable, will become their prey if it be so\nimprudent as to attack them. This is the way they set about conquering\nthis wild beast:--\n\nWhen a jaguar has wounded a peccary, the latter collect, chase it, and\npursue until they can contrive to surround the common enemy. When every\nissue is closed, the jaguar, believing it can thus escape, seeks refuge\nup a tree. But the peccaries do not resign the vengeance; they establish\nthemselves at the foot of the tree, being incessantly recruited by fresh\nallies, and patiently waiting till the jaguar, driven to extremities by\nhunger and thirst, decides on descending from its improvised fortress.\nThis is almost always sure to happen at the end of two or three days at\nthe most. The jaguar bounds into the midst of its enemies, which boldly\nawait it, and attack it bravely; a terrible fight commences; and the\ntiger, after covering the ground with victims, at length succumbs\nbeneath the efforts of its assailants, and is ripped up by their tusks.\n\nAfter what we have said, it is easy to understand how precarious was the\nposition of the man perched on the top of the tree, and surrounded by\npeccaries. His enemies seemed determined not to leave their ground; they\ncraftily crept round the tree, attacked its base with their tusks, and\nthen recognising the inutility of their onsets, they quietly lay down by\nthe carcass of the horse, which they had already sacrificed to their\nfury. Don Miguel felt moved to pity for the poor fellow, whose position\ngrew momentarily more critical; but in vain did he rack his brains how\nto help the unhappy man whose destruction was assured.\n\nTo attack the peccaries would have been extreme imprudence, and have\nproduced no other result than that of turning on himself the fury of the\nanimals, while not saving the man he wished to help. Still time pressed.\nWhat was to be done? How, without sacrificing himself, save the man who\nran so great a risk?\n\nThe Mexican hesitated for a long period. It seemed to Don Miguel\nimpossible to leave, without help, this man whose death was certain.\nThis idea, which presented itself to his mind several times, he had\nenergetically repulsed, so monstrous did it appear to him. At length he\nresolved at all risks to attempt impossibilities in favour of this\nstranger, of whose death he would have eventually accused himself had he\nleft him to perish in the desert.\n\nThe stranger's position was the more critical because, in his haste to\ndefend himself from the attacks of his enemies, he had left his rifle\nfall at the foot of the tree, and was consequently unable to reduce the\nnumber of the peccaries. In spite of their fineness of scent, the latter\nhad not noticed Don Miguel's approach, who, by a providential accident,\nhad entered the wood on the side opposite the wind. The Mexican\ndismounted with a sigh, patted his horse, and then took off its\naccoutrements. The noble animal, habituated to its master's caresses,\nshook his head joyously, and fixed its large intelligent eyes on him.\nDon Miguel could not repress another sigh: a tear fell down on his\nbronzed cheeks. On the point of accomplishing the sacrifice, he\nhesitated.\n\nIt was a faithful companion, almost a friend, he was about to separate\nfrom; but the life of a man was at stake. The Mexican drove back the\nfeelings that agitated him, and his resolution was formed. He passed a\nlasso round his horse's neck, and, in spite of its obstinate resistance,\ncompelled it to advance to the entrance of the clearing in which the\npeccaries were assembled. A frail curtain of creepers and leaves alone\nhid it from their sight. On arriving here Don Miguel stopped: he had one\nmore moment's hesitation, but only one; for then seizing a piece of\ntinder, which he lighted, he thrust it into the poor animal's ear while\ncaressing it.\n\nThe effect was sudden and terrible. The horse uttered a snort of pain;\nand rendered mad by the burning, bounded forward into the clearing,\nstriving in vain to get rid of the tinder which caused it intolerable\nsuffering. Don Miguel had smartly leaped aside, and now followed with an\nanxious glance the result of the terrible tentative he had just made to\nsave the stranger. On seeing the horse appear suddenly in their midst,\nthe peccaries rose, formed a compact group and rushed with their heads\ndown in pursuit of the horse, thinking no longer of the man. The animal,\nspurred on still more by the sight of its ferocious enemies, shot ahead\nwith the speed of an arrow, breaking down with its chest all the\nobstacles in its way, and followed closely by the peccaries.\n\nThe man saved; but at what a price! Don Miguel repressed a last sigh of\nregret, and leaped into the clearing. The stranger had already descended\nfrom the tree; but the emotion he had undergone was so extreme, that he\nremained seated on the ground, almost in a state of unconsciousness.\n\n\"Quick, quick!\" Don Miguel said to him sharply. \"We have not a moment to\nlose: the peccaries may alter their minds and return.\"\n\n\"That is true,\" the stranger muttered in a hollow voice, as he cast a\nterrified glance around. \"Let us be off--off at once.\"\n\nHe made an effort over himself, seized his rifle, and rose. Through a\npresentiment for which he could not account to himself, Don Miguel\nexperienced at the sight of this man, whom he had hitherto scarce looked\nat, a feeling of invincible doubt and disgust. Owing to the life he was\nobliged to lead on these frontiers, frequented by people of every\ndescription, the hacendero had been often brought into relation with\ntrappers and hunters whose faces were no recommendation to them; but\nnever ere now had chance brought him in contact with an individual of\nsuch sinister appearance as this one.\n\nStill he did not allow his feelings to be seen through, and invited this\nman to follow him. The latter did not let the invitation be repeated;\nfor he was anxious to escape from the spot where he had been so near\ndeath. Thanks to the Mexican's acquaintance with the country, the wood\nwas speedily traversed, and the two men, after a walk of scarce an\nhour's duration, reached the banks of the Del Norte, just opposite the\nvillage. Their speed had been so great, their anxiety so serious, that\nthey had not exchanged a syllable, so terrified were they of seeing the\npeccaries appear at any moment. Fortunately this was not the case, and\nthey reached the ford without being again disturbed.\n\nDon Miguel was burdened with his horse's trappings, which he now threw\non the ground, and looked around him in the hope of finding someone who\nwould help him in crossing the river. His expectations were not\ndeceived; for just as they reached the ford an _arriero_ was preparing\nto cross to the other side of the river with his _recca_ of mules, and,\nwith the generosity innate in all Mexicans, he offered to carry them\nboth to the Paso. The two men eagerly accepted, each mounted a mule, and\nhalf an hour later they found themselves in safety at the village. After\ngiving the arriero a few reals to requite him for his services, Don\nMiguel took up his horse's trappings again, and prepared to start. The\nstranger stopped.\n\n\"We are about to part here, caballero,\" he said in a rough voice, with a\nvery marked English accent; \"but before leaving, let me express to you\nmy deep gratitude for the noble and generous manner in which you saved\nmy life at the peril of your own.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" the Mexican simply answered, \"I only did my duty in saving you.\nIn the desert all men are brothers, and owe each other protection. Hence\ndo not thank me, I beg, for a very simple action: any other in my place\nwould have acted as I have done.\"\n\n\"Perhaps so,\" the stranger continued; \"but be kind enough, pray, to tell\nme your name, so that I may know to whom I owe my life.\"\n\n\"That is needless,\" Don Miguel said with a smile. \"Still, as I fancy you\nare a stranger in these parts, let me give you a piece of advice.\"\n\n\"What is it, sir?\"\n\n\"Never in future to attack the peccaries. They are terrible enemies,\nonly to be conquered by a strong body of men; and an individual in\nattacking them commits an unpardonable folly, to which he must fall a\nvictim.\"\n\n\"Be assured, sir, that I shall profit by the lesson I have received this\nday, and shall never put myself in such a wasps' nest again. I was too\nnear paying dearly for my imprudence. But I beg you, sir, do not let us\nseparate ere I know the name of my preserver.\"\n\n\"As you insist, sir, you shall learn it. I am Don Miguel de Zarate.\"\n\nThe stranger took a peculiar glance at the speaker, while repressing a\nmovement of surprise.\n\n\"Ah!\" he said in a singular tone, \"Thanks, Don Miguel Zarate. Without\nknowing you personally, I was already acquainted with your name.\"\n\n\"That is possible,\" the hacendero answered; \"for I am well known in\nthis country, where my family has been established for many a long\nyear.\"\n\n\"I, sir, am the man whom the Indians call Witchasta Joute, the Maneater,\nand the hunters, my companions, Red Cedar.\"\n\nAnd after lifting his hand to his cap in salute, this man threw his\nrifle on his shoulder, turned on his heel, and went off at full speed.\nDon Miguel looked after him for a while, and then walked pensively\ntoward the house he inhabited at el Paso. The hacendero did not suspect\nthat he had sacrificed his favourite horse to save the life of his most\nimplacable enemy.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHE WOUND.\n\n\nAt sunrise, Don Miguel, mounted on an excellent horse, left the Paso,\nand proceeded toward the hacienda where he resided with his family. It\nwas situated a few miles from the Presidio of San Elezario, in a\ndelicious position, and was known as the _Hacienda de la Noria_ (the\nFarm of the Well). The estate inhabited by Don Miguel stood in the\ncentre of the vast delta formed by the Del Norte and the Rio San Pedro,\nor Devil's River. It was one of those strong and massive buildings which\nthe Spaniards alone knew how to erect when they were absolute masters of\nMexico.\n\nThe hacienda formed a vast parallelogram, supported at regular distances\nby enormous cross walls of carved stone. Like all the frontier\nhabitations, which are rather fortresses than houses, it was only\npierced on the side of the plain with a few narrow windows resembling\nloopholes, and protected by solid iron bars. This abode was begirt by a\nthick wall of circumvallation, defended on the top by that fretwork\ncalled _almenas_, which indicated the nobility of the owner. Within this\nwall, but separated from the chief apartments, were the stables,\nouthouses, barns and cabins for the peons.\n\nAt the extremity of the courtyard, in an angle of the hacienda, was the\ntall square belfry of the chapel, rising above its terraced roof. This\nchapel was served by a monk called Fray Ambrosio. A magnificent plain\nclosed in this splendid farm. At the end of a valley more than fifty\nmiles in length were cactus trees of a conical shape, loaded with fruit\nand flowers, and whose stems were as much as six feet in diameter.\n\nDon Miguel employed a considerable number of peons in the cultivation of\nthe sugar cane, which he carried on upon a very large scale. As\neverybody knows, the cane is planted by laying it horizontally in\nfurrows half a foot deep. From each knot springs a shoot which reaches a\nheight of about three yards, and which is cut at the end of a year to\nextract the juice.\n\nNothing can be more picturesque than the sight of a field of sugar\ncanes. It was one of those superb American mornings during which nature\nseems to be holding a festival. The _centzontle_ (American nightingale)\nfrequently poured forth its harmonious notes; the red throstled\ncardinals, the blue birds, the parakeets, chattered gaily beneath the\nfoliage; far away on the plain galloped flocks of light antelopes and\ntimid ashatas, while on the extreme verge of the horizon rushed startled\n_manadas_ of wild horses, which raised clouds of impalpable dust beneath\nthe vibration of their rapid hoofs. A few alligators, carelessly\nstretched out on the river mud, were drying their scales in the sun, and\nin mid air the grand eagles of the Sierra Madre hovered majestically\nabove the valley.\n\nDon Miguel advanced rapidly at the favourite pace of the Mexican\n_jinetes,_ and which consists in making the horse raise its front legs,\nwhile the hind ones almost graze the ground--a peculiar sort of amble\nwhich is very gentle and rapid. The hacendero only employed four hours\nin traversing the distance separating him from the hacienda, where he\narrived about nine in the morning. He was received on the threshold of\nthe house by his daughter, who, warned of his arrival, had hastened to\nmeet him.\n\nDon Miguel had been absent from home a fortnight; hence, he received his\ndaughter's caresses with the greatest pleasure. When he had embraced her\nseveral times, while continuing to hold her tightly clasped in his arms,\nhe regarded her attentively during several seconds.\n\n\"What is the matter, _mi querida_ Clara?\" he asked with sympathy. \"You\nseem very sad. Can you feel vexed at the sight of me?\" he added, with a\nsmile.\n\n\"Oh, you cannot believe that, father!\" she answered quickly; \"for you\nknow how happy your presence must render me.\"\n\n\"Thanks, my child! But whence, in that case, comes the sorrow I see\nspread over your features?\"\n\nThe maiden let her eyes sink, but made no reply.\n\nDon Miguel threw a searching glance around.\n\n\"Where is Don Pablo?\" he said. \"Why has he not come to greet me? Can he\nbe away from the hacienda?\"\n\n\"No, father, he is here.\"\n\n\"Well, then, what is the reason he is not by your side?\"\n\n\"Because--\" the girl said, with hesitation.\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"He is ill.\"\n\n\"My son ill!\" Don Miguel exclaimed.\n\n\"I am wrong,\" Dona Clara corrected herself.\n\n\"Explain yourself, in Heaven's name!\"\n\n\"My father, the fact is that Pablo is wounded.\"\n\n\"Wounded!\" the hacendero sharply said; and thrusting his daughter\naside, he rushed toward the house, bounded up the few steps leading to\nthe porch, crossed several rooms without stopping, and reached his son's\nchamber. The young man was lying, weak and faint, on his bed; but on\nperceiving his parent he smiled, and held his hand to him. Don Miguel\nwas fondly attached to his son, his sole heir, and walked up to him.\n\n\"What is this wound of which I have heard?\" he asked him in great\nagitation.\n\n\"Less than nothing, father,\" the young man replied, exchanging a meaning\nglance with his sister, who entered at the moment. \"Clara is a foolish\ngirl, who, in her tenderness, wrongly alarmed you.\"\n\n\"But, after all, you are wounded?\" the father continued.\n\n\"But I repeat that it is a mere nothing.\"\n\n\"Come, explain yourself. How and when did you receive this wound?\"\n\nThe young man blushed, and maintained silence.\n\n\"I insist on knowing,\" Don Miguel continued pressingly.\n\n\"Good heavens, father!\" Don Pablo replied with an air of ill-humour, \"I\ndo not understand why you are alarmed for so futile a cause. I am not a\nchild, whom a scratch should make frightened; and many times have I been\nwounded previously, and you have not disturbed yourself so much.\"\n\n\"That is possible; but the mode in which you answer me, the care you\nseem trying to take to keep me ignorant of the cause of this wound--in a\nword, everything tells me that this time you are trying to hide\nsomething grave from me.\"\n\n\"You are mistaken, father, and shall convince yourself.\"\n\n\"I wish nothing more: speak. Clara, my child, go and give orders to have\nbreakfast prepared, for I am dying of hunger.\"\n\nThe girl went out.\n\n\"Now it is our turn,\" Don Miguel continued. \"In the first place, where\nare you wounded?\"\n\n\"Oh! I have merely a slight scratch on my shoulder: if I went to bed it\nwas more through indolence than any other motive.\"\n\n\"Hum! and what scratched your shoulder?\"\n\n\"A bullet.\"\n\n\"What! A bullet! Then you must have fought a duel, unhappy boy!\" Don\nMiguel exclaimed with a shudder.\n\nThe young man smiled, pressed his father's hand, and bending toward him,\nsaid,--\n\n\"This is what has happened.\"\n\n\"I am listening to you,\" Don Miguel replied, making an effort to calm\nhimself.\n\n\"Two days after your departure, father,\" Don Pablo continued, \"I was\nsuperintending, as you wished me to do, the cutting of the cane crop,\nwhen a hunter whom you will probably remember having seen prowling about\nthe estate, a man of the name of Andres Garote, accosted me at the\nmoment I was about to return home after giving my orders to the\nmajordomo. After saluting me obsequiously as his wont, the scamp smiled\ncunningly, and lowering his voice so as not to be overheard by those\naround us, said, 'Don Pablo, I fancy you would give half an ounce to the\nman who brought you important news?' 'That depends,' I answered; for,\nhaving known the man a long time, I was aware much confidence could not\nbe placed in him. 'Bah! Your grace is so rich,' he continued\ninsidiously, 'that a miserable sum like that is less than nothing in his\npocket, while in mine it would do me a deal of good.'\n\n\"Apart from his defects, this scamp had at times done us a few small\nservices; and then, as he said, a half-ounce is but a trifle, so I gave\nit to him. He stowed it away in his pockets, and then bent down to my\near. 'Thanks, Don Pablo,' he said to me. 'I shall not cheat you of your\nmoney. Your horse is rested, and can stand a long journey. Proceed to\nBuffalo Valley, and there you will learn something to interest you.' It\nwas in vain that I urged him to explain himself more clearly; I could\ndraw no more from him. He merely added before parting from me, 'Don\nPablo, you have good weapons; so take them with you, for no man knoweth\nwhat may happen.' Somehow the scamp's veiled confidence aroused my\ncuriosity: hence I resolved to go to Buffalo Valley, and gain the clue\nof this riddle.\"\n\n\"Andres Garote is a villain, who laid a snare for you, into which you\nfell,\" Don Miguel interrupted.\n\n\"No, father, you are mistaken. Andres was honest towards me, and I have\nonly thanks to give him. Still he should have explained himself,\nperhaps, more distinctly.\"\n\nThe hacendero shook his head with a doubting air.\n\n\"Go on,\" he said.\n\n\"I entered my house, procured the weapons, and then, mounted on ,\nmy black charger, I proceeded toward Buffalo Valley. As you are aware,\nfather, the place we call so, and which belongs to us, is an immense\nforest of cedars and maples, nearly forty miles in circumference, and\ntraversed almost through its entire length by a wide confluent of the\nRio San Pedro.\"\n\n\"Of course I know it, and I intend next year to fell some of the wood\nthere.\"\n\n\"You need not take the trouble,\" the young man said with a smile, \"for\nsomeone has done it for you.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" the hacendero asked wrathfully. \"Who dared?\"\n\n\"Oh! One of those wretched heretic squatters, as they call themselves.\nThe villain found the spot to suit him, and has quietly settled there\nwith his three whelps--three big fellows with hang-dog faces, who\nlaughed at me when I told them the forest was mine, and answered, while\naiming at me, that they were North Americans, who cared as little for me\nas they did for a coyote; that the ground belonged to the first comer;\nand that I shall afford them lively pleasure by being off at full speed.\nWhat more shall I tell you, father? I take after you. I have hot blood,\nand I cordially hate that race of Yankee pirates, who, for some years\nback, have settled on our lovely country like a swarm of mosquitoes. I\nsaw our forest plundered, our finest trees cut down. I could not remain\nunmoved in the presence of these scoundrels' insolence, and the quarrel\nbecame so sharp that they fired at me.\"\n\n\"_Virgen Santisima_!\" Don Miguel exclaimed in fury, \"They shall pay\ndearly for the affront they have offered you I swear it! I will take\nexemplary vengeance.\"\n\n\"Why be so angry, father?\" the young man replied, visibly annoyed at the\neffect his story had produced. \"The harm these people do us is really\nvery trifling. I was in the wrong to let my passion carry me away.\"\n\n\"On the contrary, you were right. I will not have these Northern thieves\ncome and commit their plunder here. I will put a stop to it.\"\n\n\"I assure you that, if you will leave me to act, I feel certain of\narranging this affair to your entire satisfaction.\"\n\n\"I forbid you taking the slightest steps, for this matter concerns me\nnow. Whatever may occur, I do not wish you to interfere. Will you\npromise me this?\"\n\n\"As you insist, I do so, father.\"\n\n\"Very good. Get cured as speedily as possible, and keep your mind at\nrest. The Yankees shall pay me dearly for the blood they have shed.\"\n\nWith these words Don Miguel retired, and his son fell back on his bed\nstifling a sigh, and uttering a hoarse exclamation of passion.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE SQUATTER'S SHANTY.\n\n\nDon Pablo had not told his father the facts in all their truth or\ndetail. He had fallen into a perfect ambuscade. He was suddenly attacked\nby the three brothers, who would have mercilessly killed him, resolved\nto lay the blame of his death on the wild beasts, had not, at the moment\nwhen one of them lifted his knife on the young man, who was thrown down\nand rendered motionless by the others, a providential succour reached him\nin the person of a charming maid scarce sixteen years of age.\n\nThe courageous girl rushed from a copse with the rapidity of a fawn, and\nthrew herself resolutely into the midst of the assassins.\n\n\"What are you about, brother?\" she exclaimed in a melodious voice, whose\nharmonious notes echoed amorously in Don Pablo's ears. \"Why do you wish\nto kill this stranger?\"\n\nThe three squatters, surprised by this apparition, which they were far\nfrom expecting, fell back a few paces. Don Pablo profited by this truce\nto jump up and regain possession of his arms, which had fallen by his\nside.\n\n\"Was it not enough,\" the girl continued, \"to rob this man, that you must\nnow try to take his life? Fie, brothers! Do you not know that blood\nleaves on the hands of him who spills it stains which nothing can\nefface? Let this man retire in peace.\"\n\nThe young men hesitated. Although unconsciously yielding to their\nsister's influence, they were ashamed of thus executing her wishes.\nStill they did not dare express their thoughts, and merely bent on their\nenemy, who awaited them with a firm foot and pistols in hand, glances\nladen with hatred and anger.\n\n\"Ellen is right,\" the youngest of her brothers suddenly said. \"No, I\nwill not allow any harm to be done the stranger.\"\n\nThe others looked at him savagely.\n\n\"You would defend him, if necessary, I suppose, Shaw?\" Nathan said to\nhim ironically.\n\n\"Why should I not, were it required?\" the young man said boldly.\n\n\"Eh!\" Sutter remarked with a grin, \"He is thinking of the Wood\nEglantine.\"\n\nThis word had been scarce uttered ere Shaw, with purpled face,\ncontracted features, and eyes injected with blood, rushed with uplifted\nknife on his brother, who awaited him firmly. The girl dashed between\nthem.\n\n\"Peace, peace!\" she shrieked in a piercing voice, \"Do brothers dare\nthreaten one another?\"\n\nThe two young fellows remained motionless, but watching and ready to\nstrike in a moment. Don Pablo fixed an ardent glance on the girl, who\nwas really admirable at this moment. With her features animated by\nanger, her head erect, and her arms stretched out between the two men,\nshe bore a startling likeness to those Druidesses who in olden times\nsummoned the warriors to combat beneath the forests of Germany.\n\nIn her whole person she offered the complete type of the gentle Northern\nwoman. Her hair light and golden like ripe corn; her eyes of extreme\npurity, which reflected the azure of the sky; her earnest mouth, with\nrosy lips and pearly teeth; her flexible and small waist; the whiteness\nof her complexion, whose delicate and transparent skin still bore the\nflush of adolescence--all was combined in this charming maiden to render\nher the most seductive creature imaginable.\n\nDon Pablo, a stranger to this kind of beauty, felt himself involuntarily\nattracted toward the girl, and entirely subjugated by her. Forgetting\nthe reason that had brought him to this spot, the danger he had\nincurred, and that which still menaced him, he was fascinated and\ntrembling before this delicious apparition, fearing at each instant to\nsee it vanish like a vision, and not daring to turn his glance from her\nwhile he felt he had no strength left to admire her.\n\nThis young creature, so frail and delicate, formed a strange contrast\nwith the tall statures and marked features of her brothers, whose coarse\nand savage manners only served to heighten the elegance and charm\nexhaled by her whole person. Still this scene could not be prolonged,\nand must be ended at once. The maiden walked toward Don Pablo.\n\n\"Sir,\" she said to him with a soft smile, \"You have nothing more to fear\nfrom my brothers; you can mount your horse again, and set out, and no\none will oppose your departure.\"\n\nThe young man understood that he had no pretext to prolong his stay at\nthis spot; he therefore let his head sink, placed his pistols in his\nholsters, leaped on his horse, and set out with regret, and as slowly as\npossible.\n\nHe had scarce gone a league when he heard the hasty clatter of a horse\nbehind him. He turned back. The approaching horseman was Shaw, who soon\ncaught up with Don Pablo. The pair then proceeded some distance side by\nside without exchanging a syllable, and both seemed plunged in profound\nthought. On reaching the skirt of the forest, Shaw checked his horse,\nand softly laid his right hand on the Mexican's bridle. Don Pablo also\nstopped on this hint, and waited, while fixing an inquiring glance on\nhis strange comrade.\n\n\"Stranger,\" the young man said, \"my sister sends me. She implores you,\nif it be possible, to keep secret what occurred between us today. She\ndeeply regrets the attack to which you fell a victim, and the wound you\nhave received; and she will try to persuade Red Cedar, our father, to\nretire from your estates.\"\n\n\"Thank your sister for me,\" Don Pablo answered. \"Tell her that her\nslightest wish will ever be a command to me, and that I shall be happy\nto execute it.\"\n\n\"I will repeat your words to her.\"\n\n\"Thanks. Render me a parting service.\"\n\n\"Speak.\"\n\n\"What is your sister's name?\"\n\n\"Ellen. She is the guardian angel of our hearth. My name is Shaw.\"\n\n\"I am obliged to you for telling me your name, though I cannot guess the\nreason that induces you to do so.\"\n\n\"I will tell you. I love my sister Ellen before all: she urged me to\noffer you my friendship. I obey her. Remember, stranger, that Shaw is\nyours to the death.\"\n\n\"I shall not forget it, though I hope never to be under the necessity of\nreminding you of your words.\"\n\n\"All the worse,\" the American said, with a shake of his head; \"but if at\nany time the opportunity offers, I will prove to you that I am a man of\nmy word, so surely as I am a Kentuckian.\"\n\nAnd hurriedly turning his horse's head, the young man rapidly\ndisappeared in the windings of the forest.\n\nBuffalo Valley, illumined by the parting rays of the setting sun, seemed\na lake of verdure to which the golden mist of night imparted magical\ntones. A light breeze rustled through the lofty crests of the cedars,\ncatalpas, tulip and Peru trees, and agitated the grass on the banks of\nthe Rio San Pedro. Don Pablo let the reins float idly on his horse's\nneck, and advanced dreamily through the forest, where the birds were\nleaping from spray to spray, each saluting in its language the arrival\nof night.\n\nAn hour later, the young man reached the hacienda; but the wound he had\nreceived in his shoulder was more serious than was at first supposed. He\nwas obliged, to his great regret, to keep his bed, which prevented him\nseeking to meet again the maiden whose image was deeply engraved on his\nheart.\n\nSo soon as the Mexican had gone off, the squatters continued felling\ntrees and sawing planks, and did not abandon this work till the night\nhad grown quite black. Ellen had returned to the interior of the jacal,\nwhere she attended to the housekeeping duties with her mother. This\njacal was a wretched hut, hastily made with branches of intertwined\ntrees, which trembled with every breeze, and let the sun and rain\npenetrate to the interior.\n\nThis cabin was divided into three compartments: the one to the right\nserved as the bedroom of the two females, while the men slept in the one\nto the left. The central compartment, furnished with worm-eaten benches\nand a clumsily-planed table, was at once keeping room and kitchen.\n\nIt was late: the squatters, assembled round the fire, over which a huge\npot was boiling, were silently awaiting the return of Red Cedar, who had\nbeen absent since the morning. At length, a horse's hoofs sounded\nsharply on the detritus collected for years on the floor of the forest,\nthe noise grew gradually nearer, the horse stopped in front of the\njacal, and a man made his appearance. It was Red Cedar. The men slowly\nturned their heads toward him, but did not otherwise disturb themselves,\nor address a syllable to him.\n\nEllen alone rose and embraced her father affectionately. The giant\nseized the girl in his nervous arms, raised her from the ground, and\nkissed her several times, saying in his rough voice, which his\ntenderness sensibly softened,--\n\n\"Good evening, my dear.\"\n\nThen he put her down on the ground again, and not troubling himself\nfurther about her, fell heavily on a bench near the fire, and thrust his\nfeet toward the fire.\n\n\"Come, wife,\" he said, after the expiration of a moment, \"the supper, in\nthe fiend's name! I have a coyote's hunger.\"\n\nThe wife did not let this be repeated. A few moments later an immense\ndish of _frijoles_, with pimiento, smoked on the table, with large pots\nof pulque. The meal was short and silent, the four men eating with\nextreme rapacity. So soon as the beans had disappeared Red Cedar and his\nsons lit their pipes, and began smoking, while drinking large draughts\nof whiskey, though still not speaking. At length Red Cedar took his pipe\nfrom his lips, and hit the table sharply, while saying in a rough\nvoice,--\n\n\"Come, women, decamp! You have nothing more to do here. You are in our\nway, so go to the deuce!\"\n\nEllen and her mother immediately went out, and entered their separate\napartment. For a few minutes they could be heard moving about, and then\nall became silent again.\n\nRed Cedar made a sign, and Sutter rose and gently put his ear to the\nparting board. He listened for a few moments while holding his breath,\nand then returned to his seat, saying laconically,--\n\n\"They are asleep.\"\n\n\"Quick, my whelps!\" the old squatter said in a low voice. \"We have not a\nminute to lose: the others are expecting us.\"\n\nA strange scene then occurred in this mean room, which was merely\nillumined by the expiring light of the hearth. The four men arose,\nopened a large chest, and produced from it various objects of strange\nshapes--leggings, mittens, buffalo robes, collars of grizzly bear claws;\nin a word, the complete costumes of Apache Indians.\n\nThe squatters disguised themselves as redskins; and when they had put on\ntheir garments, which rendered it impossible to recognise them, they\ncompleted the metamorphosis by painting their faces of different colours.\n\nAssuredly the traveller whom accident had brought at this moment to the\njacal would have fancied it inhabited by Apaches or Comanches.\n\nThe garments which the squatters had taken off were locked up in the\nchest, of which Red Cedar took the key; and the four men, armed with\ntheir American rifles, left the cabin, mounted their horses, which were\nawaiting them ready saddled, and started at full gallop through the\nwinding forest paths.\n\nAt the moment they disappeared in the gloom Ellen stood in the doorway\nof the cabin, took a despairing glance in the direction where they had\ngone, and fell to the ground murmuring sadly,--\n\n\"Good Heaven! What diabolical work are they going to perform this\nnight?\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE RANGERS.\n\n\nOn the banks of the Rio San Pedro, and on the side of a hill, stood a\n_rancheria_ composed of some ten cabins, inhabited by a population of\nsixty persons at the most, including men, women and children. These\npeople were Coras Indians, hunters and agriculturists, belonging to the\nTortoise tribe. These poor Indians lived there on terms of peace with\ntheir neighbours, under the protection of the Mexican laws. Quiet and\ninoffensive beings, during the nearly twenty years they had been\nestablished at this place they had never once offered a subject of\ncomplaint to their neighbours, who, on the contrary, were glad to see\nthem prosper, owing to their gentle and hospitable manners. Though\nMexican subjects, they governed themselves after their fashion, obeying\ntheir caciques, and regulating in the assembly of their elders all the\ndifficulties that arose in their village.\n\nOn the night when we saw the squatters leave the cabin in disguise, some\ntwenty individuals, armed to the teeth and clothed in strange costumes,\nwith their faces blackened so as to render them unrecognizable, were\nbivouacked at about two leagues from the rancheria, in a plain on the\nriver's bank. Seated or lying round huge fires, they were singing,\nlaughing, quarrelling or gambling with multitudinous yells and oaths.\nTwo men seated apart at the foot of an enormous cactus, were conversing\nin a low tone, while smoking their husk cigarettes. These two men, of\nwhom we have already spoken to the reader, were Fray Ambrosio, chaplain\nto the Hacienda de la Noria, and Andres Garote, the hunter.\n\nAndres was a tall, thin fellow, with a sickly and cunning face, who\ndraped himself defiantly in his sordid rags, but whose weapons were in a\nperfectly good condition.\n\nWho were the men causing this disturbance? They were \"rangers,\" but this\nrequires explanation.\n\nImmediately after each of the different revolutions which have\nperiodically overturned Mexico since that country so pompously declared\nits independence, the first care of the new president who reaches power\nis to dismiss the volunteers who had accidentally swollen the ranks of his\narmy, and supplied him the means of overthrowing his predecessor. These\nvolunteers, we must do them the justice of allowing, are the very scum\nof society, and the most degraded class human nature produces. These\nsanguinary men, without religion or law, who have no relations or\nfriends, are an utter leprosy to the country.\n\nRoughly driven back into society, the new life they are forced to adopt\nin no way suits their habits of murder and pillage. No longer able to\nwage war on their countrymen, they form free corps, and engage\nthemselves for a certain salary, to hunt the Indios Bravos--that is to\nsay, the Apaches and Comanches--who desolate the Mexican frontiers. In\naddition to this, the paternal government of North America in Texas, and\nof Mexico in the States of the Confederation, allots them a certain sum\nfor each Indian scalp they bring in.\n\nWe do not fancy we are saying anything new in asserting that they are\nthe scourge of the colonists and inhabitants, they plunder shamelessly\nin every way when they are not doing worse.\n\nThe men assembled at this moment on the banks of the Rio San Pedro were\npreparing for a war party--the name they give to the massacres they\norganise against the redskins.\n\nToward midnight Red Cedar and his three sons reached the rangers' camp.\nThey must have been impatiently expected, for the bandits received them\nwith marks of the greatest joy and the warmest enthusiasm. The dice, the\ncards, and botas of mezcal and whiskey were immediately deserted. The\nrangers mounted their horses, and grouped round the squatters, near whom\nstood Fray Ambrosio and his friend Andres Garote.\n\nRed Cedar took a glance round the mob, and could not repress a smile of\npride at the sight of the rich collection of bandits of every\ndescription whom he had around him, and who recognised him as chief. He\nextended his arm to command peace. When all were silent the giant took\nthe word.\n\n\"Senores caballeros,\" he said, in a powerful and marked voice, which\nmade all these scamps quiver with delight at being treated like honest\npeople, \"the audacity of the redskins is growing intolerable. If we let\nthem alone they would soon inundate the country, when they would end by\nexpelling us. This state of things must have an end. The government\ncomplains about the few scalps we supply; it says we do not carry out\nthe clauses of the agreement we have formed with it; it talks about\ndisbanding us, as our services are useless, and therefore burdensome to\nthe republic. It is our bounden duty to give a striking denial to these\nmalevolent assertions, and prove to those who have placed confidence in\nus that we are ever ready to devote ourselves to the cause of humanity\nand civilisation. I have assembled you here for a war party, which I\nhave been meditating for some time, and shall carry out this night. We\nare about to attack the rancheria of the Coras, who for some years past\nhave had the impudence to establish themselves near this spot. They are\npagans and thieves, who have one hundred times merited the severe\nchastisement we are about to inflict on them. But I implore you, senores\ncaballeros, display no mistaken pity. Crush this race of vipers--let not\none escape! The scalp of a child is worth as much as that of a man; so\ndo not let yourselves be moved by cries or tears, but scalp, scalp to\nthe end.\"\n\nThis harangue was greeted as it deserved to be; that is, by yells of\njoy.\n\n\"Senores,\" Red Cedar continued, \"the worthy monk who accompanies me will\ncall down the blessing of Heaven on our enterprise; so kneel down to\nreceive the absolution he is about to give you.\"\n\nThe bandits instantaneously dismounted, took off their hats, and knelt\non the sand. Fray Ambrosio then repeated a long prayer, to which they\nlistened with exemplary patience, repeating _amen_ after each occasion,\nand he ended by giving them absolution. The rangers rose, delighted at\nbeing thus freed from the burden of their sins, and got into their\nsaddles again.\n\nRed Cedar then whispered a few words in Fray Ambrosio's ears, who bowed\nhis head in assent, and immediately set out in the direction of the\nHacienda de la Noria, followed by Andres Garote. The squatter then\nturned to the rangers, who were awaiting his orders.\n\n\"You know where we are going, gentlemen,\" he said. \"Let us start, and,\nbefore all, be silent, if we wish to catch our game in its lair; for you\nknow that the Indians are as cunning as opossums.\"\n\nThe band started at a gallop, Red Cedar and his sons being at their\nhead. It was one of those calm nights which predispose the soul to\nreverie, such as America alone has the privilege of possessing. The dark\nblue sky was spangled with an infinite number of stars, in the centre of\nwhich shone the majestic Southern Cross, sparkling like a king's mantle;\nthe atmosphere was extraordinarily transparent, and allowed objects to\nbe noticed at a great distance; the moon profusely spread around her\nsilvery rays, which gave the scenery a fantastic appearance; a\nmysterious breeze sported through the tops of the great trees; and at\ntimes vague rumours traversed the space, and were lost in the distance.\n\nThe gloomy horsemen still went on, silent and frowning, like the\nphantoms of the ancient legends, which glide through the shadows to\naccomplish a deed without a name. At the end of scarce an hour the\nrancheria was reached. All were resting in the village--not a light\nflashed in the hut. The Indians, wearied with the hard toil of the day,\nwere reposing, full of confidence in the sworn faith, and apprehending\nno treason.\n\nRed Cedar halted twenty yards from the rancheria, and drew up his\nhorsemen so as to surround the village on all sides. When each had taken\nhis post, and the torches were lighted, Red Cedar uttered the terrible\nwar cry of the Apaches, and the rangers galloped at full speed on the\nvillage, uttering ferocious howls, and brandishing the torches, which\nthey threw on the cabins.\n\nA scene of carnage then took place which the human pen is powerless to\ndescribe. The unhappy Indians, surprised in their sleep, rushed\nterrified and half naked out of their poor abodes, and were pitilessly\nmassacred and scalped by the rangers, who waved with a demoniac laugh\ntheir smoking, blood-dripping scalps. Men, women, and children, all were\nkilled with refinements of barbarity. The village, fired by the rangers'\ntorches, soon became an immense funebral pile, in which victims and\nmurderers were huddled pell-mell.\n\nStill a few Indians had succeeded in collecting. Formed in a compact\ntroop of twenty men, they opposed a desperate resistance to their\nassassins, exasperated by the odour of blood and the intoxication of\ncarnage. At the head of this band was a half-nude, tall Indian of\nintelligent features, who, armed with a ploughshare, which he wielded\nwith extreme force and skill, felled all the assailants who came within\nreach of his terrible weapon. This man was the cacique of the Coras. At\nhis feet lay his mother, wife, and two children--dead. The unhappy man\nstruggled with the energy of despair. He knew his life would be\nsacrificed, but he wished to sell it as dearly as possible.\n\nIn vain had the rangers fired on the cacique--he seemed invulnerable:\nnot one of the bullets aimed at him had struck him. He still fought, and\nthe weight of his weapon did not seem to fatigue his arm. The rangers\nexcited each other to finish him; but not one dared to approach him.\n\nBut this combat of giants could not endure longer. Of the twenty\ncompanions he had round him on commencing the struggle, the cacique now\nonly saw two or three upright: the rest were dead. There must be an end.\nThe circle that inclosed the hapless Indian drew closer and closer.\nHenceforth it was only a question of time with him. The rangers,\nrecognising the impossibility of conquering this lion-hearted man, had\nchanged their tactics: they no longer attacked him, but contented\nthemselves with forming an impassable circle round him, waiting\nprudently for the moment when the strength of the prey, which could not\nescape them, was exhausted, in order to rush upon him.\n\nThe Coras understood the intention of his enemies. A contemptuous smile\ncontracted his haughty lips, and he rushed resolutely toward these men\nwho recoiled before him. Suddenly, with a movement quicker than thought,\nhe threw with extraordinary strength the ploughshare among the rangers,\nand bounding like a tiger, leaped on a horse, and clutched its rider\nwith superhuman vigour.\n\nEre the rangers had recovered from the surprise this unforeseen attack\noccasioned in them, by a desperate effort, and still holding the\nhorseman, the chieftain drew from his girdle a short sharp knife, which\nhe buried up to the hilt in the flanks of the horse. The animal uttered\na shriek of pain, rushed headlong into the crowd, and bore both away\nwith maddening speed.\n\nThe rangers, rendered furious at being played with by a single man, and\nseeing their most terrible enemy escape them, started in pursuit; but\nwith his liberty the Coras had regained all his energy: he felt himself\nsaved. In spite of the desperate efforts the rangers made to catch him\nup, he disappeared in the darkness.\n\nThe cacique continued to fly till he felt his horse tottering under him.\nHe had not loosed his hold of the horseman, who was half strangled by\nthe rude embrace, and both rolled on the ground. This man wore the\ncostume of the Apache Indians. The Coras regarded him for an instant\nattentively, and then a smile of contempt played round his lips.\n\n\"You are not a redskin,\" he said, in a hollow voice; \"you are only a\npaleface dog. Why put on the skin of the lion when you are a cowardly\ncoyote?\"\n\nThe ranger, still stunned by the fall he had suffered, and the hug he\nhad endured, made no reply.\n\n\"I could kill you,\" the Indian continued; \"but my vengeance would not be\ncomplete. You and yours must pay me for all the innocent blood you have\nshed like cowards this night. I will mark you, so that I may know you\nagain.\"\n\nThen, with fearful coolness, the Coras threw the ranger on his back, put\nhis knee on his chest, and burying his finger in the socket of his eye,\ngave it a sharp rotatory movement, and plucked out his eyeball. On this\nfrightful mutilation, the wretch uttered a cry of pain impossible to\ndescribe. The Indian got up.\n\n\"Go!\" he said to him. \"Now I am certain of finding you again whenever I\nwant you.\"\n\nAt this moment the sound of hoofs could be heard a short distance off:\nthe rangers had evidently heard their comrade's cry, and were hurrying\nto his aid. The Coras, rushed into the bushes and disappeared. A few\nmoments later the rangers came up.\n\n\"Nathan, my son!\" Red Cedar shouted as he leaped from his horse and\nthrew himself on the body of the wounded man. \"Nathan, my firstborn, is\ndead!\"\n\n\"No,\" one of the rangers answered; \"but he is very bad.\"\n\nIt was really the squatter's eldest son whom the cacique had mutilated.\nRed Cedar seized him in his arms, placed him before him on the saddle,\nand the band started again at a gallop. The rangers had accomplished\ntheir task: they had sixty human scalps hanging from their girdles. The\nrancheria of the Coras was no longer aught save a pile of ashes.\n\nOf all the inhabitants of this hapless village only the cacique\nsurvived; but he would suffice to avenge his brothers.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nTHE VALLEY OF THE BUFFALO.\n\n\nDon Miguel Zarate, on leaving his son, remounted his horse and rode\nstraight to Paso, to the house of Don Luciano Perez, the _juez de\nletras_ (police magistrate).\n\nThe hacendero was one of the richest landed proprietors in the country;\nand as he was thoroughly acquainted with the spirit of the depositaries\nof justice in those parts, he had consequently been careful to line his\npurse well. Here were two reasons, then, to interest the judge in his\nfavour, and this really happened.\n\nThe worthy Don Luciano shuddered on hearing the details of what had\noccurred between Don Pablo and the squatters. He swore that he would,\nwithout delay, take an exemplary vengeance for this starting felony on\nthe part of the heretic dogs, and that it was high time to bring them\nreason. Confirming himself more and more in his resolution, he buckled\non his sword, gave orders to twenty well-armed alguaciles to mount, and\nplacing himself at the head of this numerous escort, he proceeded toward\nBuffalo Valley.\n\nDon Miguel had witnessed with secret annoyance all these formidable\npreparations. He placed but slight confidence in the courage of the\npolicemen, and he would have preferred the judge leaving him master to\nact as he pleased. He had even adroitly attempted to obtain from Don\nLuciano a regular warrant, which he would have executed however he might\nthink proper; but the judge, burning with an unusual warlike ardor, and\nspurred on by the large sum he had received, would listen to nothing,\nbut insisted on himself taking the head of the expedition.\n\nDon Luciano Perez was a plump little man of about sixty years of age,\nround as a tub, with a jolly face, adorned with a rubicund nose and two\ncunning little eyes. This man cordially detested the North Americans;\nand, in the courageous deed he was committing at this moment, hatred was\nas much the instigation as avarice.\n\nThe little band set out at a canter, and proceeded rapidly toward the\nforest. The judge hurled fire and flames at the audacious usurpers, as\nhe called them; he spoke of nothing less than killing them without\nmercy, if they attempted even the slightest resistance to the orders he\nwas about to give them. Don Miguel, who was much calmer, and foreboded\nno good from this great wrath, sought in vain to pacify him by telling\nhim that he would in all probability have to do with men difficult to\nintimidate, against whom coolness would be the best weapon.\n\nThey gradually approached. The hacendero, in order to shorten the\njourney, had led the band by a cross road, which saved at least\none-third the distance; and the first trees of the forest already\nappeared about two miles off. The mischief produced by the squatters was\nmuch more considerable than Don Pablo had represented to his father;\nand, at the first glance, it seemed impossible that, in so short a time,\nfour men, even though working vigorously, could have accomplished it.\nThe finest trees lay on the ground; enormous piles of planks were\narranged at regular distances, and on the San Pedro an already completed\nraft only awaited a few more stems of trees to be thrust into the water.\n\nDon Miguel could not refrain from sighing at the sight of the\ndevastation committed in one of his best forests; but the nearer they\napproached the spot where they expected to meet the squatters, the more\nlukewarm grew the warlike zeal of the judge and his acolytes, and the\nhacendero soon found himself compelled to urge them on, instead of\nrestraining them as he had hitherto done. Suddenly the sound of an axe\nre-echoed a few paces ahead of the band. The judge impelled by the\nfeeling of his duty, and shame of appearing frightened, advanced boldly\nin the direction of the sound, followed by his escort.\n\n\"Stop!\" a rough voice shouted at the moment the policemen turned the\ncorner of a lane.\n\nWith that instinct of self-preservation which never abandons them, the\nalguaciles stopped as if their horses' feet had been suddenly welded to\nthe ground. Ten paces from them stood a man in the centre of the ride,\nleaning on an American rifle. The judge turned to Don Miguel with such\nan expression of hesitation and honest terror that the hacendero could\nnot refrain from laughing.\n\n\"Come, courage, Don Luciano,\" he said to him. \"This man is alone; he\ncannot venture to bar our passage.\"\n\n\"_Con mil diablos!_\" the judge exclaimed, ashamed of this impression\nwhich he could not master, and frowning portentously, \"forward, you\nfellows, and fire on that scoundrel if he make but a sign to resist\nyou.\"\n\nThe alguaciles set out again with prudential hesitation.\n\n\"Stop! I tell you again,\" the squatter repeated. \"Did you not hear the\norder I gave you!\"\n\nThe judge, reassured by the presence of the hacendero, then advanced,\nand said with a tone which he strove to render terrible, but which was\nonly ridiculous through the terror he revealed,--\n\n\"I, Don Luciano Perez, _juez de letras_ of the town of Paso, have come,\nby virtue of the powers delegated to me by the Government, to summon you\nand your adherents to quit within twenty-four hours this forest you have\nillegally entered, and which--\"\n\n\"Ta, ta!\" the stranger shouted, rudely interrupting the judge, and\nstamping his foot savagely. \"I care as much for all your words and laws\nas I do for an old moccasin. The ground belongs to the first comers. We\nare comfortable here, and mean to remain.\"\n\n\"Your language is very bold, young man,\" Don Miguel then said. \"You do\nnot consider that you are alone, and that, failing other rights, we have\nstrength on our side.\"\n\nThe squatter burst into a laugh.\n\n\"You believe that,\" he said. \"Learn, stranger, that I care as little for\nthe ten humbugs I now have before me as I do for a woodcock, and that\nthey will do well to leave me at peace, unless they want to learn the\nweight of my arm at their expense. However, here is my father; settle it\nwith him.\"\n\nAnd he began carelessly whistling \"Yankee Doodle.\" At the same instant\nthree men, at the head of whom was Red Cedar, appeared on the path. At\nthe sight of these unexpected reinforcements for their arrogant enemy\nthe alguaciles made a movement in retreat. The affair was becoming\nsingularly complicated, and threatened to assume proportions very grave\nfor them.\n\n\"Halloh! What's up?\" the old man asked roughly. \"Anything wrong,\nSutter?\"\n\n\"These people,\" the young man answered, shrugging his shoulders\ncontemptuously, \"are talking about driving us from the forest by virtue\nof some order.\"\n\n\"Halloh!\" Red Cedar said, his eyes flashing as he cast a savage glance\nat the Mexicans. \"The only law I recognise in the desert,\" he continued\nwith a gesture of terrible energy as he struck his rifle barrel, \"is\nthis. Withdraw, strangers, if you do not wish blood to be shed between\nus. I am a peaceful man, wishing to do no one hurt; but I warn you that\nI will not allow myself to be kicked out without striking a blow.\"\n\n\"You will not be turned out,\" the judge remarked timidly; \"on the\ncontrary, you have seized on what belongs to other people.\"\n\n\"I won't listen to your arguments, which I do not understand,\" the\nsquatter roughly exclaimed. \"God gave the ground to man that he might\nlabour on it. Every proprietor that does not fulfil this condition\ntacitly renounces his rights, and the earth then becomes the property of\nthe man who tills it with the sweat of his brow; so go to the devil! Be\noff at full speed, if you do not wish harm to happen to you!\"\n\n\"We will not suffer ourselves to be intimidated by your threats,\" the\njudge said, impelled by his anger, and forgetting for a moment his\nalarm; \"we will do our duty, whatever may happen.\"\n\n\"Try it,\" Red Cedar said with a grin.\n\nAnd he made a sign to his sons. The latter arranged themselves in a\nsingle line, and occupied the entire width of the path.\n\n\"In the name of the law,\" the judge said with energy, as he pointed out\nthe old man, \"alguaciles, seize that person.\"\n\nBut, as so frequently happens under similar circumstances, this order\nwas more easy to give than to execute. Red Cedar and his sons did not\nappear at all disposed to let themselves be collared. We must, however,\ndo the alguaciles the justice of stating that they did not hesitate for\na moment. They plainly refused to carry out the order they had received.\n\n\"For the last time, will you be off?\" the squatter shouted. \"Let them\nhave it.\"\n\nHis three sons raised their rifles. At this movement, which removed all\ndoubts that might still remain on their minds, and which proved to them\nthat the squatters would not hesitate to proceed to extremities, the\nalguaciles were seized with an invincible terror. They turned bridle and\ngalloped off at full speed, followed by the yells of the Americans.\n\nOne man alone remained motionless before the squatters--Don Miguel\nZarate. Red Cedar had not recognised him, either owing to the distance\nthat separated them, or because the hacendero had purposely pulled over\nhis eyes his broad-brimmed hat. Don Miguel dismounted, placed the\npistols from his holsters through his belt, fastened his horse to a\ntree, and coolly throwing his rifle across his shoulders, boldly\nadvanced toward the squatters. The latter, surprised by the courage of\nthis man, who alone attempted what his comrades had given up all hopes\nof achieving, let him come up to them without offering the slightest\nopposition. When Don Miguel was a couple of paces from the old squatter;\nhe stopped, put the butt of his rifle on the ground, and removing his\nhat, said,--\n\n\"Do you recognise me, Red Cedar?\"\n\n\"Don Miguel Zarate!\" the bandit shouted in surprise.\n\n\"As the judge deserts me,\" the hacendero continued, \"and fled like a\ncoward before your threats, I am obliged to take justice for myself,\nand, by heavens! I will do so! Red Cedar, I, as owner of this forest, in\nwhich you have settled without permission, order you to depart at once.\"\n\nThe young men exchanged a few muttered threats.\n\n\"Silence!\" Red Cedar commanded. \"Let the caballero speak.\"\n\n\"I have finished, and await your answer.\"\n\nThe squatter appeared to reflect deeply for a few minutes.\n\n\"The answer you demand is difficult to give,\" he at length said: \"my\nposition toward you is not a free one.\"\n\n\"Why so?\"\n\n\"Because I owe you my life.\"\n\n\"I dispense you from all gratitude.\"\n\n\"That is possible. You are at liberty to do so; but I cannot forget the\nservice you rendered me.\"\n\n\"It is of little consequence.\"\n\n\"Much more than you fancy, caballero. I may be, through my character,\nhabits, and the mode of life I lead, beyond the law of civilised beings;\nbut I am not the less a man, and if of the worst sort, perhaps, I no\nmore forget a kindness than I do an insult.\"\n\n\"Prove it, then, by going away as quickly as you can, and then we shall\nbe quits.\"\n\nThe squatter shook his head.\n\n\"Listen to me, Don Miguel,\" he said. \"You have in this country the\nreputation of being the providence of the unfortunate. I know from\nmyself the extent of your kindness and courage. It is said that you\npossess an immense fortune, of which you do not yourself know the\nextent.\"\n\n\"Well, what then?\" the hacendero impatiently interrupted him.\n\n\"The damage I can commit here, even if I cut down all the trees in the\nforest, would be but a trifle to you; then whence comes the fury you\ndisplay to drive me out?\"\n\n\"Your question is just, and I will answer it. I demand your departure\nfrom my estates, because, only a few days back, my son was grievously\nwounded by your lads, who led him into a cowardly snare; and if he\nescaped death, it was only through a miracle. That is the reason why we\ncannot live side by side, for blood severs us.\"\n\nRed Cedar frowned.\n\n\"Is this true?\" he said, addressing his sons.\n\nThe young men only hung their heads in reply.\n\n\"I am waiting,\" Don Miguel went on.\n\n\"Come, the question cannot be settled thus, so we will proceed to my\njacal.\"\n\n\"For what purpose? I ask you for a yes or no.\"\n\n\"I cannot answer you yet. We must have a conversation together, after\nwhich you shall decide to my future conduct. Follow me, then, without\nfear.\"\n\n\"I fear nothing, as I believe I have proved to you. Go on, as you demand\nit: I will follow you.\"\n\nRed Cedar made his sons a sign to remains here they were, and proceeded\nwith long strides toward his jacal, which was but a short distance off.\nDon Miguel walked carelessly after him. They entered the cabin. It was\ndeserted. The two females were doubtless also occupied in the forest.\nRed Cedar closed the door after him, sat down on a bench, made his guest\na sign to do the same, and began speaking in a low and measured voice,\nas if afraid what he had to say might be heard outside.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nTHE ASSASSINATION.\n\n\n\"Listen to me, Don Miguel,\" Red Cedar said, \"and pray do not mistake my\nmeaning. I have not the slightest intention of intimidating you, nor do\nI think of attempting to gain your confidence by revelations which you\nmay fairly assume I have accidentally acquired.\"\n\nThe hacendero regarded with amazement the speaker, whose tone and\nmanner had so suddenly changed.\n\n\"I do not understand you,\" he said to him. \"Explain yourself more\nclearly, for the words you have just uttered are an enigma, the key to\nwhich I seek in vain.\"\n\n\"You shall be satisfied, caballero; and if you do not catch the meaning\nof my words this time it must be because you will not. Like all\nintelligent men, you are wearied of the incessant struggles in which the\nvital strength of your country is exhausted unprofitably. You have seen\nthat a land so rich, so fertile, so gloriously endowed as Mexico, could\nnot--I should say ought not--to remain longer the plaything of paltry\nambitions, and the arena on which all these transitory tyrannies sport\nin turn. For nearly thirty years you have dreamed of emancipation, not\nof your entire country, for that would be too rude a task, and\nunrealisable; but you said to yourself, 'Let us render New Mexico\nindependent; form it into a new State, governed by wise laws rigorously\nexecuted. By liberal institutions let us give an impetus to all the\nriches with which it is choked, give intellect all the liberty it\nrequires, and perhaps within a few years the entire Mexican\nConfederation, amazed by the magnificent results I shall obtain, will\nfollow my example. Then I shall die happy at what I have effected--my\nobject will be carried out. I shall have saved my country from the abyss\nover which it hangs, through the double pressure of the invasion of the\nAmerican Union and the exhaustion of the Spanish race.' Are not those\nideas yours, caballero? Do you consider that I have explained myself\nclearly this time?\"\n\n\"Perhaps so, though I do not yet see distinctly the point you wish to\nreach. The thoughts you attribute to me are such as naturally occur to\nall men who sincerely love their country, and I will not pretend that I\nhave not entertained them.\"\n\n\"You would be wrong in doing so, for they are great and noble, and\nbreathe the purest patriotism.\"\n\n\"A truce to compliments, and let us come to the point, for time\npresses.\"\n\n\"Patience: I have not yet ended. These ideas must occur to you sooner\nthan to another, as you are the descendant of the first Aztec kings, and\nborn defender of the Indians in this hapless country. You see that I am\nwell acquainted with you, Don Miguel Zarate.\"\n\n\"Too well, perhaps,\" the Mexican gentleman muttered.\n\nThe squatter smiled and went on:--\n\n\"It is not chance that led me to this country. I knew what I was doing,\nand why I came. Don Miguel, the hour is a solemn one. All your\npreparations are made: will you hesitate to give New Mexico the signal\nwhich must render it independent of the metropolis which has so long\nbeen fattening at its expense? Answer me.\"\n\nDon Miguel started. He fixed on the squatter a burning glance, in which\nadmiration at the man's language could be read. Red Cedar shrugged his\nshoulders.\n\n\"What! You still doubt?\" he said.\n\nHe rose, went to a box from which he took some papers, and threw them on\nthe table before the hacendero, saying,--\n\n\"Read.\"\n\nDon Miguel hurriedly seized the papers, and ran his eye over them.\n\n\"Well?\" he asked, looking fixedly at the strange speaker.\n\n\"You see,\" the squatter answered, \"that I am your accomplice. General\nIbanez, your agent in Mexico, is in correspondence with me, as is Mr.\nWood, your agent at New York.\"\n\n\"It is true,\" the Mexican said coldly, \"you have the secret of the\nconspiracy. The only point left is to what extent that goes.\"\n\n\"I possess it entirely. I have orders to enlist the volunteers who will\nform the nucleus of the insurrectionary army.\"\n\n\"Good!\"\n\n\"Now, you see, by these letters of General Ibanez and Mr. Wood, that I\nam commissioned by them to come to an understanding with you, and\nreceive your final orders.\"\n\n\"I see it.\"\n\n\"What do you purpose doing?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\n\"What, nothing!\" the squatter exclaimed, bounding with surprise. \"You\nare jesting, I suppose.\"\n\n\"Listen to me in your turn, and pay attention to my words, for they\nexpress my irrevocable resolution. I know not nor care to know, by what\nmeans, more or less honourable, you have succeeded in gaining the\nconfidence of my partners, and becoming master of our secrets. Still it\nis my firm conviction that a cause which employs such men as yourself is\ncompromised, if not lost; hence I renounce every combination in which\nyou are called to play a part. Your antecedents, and the life you lead,\nhave placed you without the pale of the law.\"\n\n\"I am a bandit--out with it! What matter so long as you succeed? Does\nnot the end justify the means?\"\n\n\"That may be your morality, but it will never be mine. I repudiate all\ncommunity of ideas with men of your stamp. I will not have you either as\naccomplice or partner.\"\n\nThe squatter darted a look at him laden with hatred and disappointment.\n\n\"In serving us,\" Don Miguel continued, \"you can only have an interested\nobject, which I will not take the trouble of guessing at. An\nAnglo-American will never frankly aid a Mexican to conquer his liberty;\nhe would lose too much by doing it.\"\n\n\"Then?\"\n\n\"I renounce forever the projects I had formed. I had, I grant, dreamed\nof restoring to my country the independence of which it was unjustly\nstripped: but it shall remain a dream.\"\n\n\"That is your last word?\"\n\n\"The last.\"\n\n\"You refuse?\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"Good; then I now know what is left me to do.\"\n\n\"Well, what is it? Let me hear,\" the hacendero said, as he crossed his\narms on his breast, and looked him boldly in the face.\n\n\"I will tell you.\"\n\n\"I am waiting for you to do so.\"\n\n\"I hold your secret.\"\n\n\"Entirely?\"\n\n\"Hence you are in my power.\"\n\n\"Perhaps.\"\n\n\"Who will prevent me going to the Governor of the State and denouncing\nyou?\"\n\n\"He will not believe you.\"\n\n\"You think so?\"\n\n\"I am sure of it.\"\n\n\"Perhaps, I will say in my turn.\"\n\n\"Why so?\"\n\n\"Oh! you shall easily see.\"\n\n\"I am curious to learn it.\"\n\n\"However rich you may be, Don Miguel Zarate, and perhaps because of\nthose very riches, and in spite of the kindness you sow broadcast, the\nnumber of your enemies is very considerable.\"\n\n\"I know it.\"\n\n\"Very good. Those enemies will joyfully seize the first opportunity that\npresents itself to destroy you.\"\n\n\"It is probable.\"\n\n\"You see, then. When I go to the governor and tell him you are\nconspiring, and, in support of my denunciation, hand him not only these\nletters, but, several others written and signed by you, lying in that\nchest, do you believe that the governor will treat me as an impostor,\nand refuse to arrest you?\"\n\n\"Then you have letters in my hand-writing?\"\n\n\"I have three, which will be enough to have you shot.\"\n\n\"Ah!\"\n\n\"Yes. Hang it all! you understand: that, in an affair so important as\nthis, it is wise to take one's precautions, for no one knows what may\nhappen; and men of my stamp,\" he added, with an ironical smile, \"have\nmore reasons than others for being prudent.\"\n\n\"Come, that is well played,\" the hacendero said, carelessly.\n\n\"Is it not?\"\n\n\"Yes, and I compliment you on it: you are a better player than I gave\nyou credit for.\"\n\n\"Oh! You do not know me yet.\"\n\n\"The little I do know suffices me.\"\n\n\"Then?\"\n\n\"We will remain as we are, if you will permit me.\"\n\n\"You still refuse?\"\n\n\"More than ever.\"\n\nThe squatter frowned.\n\n\"Take care, Don Miguel,\" he muttered, hoarsely. \"I will do what I told\nyou.\"\n\n\"Yes, if I allow you time.\"\n\n\"Eh?\"\n\n\"_Caspita!_ If you are a clever scamp, I am not altogether a fool. Do\nyou believe, in your turn, that I will let myself be intimidated by your\nthreats, and that I should not find means to keep you from acting, not\nfor my own sake, as I care little personally for what you can do, but\nfor my friends, who are men of honour, and whose lives I do not wish to\nbe compromised by your treachery?\"\n\n\"I am curious to know the means you will employ to obtain this result.\"\n\n\"You shall see,\" Don Miguel replied with perfect coolness.\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"I shall kill you.\"\n\n\"Oh, oh!\" the squatter said, as he looked complacently at his muscular\nlimbs, \"That is not easy.\"\n\n\"More so than you suppose, my master.\"\n\n\"Hum! and when do you reckon on killing me?\"\n\n\"At once!\"\n\nThe two men were seated in front of the hearth, each at the end of a\nbench: the table was between them, but a little back, so that while\ntalking they only leaned an elbow on it. While uttering the last word,\nDon Miguel bounded like a tiger on the squatter, who did not at all\nexpect the attack, seized him by the throat, and hurled him to the\nground. The two enemies rolled on the uneven flooring of the jacal.\n\nThe Mexican's attack had been so sudden and well directed that the\nhalf-strangled squatter, in spite of his Herculean strength, could not\nfree himself from his enemy's iron clutch, which pressed his throat like\na vice. Red Cedar could neither utter a cry nor offer the slightest\nresistance: the Mexican's knee crushed his chest, while his fingers\npressed into his throat.\n\nSo soon as he had reduced the wretch to utter impotence, Don Miguel drew\nfrom his vaquera boot a long sharp knife, and buried the entire blade in\nhis body. The bandit writhed convulsively for a few seconds; a livid\npallor suffused his face; his eyes closed, and he then remained\nmotionless. Don Miguel left the weapon in the wound, and slowly rose.\n\n\"Ah, ah!\" he muttered as he gazed at him with a sardonic air, \"I fancy\nthat rogue will not denounce me now.\"\n\nWithout loss of time he seized the letters lying on the table, took from\nthe box the few documents he found in it, hid them all in his bosom,\nopened the door of the cabin, which he carefully closed after him, and\nwent off with long strides.\n\nThe squatter's sons had not quitted their post; but, so soon as they\nperceived the Mexican, they went up to him.\n\n\"Well,\" Shaw asked him, \"have you come to an understanding with the old\nman?\"\n\n\"Perfectly so,\" the Mexican answered.\n\n\"Then the affair is settled?\"\n\n\"Yes, to our mutual satisfaction.\"\n\n\"All the better,\" the young men exclaimed joyously.\n\nThe hacendero unfastened his horse and mounted.\n\n\"Good-bye, gentlemen!\" he said to them.\n\n\"Good-bye!\" they replied, returning his bow.\n\nThe Mexican put his horse to a trot, but at the first turn in the road\nhe dug his spurs into its flanks, and started at full speed.\n\n\"Now,\" Sutter observed, \"I believe that we can proceed to the cabin\nwithout inconvenience.\"\n\nAnd they gently walked toward the jacal, pleasantly conversing together.\n\nDon Miguel, however, had not succeeded so fully as he imagined. Red\nCedar was not dead, for the old bandit kept a firm hold on life.\nAttacked unawares, the squatter had not attempted a resistance, which he\nsaw at the first glance was useless, and would only have exasperated his\nadversary. With marvellous sagacity, on feeling the knife blade enter\nhis body, he stiffened himself against the pain, and resolved on\n\"playing 'possum;\" that is to say, feigning death. The success of his\nstratagem was complete. Don Miguel, persuaded that he had killed him,\ndid not dream of repeating his thrust.\n\nSo long as his enemy remained in the jacal the squatter was careful not\nto make the slightest movement that might have betrayed him; but, so\nsoon as he was alone, he opened his eyes, rose with an effort, drew the\ndagger from the wound, which emitted a jet of black blood, and looking\nat the door, through which his assassin had departed, with a glance so\nfull of hatred that it is impossible to describe, he muttered,--\n\n\"Now we are quits, Don Miguel Zarate, since you have tried to take back\nthe life of him you saved. Pray God never to bring us face to face\nagain!\"\n\nHe uttered a deep sigh, and rolled heavily on the ground in a fainting\nfit. At this moment his sons entered the cabin.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nTHE SACHEM OF THE CORAS.\n\n\nA few days after the events we have described in the previous chapter\nthere was one of those lovely mornings which are not accorded to our\ncold climates to know. The sun poured down in profusion its warm beams,\nwhich caused the pebbles and sand to glisten in the walks of the garden\nof the Hacienda de la Noria. In a clump of flowering orange and lemon\ntrees, whose sweet exhalations perfumed the air, and beneath a copse of\ncactus, nopals, and aloes, a maiden was asleep, carelessly reclining in\na hammock made of the thread of the _Phormium tenax,_ which hung between\ntwo orange trees.\n\nWith her head thrown back, her long black hair unfastened, and falling\nin disorder on her neck and bosom; with her coral lips parted, and\ndisplaying the dazzling pearl of her teeth, Dona Clara (for it was she\nwho slept thus with an infantile slumber) was really charming. Her\nfeatures breathed happiness, for not a cloud had yet arisen to perturb\nthe azure horizon of her calm and tranquil life.\n\nIt was nearly midday: there was not a breath in the air. The sunbeams,\npouring down vertically, rendered the heat so stifling and\nunsupportable, that everyone in the hacienda had yielded to sleep, and\nwas enjoying what is generally called in hot countries the _siesta._\nStill, at a short distance from the spot where Dona Clara reposed, calm\nand smiling, a sound of footsteps, at first almost imperceptible, but\ngradually heightening, was heard, and a man made his appearance. It was\nShaw, the youngest of the squatter's sons. How was he at this spot?\n\nThe young man was panting, and the perspiration poured down his cheeks.\nOn reaching the entrance of the clump he bent an anxious glance on the\nhammock.\n\n\"She is there,\" he murmured with a passionate accent. \"She sleeps.\"\n\nThen he fell on his knees upon the sand, and began admiring the maiden,\ndumb and trembling. He remained thus a long time, with his glance fixed\non the slumberer with a strange expression. At length he uttered a sigh\nand tearing himself with an effort from this delicious contemplation, he\nrose sadly, muttering in a whisper,--\n\n\"I must go--if she were to wake--oh, she will never know how much I love\nher!\"\n\nHe plucked an orange flower, and softly laid it on the maiden; then he\nwalked a few steps from her, but almost immediately returning, he\nseized, with a nervous hand, Dona Clara's _rebozo,_ which hung down from\nthe hammock, and pressed it to his lips several times, saying, in a\nvoice broken by the emotion he felt,--\n\n\"It has touched her hair.\"\n\nAnd rushing from the thicket, he crossed the garden and disappeared. He\nhad heard footsteps approaching. In fact, a few seconds after his\ndeparture, Don Miguel, in his turn, entered the copse.\n\n\"Come, come,\" he said gaily, as he shook the hammock, \"sleeper, will you\nnot have finished your siesta soon?\"\n\nDona Clara opened her eyes, with a smile.\n\n\"I am no longer asleep, father,\" she said.\n\n\"Very good. That is the answer I like.\"\n\nAnd he stepped forward to kiss her; but, with sudden movement, the\nmaiden drew herself back as if she had seen some frightful vision, and\nher face was covered with a livid pallor.\n\n\"What is the matter with you?\" the hacendero exclaimed with terror.\n\nThe girl showed him the orange flower.\n\n\"Well,\" her father continued, \"what is there so terrific in that flower?\nIt must have fallen from the tree during your sleep.\"\n\nDona Clara shook her head sadly.\n\n\"No,\" she said: \"for some days past I have always noticed, on waking a\nsimilar flower thrown on me.\"\n\n\"You are absurd; chance alone is to blame for it all. Come, think no\nmore about it; you are pale as death, child. Why frighten yourself thus\nabout a trifle? Besides the remedy may be easily found. If so afraid of\nflowers now, why not take your siesta in your bedroom, instead of\nburying yourself in this thicket?\"\n\n\"That is true, father,\" the girl said, all joyous, and no longer\nthinking of the fear she had undergone. \"I will follow your advice.\"\n\n\"Come, that is settled, so say no more about it. Now give me a kiss.\"\n\nThe maiden threw herself into her father's arms, whom she stifled with\nkisses. Both sat down on a grassy mound, and commenced one of those\ndelicious chit-chats whose charm only those who are parents can properly\nappreciate. Presently a peon came up.\n\n\"What has brought you?\" Don Miguel asked.\n\n\"Excellency,\" the peon answered, \"a redskin warrior has just arrived at\nthe hacienda, who desires speech with you.\"\n\n\"Do you know him?\" Don Miguel asked.\n\n\"Yes, Excellency; it is Eagle-wing, the sachem of the Coras of the Rio\nSan Pedro.\"\n\n\"Mookapec! (Flying Eagle)\" the hacendero repeated with surprise. \"What\ncan have brought him to me? Lead him here.\"\n\nThe peon retired and in a few minutes returned, preceding Eagle-wing.\n\nThe chief had donned the great war-dress of the sachems of his nation.\nHis hair, plaited with the skin of a rattlesnake, was drawn up on the\ntop of his head; in the centre an eagle plume was affixed. A blouse of\nstriped calico, adorned with a profusion of bells, descended to his\nthighs, which were defended from the stings of mosquitoes by drawers of\nthe same stuff. He wore moccasins made of peccary skin, adorned with\nglass beads and porcupine quills. To his heels were fastened several\nwolves' tails, the distinguishing mark of renowned warriors. Round his\nloins was a belt of elk hide, through which passed his knife, his pipe\nand his medicine bag. His neck was adorned by a collar of grizzly bear\nclaws and buffalo teeth. Finally, a magnificent robe of a white female\nbuffalo hide, painted red inside, was fastened to his shoulders, and\nfell down behind him like a cloak. In his right hand he held a fan\nformed of a single eagle's wing, and in his left hand an American rifle.\nThere was something imposing and singularly martial in the appearance\nand demeanor of this savage child of the forest.\n\nOn entering the thicket, he bowed gracefully to Dona Clara, and then\nstood motionless and dumb before Don Miguel. The Mexican regarded him\nattentively, and saw an expression of gloomy melancholy spread over the\nIndian chief's features.\n\n\"My brother is welcome,\" the hacendero said to him. \"To what do I owe\nthe pleasure of seeing him?\"\n\nThe chief cast a side glance at the maiden. Don Miguel understood what\nhe desired, and made Dona Clara a sign to withdraw. They remained alone.\n\n\"My brother can speak,\" the hacendero then said; \"the ears of a friend\nare open.\"\n\n\"Yes, my father is good,\" the chief replied in his guttural voice. \"He\nloves the Indians: unhappily all the palefaces do not resemble him.\"\n\n\"What does my brother mean? Has he cause to complain of anyone?\"\n\nThe Indian smiled sadly.\n\n\"Where is there justice for the redskins?\" he said. \"The Indians are\nanimals: the Great Spirit has not given them a soul, as He has done for\nthe palefaces, and it is not a crime to kill them.\"\n\n\"Come, chief, pray do not speak longer in riddles, but explain why you\nhave quitted your tribe. It is far from Rio San Pedro to this place.\"\n\n\"Mookapec is alone: his tribe no longer exists.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"The palefaces came in the night, like jaguars without courage. They\nburned the village, and massacred all the inhabitants, even to the women\nand little children.\"\n\n\"Oh, that is frightful!\" the hacendero murmured, in horror.\n\n\"Ah!\" the chief continued with an accent full of terrible irony, \"The\nscalps of the redskins are sold dearly.\"\n\n\"And do you know the men who committed this atrocious crime?\"\n\n\"Mookapec knows them, and will avenge himself.\"\n\n\"Tell me their chief, if you know his name.\"\n\n\"I know it. The palefaces call him Red Cedar, the Indians the Maneater.\"\n\n\"Oh! As for him, chief, you are avenged, for he is dead.\"\n\n\"My father is mistaken.\"\n\n\"How so? Why, I killed him myself.\"\n\nThe Indian shook his head.\n\n\"Red Cedar has a hard life,\" he said: \"the blade of the knife my father\nused was too short. Red Cedar is wounded, but in a few days he will be\nabout again, ready to kill and scalp the Indians.\"\n\nThis news startled the hacendero: the enemy he fancied he had got rid\nof still lived, and he would have to begin a fresh struggle.\n\n\"My father must take care,\" the chief continued. \"Red Cedar has sworn to\nbe avenged.\"\n\n\"Oh! I will not leave him the time. This man is a demon, of whom the\nearth must be purged at all hazards, before his strength has returned,\nand he begins his assassinations again.\"\n\n\"I will aid my father in his vengeance.\"\n\n\"Thanks, chief. I do not refuse your offer: perhaps I shall soon need\nthe help of all my friends. And now, what do you purpose doing?\"\n\n\"Since the palefaces reject him, Eagle-wing will retire to the desert.\nHe has friends among the Comanches. They are redskins, and will welcome\nhim gladly.\"\n\n\"I will not strive to combat your determination, chief, for it is just;\nand if, at a later date, you take terrible reprisals on the white men,\nthey will have no cause of complaint, for they have brought it on\nthemselves. When does my brother start?\"\n\n\"At sunset.\"\n\n\"Rest here today: tomorrow will be soon enough to set out.\"\n\n\"Mookapec must depart this day.\"\n\n\"Act as you think proper. Have you a horse?\"\n\n\"No; but at the first manada I come to I will lasso one.\"\n\n\"I do not wish you to set out thus, but will give you a horse.\"\n\n\"Thanks; my father is good. The Indian chief will remember--\"\n\n\"Come, you shall choose for yourself.\"\n\n\"I have still a few words to say to my father.\"\n\n\"Speak, chief; I am listening to you.\"\n\n\"Koutonepi, the pale hunter, begged me to give my father an important\nwarning.\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"A great danger threatens my father. Koutonepi wishes to see him as soon\nas possible, in order himself to tell him its nature.\"\n\n\"Good! My brother will tell the hunter that I shall be tomorrow at the\n'clearing of the shattered oak,' and await him there till night.\"\n\n\"I will faithfully repeat my father's words to the hunter.\"\n\nThe two men then quitted the garden, and hurriedly proceeded toward the\nhacienda. Don Miguel let the chief choose his own horse, and while the\nsachem was harnessing his steed in the Indian fashion, he withdrew to\nhis bedroom, and sent for his son to join him. The young man had\nperfectly recovered from his wound. His father told him that he was\nobliged to absent himself for some days: he intrusted to him the\nmanagement of the hacienda, while recommending him on no consideration\nto leave the farm, and to watch attentively over his sister. The young\nman promised him all he wished, happy at enjoying perfect liberty for a\nfew days.\n\nAfter embracing his son and daughter for the last time Don Miguel\nproceeded to the _patio_, where in the meanwhile, the chief had been\namusing himself by making the magnificent horse he had chosen curvet.\nDon Miguel admired for several moments the Indian's skill and grace, for\nhe managed a horse as well as the first Mexican _jinete;_ then mounted,\nand the two men proceeded together toward the Paso del Norte, which they\nmust cross in order to enter the desert, and reach the clearing of the\nshattered oak.\n\nThe journey passed in silence, for the two men were deeply reflecting.\nAt the moment they entered Paso the sun was setting on the horizon in a\nbed of red mist, which foreboded a storm for the night. At the entrance\nof the village they separated; and on the morrow, as we have seen in our\nfirst chapter, Don Miguel set out at daybreak, and galloped to the\nclearing.\n\nWe will now end this lengthy parenthesis, which was, however,\nindispensable for the due comprehension of the facts that are about to\nfollow, and take up our story again at the point where we left it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nCONVERSATION.\n\n\nValentine Guillois, whom we have already introduced to the reader in\nprevious works[1], had inhabited, or, to speak more correctly, traversed\nthe vast solitudes of Mexico and Texas during the past five or six\nyears. We saw him just now accompanied by the Araucano chief. These two\nmen were the boldest hunters on the frontier. At times, when they had\ncollected an ample harvest of furs, they went to sell them in the\nvillages, renewed their stock of powder and ball, purchased a few\nindispensable articles, and then returned to the desert.\n\nNow and then they engaged themselves for a week, or even a fortnight,\nwith the proprietors of the haciendas, to free them from the wild beasts\nthat desolated their herds; but so soon as the ferocious animals were\ndestroyed, and the reward obtained, no matter the brilliancy of the\noffers made them by the landowners, the two men threw their rifles on\ntheir shoulders and went off.\n\nNo one knew who they were, or whence they came. Valentine and his friend\nmaintained the most complete silence as to the events of their life\nwhich had preceded their appearance in these parts. Only one thing had\nbetrayed the nationality of Valentine, whom his comrade called\nKoutonepi, a word belonging to the language of the Aucas, and signifying\n\"The Valiant.\" On his chest the hunter wore the cross of the Legion of\nHonor. The deeds of every description performed by these hunters were\nincalculable, and their stories were the delight of the frontier\ndwellers during the winter night. The number of tigers they had killed\nwas no longer counted.\n\nChance had one day made them acquainted with Don Miguel Zarate under\nstrange circumstances, and since then an uninterrupted friendship had\nbeen maintained between them. Don Miguel, during a tempestuous night,\nnamely, had only owed his life to the accuracy of Valentine's aim, who\nsent a bullet through the head of the Mexican's horse at the moment\nwhen, mad with terror, and no longer obeying the bridle, it was on the\npoint of leaping into an abyss with its master. Don Miguel had sworn\neternal gratitude to his saviour.\n\nValentine and Curumilla had made themselves the tutors of the\nhacendero's children, who, for their part, felt a deep friendship for\nthe hunters. Don Pablo had frequently made long hunting parties in the\ndesert with them; and it was to them he owed the certainty of his aim,\nhis skill in handling weapons, and his knack in taming horses.\n\nNo secrets existed between Don Miguel and the hunters: they read in his\nmind as in an ever open book. They were the disinterested confidants of\nhis plans; for these rude wood rangers esteemed him, and only required\nfor themselves one thing--the liberty of the desert. Still, despite the\nsympathy and friendship which so closely connected these different\npersons, and the confidence which formed the basis of that friendship,\nDon Miguel and his children had never been able to obtain from the\nhunters information as to the events that had passed prior to their\narrival in this country.\n\nFrequently Don Miguel, impelled, not by curiosity, but merely by the\ninterest he felt in them, had tried, by words cleverly thrown into the\nconversation, to give them an opening for confidence; but Valentine had\nalways repelled those hints, though cleverly enough for Don Miguel not\nto feel offended by this want of confidence. With Curumilla they had\nbeen even more simple. Wrapped in his Indian stoicism, intrenched in his\nhabitual sullenness, he was wont to answer all questions by a shake of\nthe head, but nothing further.\n\nAt length, weary of the attempt, the hacendero and his family had given\nup trying to read those secrets which their friends seemed obstinately\ndetermined to keep from them. Still the friendship subsisting between\nthem had not grown cold in consequence, and it was always with equal\npleasure that Don Miguel met the hunters again after a lengthened ramble\nin the prairies, which kept them away from his house for whole months at\na time.\n\nThe hunter and the Mexican were seated by the fire, while Curumilla,\narmed with his scalping knife, was busy flaying the two jaguars so\nskillfully killed by Don Miguel, and which were magnificent brutes.\n\n\"Eh, _compadre!_\" Don Miguel said with a laugh; \"I was beginning to lose\npatience, and fancy you had forgotten the meeting you had yourself given\nme.\"\n\n\"I never forgot anything, as you know,\" Valentine answered seriously;\n\"and if I did not arrive sooner, it was because the road is long from my\njacal to this clearing.\"\n\n\"Heaven forbid that I should reproach you, my friend! Still I confess to\nyou that the prospect of passing the night alone in this forest only\nslightly pleased me, and I should have been off had you not arrived\nbefore sunset.\"\n\n\"You would have done wrong, Don Miguel: what I have to tell you is of\nthe utmost importance to you. Who knows what the result might have been\nhad I not been able to warn you?\"\n\n\"You alarm me, my friend.\"\n\n\"I will explain. In the first place let me tell you that you committed,\na few days back, a grave imprudence, whose consequences threaten to be\nmost serious for you.\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"I said one, but ought to have said two.\"\n\n\"I am waiting till you think proper to express yourself more clearly,\"\nDon Miguel said with a slight tinge of impatience, \"before I answer.\"\n\n\"You have quarrelled with a North American bandit.\"\n\n\"Red Cedar.\"\n\n\"Yes; and when you had him in your power you let him escape, instead of\nkilling him out and out.\"\n\n\"That is true, and I was wrong. What would you? The villain has as tough\na life as an alligator. But be at ease. If ever he fall into my hands\nagain, I swear that I will not miss him.\"\n\n\"In the meanwhile you did do so--that is the evil.\"\n\n\"Why so?\"\n\n\"You will understand me. This man is one of those villains, the scum of\nthe United States, too many of whom have lived on the frontier during\nthe last few years. I do not know how he contrived to deceive your New\nYork agent; but he gained his confidence so cleverly that the latter\ntold him all the secrets he knew about your enterprise.\"\n\n\"He told me so himself.\"\n\n\"Very good. It was then, I suppose, that you stabbed him?\"\n\n\"Yes, and at the same time I plucked out his claws; that is to say, I\nseized the letters he held, and which might compromise me.\"\n\n\"A mistake. This man is too thorough-paced a scoundrel not to foresee\nall the chances of his treason. He had a last letter, the most important\nof all; and that you did not take from him.\"\n\n\"I took three.\"\n\n\"Yes, but there were four. As the last, however, in itself was worth as\nmuch as the other three, he always wore it about him in a leathern bag\nhung round his neck by a steel chain; you did not dream of looking for\nthat.\"\n\n\"But what importance can this letter, I do not even remember writing,\npossess, that you should attach such weight to it?\"\n\n\"It is merely the agreement drawn up between yourself, General Ibanez,\nand Mr. Wood, and bearing your three signatures.\"\n\n\"_Con mil demonios!_\" the hacendero exclaimed in terror. \"In that case\nI am lost; for if this man really possesses such a document, he will not\nfail to employ it in order to be revenged on me.\"\n\n\"Nothing is lost so long as a man's heart beats in his breast, Don\nMiguel. The position is critical, I allow, but I have saved myself in\nsituations far more desperate than the one you are now in.\"\n\n\"What is to be done?\"\n\n\"Red Cedar has been about again for two days. His first care, so soon as\nhe could sit a horse, was to go to Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico,\nand denounce you to the Governor. That has nothing to surprise you from\nsuch a man.\"\n\n\"Then I can only fly as speedily as I can?\"\n\n\"Wait. Every man has in his heart at least one of the seven deadly sins\nas a bait for the demon.\"\n\n\"What are you driving at?\"\n\n\"You will see. Fortunately for us, Red Cedar has them all seven, I\nbelieve, in the finest stage of development. Avarice, before all, has\nreached its acme with him.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"This happened. Our man denounced you to the governor as a conspirator,\netc., but was careful not to give up the proofs he possessed in support\nof the denunciation at the outset. When General Isturitz, the governor,\nasked him for these proofs, he answered that he was ready to supply them\nin exchange for the sum of one hundred thousand piastres in gold.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" the hacendero said, with a breath of relief, \"and what did\nIsturitz say?\"\n\n\"The general is one of your most inveterate enemies, I grant, and he\nwould give a good deal for the pleasure of having you shot.\"\n\n\"That is true.\"\n\n\"Yes, but still the sum appeared to him, as it really is, exorbitant,\nthe more so as he would have to pay it all himself, as the government\ndoes not recognise transactions of that nature.\"\n\n\"Well, what did Red Cedar do then?\"\n\n\"He did not allow himself beaten; on the contrary, he told the general\nhe would give him a week to reflect, and quietly left the Cabildo.\"\n\n\"Hum! And on what day was this visit paid?\"\n\n\"Yesterday morning; so that you have six days still left for action.\"\n\n\"Six days--that is very little.\"\n\n\"Eh?\" the Frenchman said, with a shrug of his shoulders impossible to\ndescribe. \"In my country--\"\n\n\"Yes, but you are Frenchmen.\"\n\n\"That is true: hence I allow you twice the time we should require. Come,\nlet us put joking aside. You are a man of more than common energy; you\nreally wish the welfare of your country, so do not let yourself be\ncrushed by the first reverse. Who knows but that it may all be for the\nbest?\"\n\n\"Ah, my friend, I am alone! General Ibanez, who alone could help me in\nthis critical affair, is fifty leagues off. What can I do? Nothing.\"\n\n\"All. I foresaw your objection. Eagle-wing, the Chief of the Coras, has\ngone from me to warn the general. You know with what speed Indians\ntravel; so he will bring us the general in a few hours, I feel\nconvinced.\"\n\nDon Miguel regarded the hunter with mingled admiration and respect.\n\n\"You have done that, my friend?\" he said to him as he warmly pressed his\nhand.\n\n\"By Jove!\" Valentine said, gaily, \"I have done something else too. When\nthe time arrives I will tell you what it is. But let us not lose an\nhour. What do you intend to do for the present?\"\n\n\"Act.\"\n\n\"Good: that is the way I like to hear you talk.\"\n\n\"Yes, but I must first come to an understanding with the general.\"\n\n\"That is true; but it is the least thing,\" Valentine answered, as he\nlooked skyward, and attentively consulted the position of the stars. \"It\nis now eight o'clock. Eagle-wing and the man he brings must be at\nmidnight at the entrance of the _Canyon del Buitre_. We have four hours\nbefore us, and that is more than we require, as we have only ten leagues\nto go.\"\n\n\"Let us go, let us go!\" Don Miguel exclaimed eagerly.\n\n\"Wait a moment; there is no such hurry. Don't be alarmed; we shall\narrive in time.\"\n\nHe then turned to Curumilla, and said to him in Araucano a few words\nwhich the hacendero did not understand. The Indian rose without\nreplying, and disappeared in the density of the forest.\n\n\"You know,\" Valentine continued, \"that I prefer, through habit,\ntravelling on foot; still, as under present circumstances minutes are\nprecious, and we must not lose them, I have provided two horses.\"\n\n\"You think of everything, my friend.\"\n\n\"Yes, when I have to act for those I love,\" Valentine answered with a\nretrospective sigh.\n\nThere was a moment's silence between the two men, and at the end of\nscarce a quarter of an hour there was a noise in the shrubs, the\nbranches parted, and Curumilla re-entered the clearing, holding two\nhorses by the bridle. These noble animals, which were nearly untamed\n_mustangs_, bore a striking resemblance to the steeds of the Apaches, on\nwhose territory our friends now were. They were literally covered with\neagle plumes, beads, and ribbons, while long red and white spots\ncompleted their disguise, and rendered it almost impossible to recognise\nthem.\n\n\"Mount!\" Don Miguel exclaimed so soon as he saw them. \"Time is slipping\naway.\"\n\n\"One word yet,\" Valentine remarked.\n\n\"Speak.\"\n\n\"You still have as chaplain a certain monk by the name of 'Fray\nAmbrosio.'\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Take care of that man--he betrays you.\"\n\n\"You believe it?\"\n\n\"I am sure of it.\"\n\n\"Good! I will remember.\"\n\n\"All right. Now we will be off,\" Valentine said, as he buried his spurs\nin his horse's flanks.\n\nAnd the three horsemen rushed into the darkness with headlong speed.\n\n\n[1] \"Tiger-Slayer,\" etc. Same publishers.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nEL MESON.\n\n\nThe day on which our story commences the village of the Paso del Norte\npresented an extraordinary appearance. The bells were ringing out full\npeals, for the three hundredth anniversary of its foundation was\ncelebrated. The population of Paso, greatly diminished since the\nproclamation of Mexican independence, was hurrying to the churches,\nwhich flashed with silver and gold. The houses were decorated with rich\ntapestry, and the streets strewn with flowers.\n\nToward nightfall the inhabitants, whom the intolerable heat of the\ntropical sun had kept prisoners in the interior of the houses, flocked\nout to inhale the sharp perfumes of the desert breeze, and bring back a\nlittle fresh air into their parched lungs. The town, which had for\nseveral hours appeared deserted, suddenly woke up: shouts and laughter\nwere heard afresh. The walks were invaded by the mob, and in a few\nminutes the _mesons_ were thronged with idlers, who began drinking\npulque and mezcal, while smoking their cigarettes, and strumming the\njarabe and vihuela.\n\nIn a house of poor appearance, built like all its neighbours, of earth\nbricks, and situated at the angle formed by the Plaza Mayor and the\nCalle de la Merced, some twenty-five fellows, whom it was easy to\nrecognise as adventurers by the feather in their hats, their upturned\nmoustaches, and specially by the long bronzed-hilted sword they wore on\nthe thigh, were drinking torrents of aguardiente and pulque at the\ngambling tables, while yelling like deaf men, swearing like pagans, and\nthreatening at every moment to unsheathe their weapons.\n\nIn a corner of the room occupied by these troublesome guests two men,\nseated opposite each other at a table, seemed plunged in deep thought,\nand looked round them absently, not thinking about drinking the contents\nof their glasses, which had not been emptied for more than half an hour.\nThese two men presented the most striking contrast. They were still\nyoung. The first, aged twenty-five at the most, had one of those frank,\nhonest, and energetic faces which call for sympathy, and attract\nrespect. His pallid brow, his face of a delicate hue, surrounded by his\nlong black curls, his straight and flexible nose, his mouth filled with\na double row of teeth of dazzling whiteness, and surmounted by a slight\nbrown moustache, gave him a stamp of distinction, which was the more\nstriking owing to the strict, and perhaps common, style of his attire.\n\nHe wore the costume of the wood rangers; that is to say, the Canadian\n_mitasse_, fastened round the hips, and descending to the ankle; _botas\nvaqueras_ of deer skin, fastened at the knee; and a striped zarape of\nbrilliant colours. A panama straw hat was thrown on the table, within\nreach of his hand, by the side of an American rifle and two\ndouble-barrelled pistols. A machete hung on his left side, and the hilt\nof a long knife peeped out of his left boot.\n\nHis companion was short and thick-set; but his well-knit limbs and his\noutstanding muscles indicated no ordinary strength. His face, the\nfeatures of which were commonplace enough, had a cunning look, which\nsuddenly disappeared to make room for a certain nobility whenever under\nthe influence Of any sudden emotion; his eyebrows contracted; and his\nglance, ordinarily veiled, flashed forth. He wore nearly the same garb\nas his comrade; but his hat stained with rain, and the colours of his\nzarape faded by the sun, evidenced lengthened wear. Like the first one\nwe described, he was well armed.\n\nIt was easy to see at the first glance that these two men did not belong\nto the Hispano-American race, indeed, their conversation would have\nremoved any doubts on that head, for they spoke in the French dialect\nemployed in Canada.\n\n\"Hum!\" the first said, taking up his glass, which he carelessly raised\nto his lips. \"After due consideration, Harry, I believe we shall do\nbetter by mounting our horses again, and starting, instead of remaining\nin this horrible den, amid these _gachupinos_, who croak like frogs\nbefore a storm.\"\n\n\"Deuce take your impatience!\" the other replied ill-temperedly. \"Can't\nyou remain a moment at rest?\"\n\n\"You call it a moment, Harry. Why, we have been here an hour.\"\n\n\"By Jove! Dick, you're a wonderful fellow,\" the other continued with a\nlaugh. \"Do you think that business can be settled all in a moment?\"\n\n\"After all, what is our game? For may the old one twist my neck, or a\ngrizzly give me a hug, if I know the least in the world! For five years\nwe have hunted and slept side by side. We have come from Canada together\nto this place. I have grown into a habit--I cannot say why--of referring\nto you everything that concerns our mutual interests. Still I should not\nbe sorry to know, if only for the rarity of the fact, why on earth we\nleft the prairies, where we were so well off, to come here, where we are\nso badly off.\"\n\n\"Have you ever repented, up to today, the confidence you placed in me?\"\n\n\"I do not say so, Harry. Heaven forbid! Still I think--\"\n\n\"You think wrong,\" the young man sharply interrupted. \"Let me alone, and\nbefore three months you shall have three times your hat full of massive\ngold, or call me a fool.\"\n\nAt this dazzling promise the eyes of Dick, the smaller of the hunters,\nglistened like two stars. He regarded his comrade with a species of\nadmiration.\n\n\"Oh, oh!\" he said in a low voice, \"It is a placer, is it?\"\n\n\"Hang it!\" the other said, with a shrug of his shoulders, \"were it not,\nshould I be here? But silence, our man has arrived.\"\n\nIn fact, a man entered at this moment. On his appearance a sudden\nsilence fell on the meson; the adventurers gambling and cursing at all\nthe tables, rose as if moved by a spring, respectfully took off their\nplumed hats, and ranged themselves with downcast eyes to let him pass.\nThe man remained for an instant on the threshold of the venta, took a\nprofound glance at the company, and then walked toward the two hunters.\n\nThis man wore the gown of a monk; he had the ascetic face, with the\nharsh features and sharply-marked lines, that forms, as it were, the\ntype of the Spanish monks of which Titian has so admirably caught the\nexpression on his canvas. He passed through the adventurers, holding out\nright and left his wide sleeves, which they reverentially kissed. On\napproaching the two hunters he turned round.\n\n\"Continue your sports, my sons,\" he said to the company; \"my presence\nneed not disturb your frolics, for I only wish to speak for a few\nmoments with those two gentlemen.\"\n\nThe adventurers did not let the invitation be repeated, but took their\nplaces again tumultuously, and soon cries and oaths recommenced with\nequal intensity. The monk smiled, took a butaca, and seated himself\nbetween the two hunters, while bending a searching glance on them. The\nlatter had followed with a mocking eye all the interludes of this little\nscene, and without making a movement, they let the monk seat himself by\ntheir side. So soon as he had done so, Harry poured him out a large\nglass of pulque, and placed within his reach the squares of maize leaf\nand tobacco.\n\n\"Drink and smoke, senor padre,\" he said to him.\n\nThe monk, without any observation, rolled a cigarette, emptied the glass\nof pulque at a draught, and then leaning his elbows on the table and\nbending forward, said,--\n\n\"You are punctual.\"\n\n\"We have been waiting an hour,\" Dick observed in a rough voice.\n\n\"What is an hour in the presence of eternity?\" the monk said with a\nsmile.\n\n\"Let us not lose any more time,\" Harry continued. \"What have you to\npropose to us?\"\n\nThe monk looked around him suspiciously, and lowered his voice.\n\n\"I can, if you like, make you rich in a few days.\"\n\n\"What is the business?\" Dick asked.\n\n\"Of course,\" the monk continued, \"this fortune I offer you is a matter\nof indifference to me. If I have an ardent desire to obtain it, it is,\nin the first place, because it belongs to nobody, and will permit me to\nrelieve the wretchedness of the thousands of beings confided to my\ncharge.\"\n\n\"Of course, senor padre,\" Harry answered seriously. \"Let us not weigh\nlonger on these details. According to what you told me a few days back,\nyou have discovered a rich placer.\"\n\n\"Not I,\" the monk sharply objected.\n\n\"No consequence, provided that it exists,\" Dick answered.\n\n\"Pardon me, but it is of great consequence to me. I do not wish to take\non myself the responsibility of such a discovery. If, as I believe,\npeople will go in search of it, it may entail the death of several\npersons, and the church abhors bloodshed.\"\n\n\"Very good: you only desire to profit by it.\"\n\n\"Not for myself.\"\n\n\"For your parishioners. Very good; but let us try to come to an\nunderstanding, if possible, for our time is too precious for us to waste\nit in empty talk.\"\n\n\"_Valgame Dios_!\" the monk said, crossing himself, \"How you have\nretained the impetuosity of your French origin! Have a little patience,\nand I will explain myself.\"\n\n\"That is all we desire.\"\n\n\"But you will promise me--\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" Dick interrupted. \"We are honest hunters, and not accustomed\nto pledge ourselves so lightly before knowing positively what is asked\nof us.\"\n\nHarry supported his friend's words by a nod. The monk drank a glass of\npulque, and took two or three heavy puffs at his cigarette.\n\n\"Your will be done,\" he then said. \"You are terrible men. This is the\naffair.\"\n\n\"Go on.\"\n\n\"A poor scamp of a gambusino, lost, I know not how, in the great desert,\ndiscovered at a considerable distance off, between the Rio Gila and the\nColorado, the richest placer the wildest imagination can conceive.\nAccording to his statement the gold is scattered over the surface, for\nan extent of two or three miles, in nuggets, each of which would make a\nman's fortune. This gambusino, dazzled by such treasures, but unable to\nappropriate them alone, displayed the greatest energy, and braved the\nutmost perils, in order to regain civilised regions. It was only through\nboldness and temerity that he succeeded in escaping the countless\nenemies who spied, and tracked him on all sides; but Heaven at length\nallowed him to reach Paso safe and sound.\"\n\n\"Very good,\" Dick observed. \"All this may very possibly, be true; but\nwhy did you not bring this gambusino, instead of talking to us about the\nplacer, of which you know as little as we do? He would have supplied us\nwith information which is indispensable for us, in the event of our\nconsenting to help you in looking for this treasure.\"\n\n\"Alas!\" the monk replied, hypocritically casting his eyes down, \"the\nunhappy man was not destined to profit by this discovery, made at the\nprice of so many perils. Scarce two days after his arrival at Paso, he\nquarrelled with another gambusino, and received a stab which sent him a\nfew hours later to the tomb.\"\n\n\"In that case,\" Harry observed, \"how did you learn all these details,\nsenor padre?\"\n\n\"In a very simple way, my son. It was I who reconciled the poor wretch\nin his last moments with Heaven; and,\" he added, with an air of\ncompunction splendidly assumed, \"when he understood that his end was at\nhand, and that nothing could save him, he confided to me, in gratitude\nfor the consolation I bestowed on him, what I have just told you,\nrevealed to me the situation of the placer, and for greater certainty\ngave me a clumsy chart he had drawn out on the spot. You see that we can\nproceed almost with certainty.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Harry said, thoughtfully; \"but why, instead of first applying to\nthe Mexicans, your countrymen, did you propose to us to help you in your\nenterprise?\"\n\n\"Because the Mexicans are men who cannot be trusted, and before reaching\nthe placer we should have to fight the Apaches and Comanches, on whose\nterritory it is situated.\"\n\nAfter these words, there was a lengthened silence between the three\nspeakers: each was reflecting deeply on what he had just heard. The monk\ntried to read with cunning eye the impression produced on the hunters by\nhis confidence; but his hopes were deceived. Their faces remained\nunmoved. At length Dick spoke in a rough voice, after exchanging a\nmeaning look with his comrade.\n\n\"All that is very fine,\" he said; \"but it is absurd to suppose that two\nmen, however brave they may be, can attempt such an enterprise in\nunknown regions peopled by ferocious tribes. It would require at least\nfifty resolute and devoted men, otherwise nothing could be possible.\"\n\n\"You are right, and hence I did not calculate on you alone. You will\nhave determined men under your orders, chosen carefully by myself, and I\nshall also accompany you.\"\n\n\"Unluckily, if you have counted on us, you are mistaken, senor padre,\"\nHarry said, peremptorily. \"We are honest hunters; but the trade of a\ngambusino does not at all suit us. Even if we had a chance of gaining an\nincalculable fortune, we would not consent to take part in an expedition\nof gold seekers.\"\n\n\"Not even if Red Cedar were at the head of the expedition, and consented\nto take the direction?\" the monk said in a honeyed voice, and with a\nside glance.\n\nThe hunter started, a feverish blush suffused his face, and it was in a\nvoice choked by emotion that he exclaimed,--\n\n\"Have you spoken with him about it?\"\n\n\"Here he is; you can ask him,\" the monk answered.\n\nIn fact, a man was entering the meson at this moment. Harry looked down\nin confusion, while Dick tapped the table with his dagger and whistled.\nA smile of undefinable meaning wandered over the monk's pallid lips.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nRED CEDAR.\n\n\nRed Cedar was more than six feet in height; his enormous head was\nfastened to his square shoulders by a short and muscular neck, like a\nbull's; his bony members were covered with muscles hard as ropes. In\nshort, his whole person was a specimen of brute strength at its\nculminating point.\n\nA fox-skin cap, pressed down on his head, allowed escape to a few tufts\nof coarse greyish hair, and fell on his little grey eyes, which were\nclose to a nose that was hooked like the beak of a bird of prey; his\nwide mouth was filled with white, large teeth; his cheekbones were\nprominent and purpled; and the lower part of his face disappeared in a\nthick black beard, mingled with grey hairs. He wore a hunting shirt of\nstriped calico, fastened round the waist by a strap of brown leather,\nthrough which were passed two pistols, an axe, and a long knife; a pair\nof leggings of tawny leather, sewed at equal distances with hair, fell\ndown to his knees; while his legs were protected by Indian moccasins,\nornamented with a profusion of beads and bells. A game bag of fawn skin,\nwhich seemed full, fell over his right hip; and he held in his hand an\nAmerican rifle, studded with copper nails.\n\nNo one knew who Red Cedar was, or whence he came. About two years prior\nto the period of our story opening he had suddenly made his appearance\nin the country, accompanied by a wife of a certain age--a species of\nMegaera, of masculine form and repellant aspect; a girl of seventeen;\nand three vigorous lads, who resembled him too closely not to be his\nown, and whose age varied from nineteen to twenty-four.\n\nRed Cedar himself appeared to be fifty-five at the most. The name by\nwhich he was known had been given to him by the Indians, of whom he had\ndeclared himself the implacable enemy, and boasted that he had killed\ntwo hundred. The old woman was called Betsy; the girl, Ellen; the eldest\nson, Nathan; the second, Sutter; and the last, Shaw.\n\nThis family had built a shanty in the forest, a few miles from Paso, and\nlived alone in the desert, without having entered into any relations\nwith the inhabitants of the village; or the trappers and wood rangers,\nits neighbours. The mysterious conduct of these strangers had given rise\nto numerous comments; but all had remained without reply or solution,\nand after two years they remained as perfect strangers as on the day of\ntheir arrival.\n\nStill, mournful and sad stories were in circulation on their account:\nthey inspired an instinctive hatred and involuntary terror in the\nMexicans. Some said in a whisper that old Red Cedar and his three sons\nwere nothing less than \"scalp hunters;\" that is to say, in the public\nesteem, people placed beneath the pirates of the prairies, that unclean\nbreed of birds of prey which everybody fears and despises.\n\nThe entry of Red Cedar was significant; the otherwise unscrupulous men\nwho filled the venta hurriedly retired on his approach, and made room\nfor him with a zeal mingled with disgust. The old partisan crossed the\nroom with head erect; a smile of haughty disdain played round his thin\nlips at the sight of the effect his presence produced, and he went up to\nthe monk and his two companions. On reaching them he roughly placed the\nbutt of his rifle on the ground, leaned his two crossed hands upon the\nbarrel, and after bending a cunning glance on the persons before him,\nsaid to the monk in a hoarse voice,--\n\n\"The deuce take you, senor padre! Here I am: what do you want with me?\"\n\nFar from being vexed at this brutal address, the latter smiled on the\ncolossus, and held out his hand to him, as he graciously made answer,--\n\n\"You are welcome, Red Cedar; we were expecting you impatiently. Sit down\nby my side on this butaca, and we will talk while drinking a glass of\npulque.\"\n\n\"The deuce twist your neck, and may your accursed pulque choke you! Do\nyou take me for a wretched abortion of your sort?\" the other answered as\nhe fell into the seat offered him. \"Order me some brandy, and that of\nthe strongest. I am not a babe, I suppose.\"\n\nWithout making the slightest observation, the monk rose, went to speak\nwith the host, and presently returned with a bottle, from which he\npoured a bumper for the old hunter. The latter emptied the glass at a\ndraught, put it back on the table with a sonorous \"hum!\" and turned to\nthe monk with a grimacing smile.\n\n\"Come, the devil is not always so black as he looks, senor padre,\" he\nsaid, as he passed his hand over his mouth to wipe his moustache. \"I see\nthat we can come to an understanding.\"\n\n\"It will only depend on you, Red Cedar. Here are two worthy Canadian\nhunters who will do nothing without your support.\"\n\nThe Hercules took a side glance at the young men.\n\n\"Eh!\" he said, \"what do you want with these children? Did I not promise\nyou to reach the placer with my sons only?\"\n\n\"He, he! You are powerfully built, both you and your lads, I allow; but\nI doubt whether four men, were they twice as strong as you are, could\ncarry out this affair successfully. You will have numerous enemies to\ncombat on your road.\"\n\n\"All the better! The more there are, the more we shall kill,\" he\nanswered with a sinister laugh.\n\n\"Senor padre,\" Dick interrupted, \"as far as I am concerned, I care\nlittle about it.\"\n\nBut he was suddenly checked by a meaning glance from his mate.\n\n\"What do you care little about, my pretty lad?\" the giant asked in a\nmocking voice.\n\n\"Nothing,\" the young man answered drily. \"Suppose I had not spoken.\"\n\n\"Good,\" Red Cedar remarked; \"it shall be as you wish. Here's your\nhealth.\"\n\nAnd he poured the rest of the bottle into his glass.\n\n\"Come,\" said Harry, \"Let us have but few words. Explain yourself once\nfor all, without beating about the bush, senor padre.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Red Cedar observed, \"men ought not to waste their time thus in\nchattering.\"\n\n\"Very good. This, then, is what I propose. Red Cedar will collect within\nthree days from this time thirty resolute men, of whom he will take the\ncommand, and we will start immediately in search of the placer. Does it\nsuit you in that way?\"\n\n\"Hum!\" Red Cedar said. \"In order to go in search of the placer we must\nknow a little in what direction it is, or deuce take me if I undertake\nthe business!\"\n\n\"Do not trouble yourself about that, Red Cedar; I will accompany you.\nHave I not got a plan of the country?\"\n\nThe colossus shot at the monk a glance which sparkled under his dark\neyelash, but he hastened to moderate its brilliancy by letting his eyes\nfall.\n\n\"That is true,\" he said with feigned indifference; \"I forgot that you\nwere coming with us. Then you will leave your parishioners during your\nabsence?\"\n\n\"Heaven will watch over them.\"\n\n\"Eh! It will have its work cut out. However, that does not concern me at\nall. But why did you oblige me to come to this meson?\"\n\n\"In order to introduce you to these two hunters, who will accompany us.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon,\" Dick observed, \"but I do not exactly see of what\nuse I can be to you in all this: my aid, and that of my mate, do not\nappear to me to be indispensable.\"\n\n\"On the contrary,\" the monk answered quickly, \"I reckon entirely on\nyou.\"\n\nThe giant had risen.\n\n\"What!\" he said, as he roughly laid his enormous hand on Dick's\nshoulder, \"You do not understand that this honourable personage, who did\nnot hesitate to kill a man in order to rob him of the secret of the\nplacer, has a terrible fear of finding himself alone with me on the\nprairie? He fears that I shall kill him in my turn to rob him of the\nsecret of which he became master by a crime. Ha, ha, ha!\"\n\nAnd he turned his back unceremoniously.\n\n\"How can you suppose such things, Red Cedar?\" the monk exclaimed.\n\n\"Do you fancy that I did not read you?\" the latter answered. \"But it is\nall the same to you. Do as you please: I leave you at liberty to act as\nyou like.\"\n\n\"What! You are off already?\"\n\n\"Hang it! What have I to do any longer here? All is settled between us.\nIn three days thirty of the best frontiersmen will be assembled by my\ncare at Grizzly Bear Creek, where we shall expect you.\"\n\nAfter shrugging his shoulders once again he went off without any salute,\nor even turning his head.\n\n\"It must be confessed,\" Dick observed, \"that the man has a most\nvillainous face. What a hideous fellow!\"\n\n\"Oh!\" the monk answered with a sigh, \"The exterior is nothing. You\nshould know the inner man.\"\n\n\"Why, in that case, do you have any dealings with him?\"\n\nThe monk blushed slightly.\n\n\"Because it must be so,\" he muttered.\n\n\"All right for you,\" Dick continued; \"but as nothing obliges my friend\nand myself to have any more intimate relations with that man, you must\nnot mind, senor Padre, if--\"\n\n\"Silence, Dick!\" Harry shouted, angrily. \"You do not know what you are\ntalking about. We will accompany you, senor padre. You can reckon on us\nto defend you if necessary, for I suppose that Red Cedar is right.\"\n\n\"In what way?\"\n\n\"You do not wish to trust your life defencelessly in his hands, and you\nreckoned on us to protect you. Is it not so?\"\n\n\"Why should I feign any longer? Yes, that man terrifies me, and I do not\nwish to trust myself to his mercy.\"\n\n\"Do not be alarmed; we shall be there, and on our word as hunters, not a\nhair of your head shall fall.\"\n\nA lively satisfaction appeared on the monk's pale face at this generous\npromise.\n\n\"Thanks,\" he said warmly.\n\nHarry's conduct appeared so extraordinary to Dick, who knew the lofty\nsentiments and innate honor of his comrade, that, without striving to\nfathom the motives which made him act thus, he contented himself by\nbacking up his words by an affirmative nod of the head.\n\n\"Be assured, caballeros, that when we have reached the placer, I will\ngive you a large share, and you will have no cause to regret\naccompanying me.\"\n\n\"The money question has but slight interest with us,\" Harry answered.\n\"My friend and I are free hunters, caring very little for riches, which\nwould be to us rather a source of embarrassment than of pleasure and\nenjoyment. Curiosity alone, and the desire of exploring strange\ncountries, are sufficient to make us undertake this journey.\"\n\n\"Whatever the reason that makes you accept my proposals, I am not the\nless obliged to you.\"\n\n\"Now you will permit us to take leave of you, and we shall hold\nourselves at your orders.\"\n\n\"Go, gentlemen; I will not keep you longer. I know where to find you\nwhen I want you.\"\n\nThe young men took up their hats, slung their rifles on their shoulders,\nand left the meson. The monk looked after them.\n\n\"Oh!\" he muttered, \"I believe I can trust to those men: they have still\nin their veins a few drops of that honest French blood which despises\ntreachery. No matter,\" he added, as if on reflection; \"I will take my\nprecautions.\"\n\nAfter this aside, he rose and looked around him. The room was full of\nadventurers, who drank or played at _monte_, and whose energetic faces\nstood out in the semi-obscurity of the room, which was scarce lighted by\na smoky lamp. After a moment's reflection the monk boldly struck the\ntable with his clenched fist, and shouted in a loud voice:\n\n\"Senores caballeros, I invite you to listen to me. I have, I fancy, an\nadvantageous proposal to make to you.\"\n\nThe company turned their heads; those who were gambling for a moment\nabandoned their cards and dice; the drinkers alone kept in their hands\nthe glasses they held; but all approached the monk, round whom they\ngrouped themselves curiously.\n\n\"Caballeros,\" he continued, \"if I am not mistaken, all present are\ngentlemen whom fortune has more or less ill-treated.\"\n\nThe adventurers, by an automatic movement of extraordinary regularity,\nbowed their heads in affirmation.\n\n\"If you wish it,\" he continued with an imperceptible smile, \"I will\nundertake to repair the wrong by it done you.\"\n\nThe adventurers pricked up their ears.\n\n\"Speak, speak, senor padre!\" they shouted with delight.\n\n\"What is the affair?\" a man with a hang-dog face said, who stood in the\nfront ranks.\n\n\"A war party which I intend to lead shortly into Apacheria,\" the monk\nsaid, \"and for which purpose I need you.\"\n\nAt this proposition the first ardor of the adventurers visibly cooled\ndown. The Apaches and Comanches inspire an invincible terror in the\ninhabitants of the Mexican frontiers. The monk guessed the effect he had\nproduced; but he continued, as if not observing anything:--\n\n\"I take you all into my service for a month, at the rate of four\npiastres a day.\"\n\nAt this magnificent offer the eyes of the adventurers sparkled with\ngreed, fear gave way to avarice, and they all exclaimed,--\n\n\"We accept, reverend father!\n\n\"But,\" the man continued who had already spoken, \"we shall be happy,\nsenor padre, if, before starting, you would give us your holy\nbenediction, and absolve us from the few sins we may have committed.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the company yelled, \"we shall be happy if you consent to that,\nreverend father.\"\n\nThe monk appeared to reflect: the adventurers, anxiously waited.\n\n\"Well, be it so,\" he answered after a moment. \"As the work in which I am\nabout to employ you is so meritorious, I will give you my blessing, and\ngrant you absolution of your sins.\"\n\nFor a few minutes there was a shout and exclamations of joy in the room.\nThe monk demanded silence, and when it was restored he said,--\n\n\"Now, caballeros, give me each your name, that I may find you when I\nneed you.\"\n\nHe sat down and began enrolling the adventurers, who, with the men Red\nCedar supplied, would form the band with which he hoped to reach the\nplacer. We will leave the worthy monk for a few moments, and follow the\ntwo Canadian hunters.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nTHE TWO HUNTERS.\n\n\nHarry and Dick, whom we saw seated at a table in the meson with Red\nCedar and Fray Ambrosio, were however, very far from resembling those\ntwo men morally. They were free and bold hunters, who had spent the\ngreater part of their life in the desert, and who, in the vast solitude\nof the prairie, had accustomed themselves to a life free and exempt from\nthose vices which accompany a town residence.\n\nFor them gold was only the means to procure the necessary objects for\ntheir trade as hunters and trappers; and they never imagined that the\npossession of a large quantity of that yellow metal they despised would\nplace them in a position to enjoy other pleasures than those they found\nin their long hunts of wild beasts--hunts so full of strange incidents\nand striking joys.\n\nThus Dick had been to the highest degree surprised when he saw his\nfriend eagerly accept the monk's offer, and agree to go in search of the\nplacer; but what even more surprised him was Harry's insisting that Red\nCedar must take the lead of the expedition. Though no one could\npositively accuse the squatter, owing to the precautions he took, of\nleading a life of rapine and murder, still the mysterious conduct he\naffected, and the solitude in which he lived with his family, had cast\non him a shadow of reprobation.\n\nEvery one regarded him as a scalp hunter, and yet no one would have\nventured to affirm the odious deeds of which he was accused. The result\nof the general reprobation that fell on the squatter, and which we know\nto be fully merited, was that he and his family were placed under a ban\nby the frontier hunters and trappers, and every one fled not only their\nsociety, but any contact with them. Dick was thoroughly acquainted with\nhis friend's upright character and nobility of heart. Hence his conduct\nunder the present circumstances seemed to him perfectly\nincomprehensible, and he resolved to have an explanation with him.\n\nThey had scarce quitted the meson ere Dick bent down to his companion,\nand said, while looking at him curiously,--\n\n\"We have been hunting together for five years, Harry, and up to the\npresent I have ever let myself be guided by you, leaving you free to act\nas you pleased for our mutual welfare. Still this evening your conduct\nhas appeared to me so extraordinary that I am obliged, in the name of\nour friendship, which has never suffered a break up to this day, to ask\nyou for an explanation of what has occurred in my presence.\"\n\n\"For what good, my boy? Do you not know me well enough to be certain\nthat I would not consent to do any dishonourable deed?\"\n\n\"Up to this evening I would have sworn it, Harry: yes, on my honor I\nwould have sworn it--\"\n\n\"And now?\" the young man asked, stopping and looking his friend in the\nface.\n\n\"Now,\" Dick answered, with a certain degree of hesitation, \"hang it all!\nI will be frank with you, Harry, as an honest hunter should ever be. Now\nI do not know if I should do so: no, indeed I should not.\"\n\n\"What you say there causes me great pain, Dick. You oblige me, in order\nto dissipate your unjust suspicions, to confide to you a secret which is\nnot my own, and which I would not have revealed for anything in the\nworld.\"\n\n\"Pardon me, Harry, but in my place I am convinced you would act as I am\ndoing. We are very far from our country, which we shall never see again,\nperhaps. We are responsible for each other, and our actions must be free\nfrom all double interpretation.\"\n\n\"I will do what you ask, Dick, whatever it may cost me. I recognise the\njustice of your observations. I understand how much my conduct this\nnight must have hurt you and appeared ambiguous. I do not wish our\nfriendship to receive the least wound, or the slightest cloud to arise\nbetween us. You shall be satisfied.\"\n\n\"I thank you, Harry. What you tell me relieves my bosom of a heavy load.\nI confess that I should have been in despair to think badly of you; but\nthe words of that intriguing monk, and the manners of that worthy\nacolyte, Red Cedar, put me in a passion. Had you not warned me so\nquickly to silence, I believe--Heaven pardon me!--that I should have\nended by telling them a piece of my mind.\"\n\n\"You displayed considerable prudence in keeping silence, and be assured\nyou will completely approve me.\"\n\n\"I do not doubt it, Harry; and now I feel certain I deceived myself. I\nfeel all jolly again.\"\n\nWhile speaking thus the two hunters, who were walking with that rapid\nstep peculiar to men habituated to traverse great distances on foot, had\ncrossed the village, and found themselves already far in the plain. The\nnight was magnificent--the sky of a deep blue. An infinite number of\nglistening stars seemed floating in ether. The moon spread its silvery\nrays profusely over the landscape. The sharp odour of the flowers\nperfumed the atmosphere. The two hunters still walked on.\n\n\"Where are we going now, Harry?\" Dick asked. \"I fancy we should do\nbetter by taking a few hours' rest, instead of fatiguing ourselves\nwithout any definite object.\"\n\n\"I never do anything without a reason, friend, as you know,\" Harry\nanswered; \"so let me guide you, and we shall soon arrive.\"\n\n\"Do as you think proper, my boy; I shall say nothing.\"\n\n\"In the first place you must know that the French hunter, Koutonepi, has\nbegged me, for reasons he did not tell me, to watch Fray Ambrosio. That\nis one of the motives which made me be present at this night's\ninterview, although I care as little for a placer as for a musk-rat's\nskin.\"\n\n\"Koutonepi is the first hunter on the frontier; he has often done us a\nservice in the desert. You acted rightly, Harry, in doing what he\nasked.\"\n\n\"As for the second reason that dictated my conduct, Dick, you shall soon\nknow it.\"\n\nHalf talking, half dreaming, the young men reached Buffalo Valley, and\nsoon entered the forest which served as a lair for the squatter and his\nfamily.\n\n\"Where the deuce are we going?\" Dick could not refrain from saying.\n\n\"Silence!\" said the other: \"We are approaching.\"\n\nThe darkness was profound in the forest: the density of the leafy dome\nunder which they walked completely intercepted the light of the\nmoonbeams. Still the Canadians, long accustomed to a night march,\nadvanced as easily through the chaos of creepers and trees tangled in\neach other as if they had been in open day. On reaching a certain spot\nwhere the trees, growing less closely together, formed a species of\nclearing, and allowed an uncertain and tremorous light to pass, Harry\nstopped, and made his comrade a sign to do the same.\n\n\"This is the place,\" he said. \"Still, I as the person I have come to see\nexpects me to be alone, and your unexpected presence might cause alarm,\nhide yourself behind that larch tree: above all, be careful not to stir\ntill I call I you.\"\n\n\"Oh, oh!\" the hunter said, with a laugh, \"have you perchance led me to a\nlove meeting, Harry?\"\n\n\"You shall judge,\" Harry replied laconically. \"Hide yourself.\"\n\nDick, greatly troubled, did not need the invitation to be repeated: he\nconcealed himself behind the tree his friend had indicated, and which\nwould have sheltered a dozen men behind its enormous stem. So soon as\nHarry was alone, he raised his fingers to his lips, and at three\ndifferent intervals imitated the cry of an owl with such perfection that\nDick himself was deceived, and mechanically looked up to seek the bird\nin the tall branches of the tree by which he stood. Almost immediately,\na slight noise was audible in the shrubs, and a graceful and white form\nappeared in the glade. It was Ellen, who rapidly walked toward the young\nman.\n\n\"Oh, it is you, Harry!\" she said with joy. \"Heaven be blessed, I was\nafraid you would not come, as it is late.\"\n\n\"It is true, Ellen: pardon me. I made all possible speed, however; and\nit is not my fault that I did not arrive sooner.\"\n\n\"How good you are, Harry, to take so much trouble for my sake! How can I\never recognise the continual services you do me?\"\n\n\"Oh! Do not speak about them. It is a happiness for me to do anything\nagreeable to you.\"\n\n\"Alas!\" the maiden murmured, \"Heaven is my witness that I feel a deep\nfriendship for you, Harry.\"\n\nThe young man sighed gently.\n\n\"I have done what you asked of me,\" he said suddenly.\n\n\"Then it is true my father is thinking about leaving this country to go\nfurther still?\"\n\n\"Yes, Ellen, and into frightful countries, among the ferocious Indians.\"\n\nThe girl gave a start of terror.\n\n\"Do you know the reason of his going?\" she continued.\n\n\"Yes; he is about to look for a gold placer.\"\n\n\"Alas! Who will protect me, who will defend me in future, if we go\naway?\"\n\n\"I, Ellen!\" the hunter exclaimed impetuously. \"Have I not sworn to\nfollow you everywhere?\"\n\n\"It is true,\" she said sadly; \"but why should you risk your life on the\ndistant journey we are about to undertake? No, Harry, remain here; I\ncannot consent to your departure. From what I have heard say, the band\nmy father commands will be numerous--it will have scarce anything to\nfear from the Indians; while, on the other hand, you, compelled to hide\nyourself, will be exposed alone to terrible danger. No, Harry, I will\nnot permit it.\"\n\n\"Undeceive yourself, Ellen. I shall not be forced to conceal myself; I\nshall not be alone, for I am a member of your father's band.\"\n\n\"Is it possible, Harry?\" she exclaimed, with an expression of joy that\nmade the young man quiver.\n\n\"I enrolled myself this very evening.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" she said, \"Then in that case we can often meet?\"\n\n\"Whenever you please, Ellen, as I shall be there.\"\n\n\"Oh! Now I am anxious to be away from here, and wish we had already\nstarted.\"\n\n\"It will not be long first, set your mind at rest. I am convinced that\nwe shall start within the week.\"\n\n\"Thanks for the good news you bring me, Harry.\"\n\n\"Are your father and mother still unkind to you, Ellen?\"\n\n\"It is nearly always the same thing; and yet their conduct toward me is\nstrange. It often seems to me incomprehensible, as it is so marked with\npeculiarities. There are moments in which they seem to love me dearly.\nMy father especially caresses and embraces me, and then all at once, I\nknow not why, repulses me rudely, and looks at me in a way that causes\nme to shudder.\"\n\n\"That is indeed strange, Ellen.\"\n\n\"Is it not? There is one thing above all I cannot explain.\"\n\n\"Tell it me, Ellen; perhaps I can do so.\"\n\n\"You know that all my family are Protestants?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well, I am a Catholic.\"\n\n\"That is certainly curious.\"\n\n\"I wear around my neck a small golden crucifix. Every time accident\nmakes this trinket glisten before my father and mother they grow\nfurious, threaten to beat me, and order me to hide it at once. Do you\nunderstand the meaning of this, Harry?\"\n\n\"No, I do not, Ellen; but, believe me, leave everything to time; perhaps\nit will enable us to find the clue to the mystery which we seek in vain\nat this moment.\"\n\n\"Well, your presence has rendered me happy for a long time, Harry, so\nnow I will retire.\"\n\n\"Already?\"\n\n\"I must, my friend. Believe me that I am as sad as yourself at this\nseparation; but my father has not yet returned, and may arrive at any\nmoment. If he noticed that I was not asleep, who knows what might\nhappen?\"\n\nWhile saying the last words the girl held out her delicate hand to the\nhunter, who raised it to his lips passionately. Ellen withdrew it\nsuddenly, and bounding like a startled fawn, darted into the forest,\nwhere she soon disappeared, giving the young man a parting word, which\ncaused him to quiver with joy:--\n\n\"We shall meet soon.\"\n\nHarry stood for a long time with his eyes fixed on the spot where the\nseductive vision had disappeared. At length he uttered a sigh, threw his\nrifle over his shoulder, and turned as if to depart. Dick was before\nhim. Harry gave a start of surprise, for he had forgotten his friend's\npresence; but the latter smiled good-humouredly.\n\n\"I now comprehend your conduct, Harry,\" he said to him; \"you were right\nto act as you did. Pardon my unjust suspicions, and count on me\neverywhere and always.\"\n\nHarry silently pressed the hand his friend offered him, and they walked\nback rapidly in the direction of the village. As they emerged from the\nforest they passed, a man who did not see them. It was Red Cedar. So\nsoon as he had gone a short distance Harry stopped his companion, and\npointing to the squatter, whose long black shadow glided through the\ntrees, said, as he laid his hand on his shoulder,--\n\n\"That man hides in his heart a horrible secret, which I am ignorant of,\nbut have sworn to discover.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\nFRAY AMBROSIO.\n\n\nThe monk remained for a long time in the room of the meson, taking down\nthe names of the adventurers he wished to enrol in his band. It was late\nwhen he left it to return to the Hacienda de la Noria; but he was\nsatisfied with his night's work, and internally rejoiced at the rich\ncollection of bandits of the purest water he had recruited.\n\nThe monks form a privileged caste in Mexico: they can go at all hours of\nthe night wherever they please without fearing the numerous \"gentlemen\nof the road,\" scattered about the highways. Their gown inspires a\nrespect which guarantees them from any insult, and preserves them better\nthan anything from unpleasant rencontres. Besides, Fray Ambrosio, as the\nreader has doubtless already perceived, was not the man to neglect\nindispensable precautions in a country where, out of ten persons you\nmeet on your road, you may boldly assert that nine are rogues, the tenth\nalone offering any doubts. The worthy chaplain carried under his gown a\npair of double-barrelled pistols, and in his right sleeve he concealed a\nlong _navaja_, sharp as a razor, and pointed as a needle.\n\nNot troubling himself about the solitude that reigned around him, the\nmonk mounted his mule and proceeded quietly to the hacienda. It was\nabout eleven o'clock.\n\nA few words about Fray Ambrosio, while he is peacefully ambling along\nthe narrow path which will lead him in two hours to his destination,\nwill show all the perversity of the man who is destined to play an\nunfortunately too important part in the course of our narrative.\n\nOne day a gambusino, or gold seeker, who had disappeared for two years,\nno one knowing what had become of him, and who was supposed to be dead\nlong ago, assassinated in the desert by the Indians, suddenly reappeared\nat the Paso del Norte. This man, Joaquin by name, was brother to Andres\nGarote, an adventurer of the worst stamp, who had at least a dozen\n_cuchilladas_ (knife stabs) on his conscience, whom everybody feared,\nbut who, through the terror he inspired, enjoyed at the Paso, in spite\nof his well-avouched crimes, a reputation and species of impunity which\nhe abused whenever the opportunity offered.\n\nThe two brothers began frequenting together the mesones and ventas of\nthe village, drinking from morn till night, and paying either in gold\ndust enclosed in stout quills, or in lumps of native gold. The rumour\nsoon spread at Paso that Joaquin had discovered a rich placer, and that\nhis expenses were paid with the specimens he had brought back. The\ngambusino replied neither yes nor no to the several insinuations which\nhis friends, or rather his boon companions, attempted on him. He\ntwinkled his eyes, smiled mysteriously, and if it were observed that, at\nthe rate he was living at, he would soon be ruined, he shrugged his\nshoulders, saying:--\n\n\"When I have none left I know where to find others.\"\n\nAnd he continued to enjoy his fill of all the pleasures which a wretched\nhole like Paso can furnish.\n\nFray Ambrosio had heard speak, like everyone else, of the gambusino's\nasserted discovery; and his plan was at once formed to become master of\nthis man's secret, and rob him of his discovery, were that possible.\n\nThe same evening Joaquin and his brother Andres were drinking, according\nto their wont, in a meson, surrounded by a crowd of scamps like\nthemselves. Fray Ambrosio, seated at a table with his hands hidden in\nthe sleeves of his gown, and hanging head, appeared plunged in serious\nreflections, although he followed with a cunning eye the various\nmovements of the drinkers, and not one of their gestures escaped him.\n\nSuddenly a man entered, with his hand on his hip, and throwing in the\nface of the first person he passed the cigarette he was smoking. He\nplanted himself in front of Joaquin, to whom he said nothing, but began\nlooking at him impudently, shrugging his shoulders, and laughing\nironically at all the gambusino said. Joaquin was not patient, he saw at\nthe first glance that this person wished to pick a quarrel with him; and\nas he was brave, and feared nobody, man or devil, he walked boldly up to\nhim, and looking at him fixedly in his turn, he said to him, as he\nthrust his face in his:\n\n\"Do you seek a quarrel, Tomaso?\"\n\n\"Why not?\" the latter said impudently, as he set his glass on the table.\n\n\"I am your man. We will fight how you please.\"\n\n\"Bah!\" Tomaso said carelessly, \"let us do things properly, and fight\nwith the whole blade.\"\n\n\"Be it so.\"\n\nThe combats which take place between the adventurers are truly like\nthose of wild beasts. These coarse men, with their cruel instincts, like\nfighting beyond all else, for the smell of blood intoxicates them. The\nannouncement of this duel caused a thrill of pleasure to run through the\nranks of the leperos and bandits who pressed round the two men. The fun\nwas perfect: one of the adversaries would doubtless fall--perhaps\nboth--and blood flow in streams. Cries and yells of delight were raised\nby the spectators.\n\nThe duel with knives is the only one that exists in Mexico, and is\nsolely left to the leperos and people of the lowest classes. This duel\nhas its rules, which cannot be broken under any pretext. The knives\nusually employed, have blades from fourteen to sixteen inches in length,\nand the duelists fight according to the gravity of the insult, with one,\ntwo, three, six inches, or the entire blade. The inches are carefully\nmeasured and the hand clutches the knife at the marked spot.\n\nThis time it was a duel with the whole blade, the most terrible of all.\nWith extraordinary politeness and coolness the landlord had a large ring\nformed in the middle of the room, where the two adversaries stationed\nthemselves, about six paces from each other at the most.\n\nA deep silence hung over the room, a moment previously so full of life\nand disturbance; every one anxiously awaited the _denouement_ of the\nterrible drama that was preparing. Fray Ambrosio alone had not quitted\nhis seat or made a sign.\n\nThe two men rolled their zarapes round their left arm, planted\nthemselves firmly on their outstretched legs, bent their bodies slightly\nforward and gently placing the point of the knife blade on the arm\nrounded in front of the chest, they waited, fixed on each other flashing\nglances. A few seconds elapsed, during which the adversaries remained\nperfectly motionless: all hearts were contracted, all bosoms heaving.\n\nWorthy of Callot's pencil was the scene offered by these men, with their\nweather-stained faces and harsh features, and their clothes in rags,\nforming a circle round two combatants ready to kill each other in this\nmean room, slightly illumined by a smoky lamp, which flashed upon the\nblue blades of the knives, and in the shadow, almost disappearing in his\nblack gown, the monk, with his implacable glance and mocking smile, who,\nlike a tiger thirsting for blood, awaited the hour to pounce on his\nprey.\n\nSuddenly, by a spontaneous movement rapid as lightning, the adversaries\nrushed on each other, uttering a yell of fury. The blades flashed, there\nwas a clashing of steel, and both fell back again. Joaquin and Tomaso\nhad both dealt the same stroke, called, in the slang of the country, the\n\"blow of the brave man.\" Each had his face slashed from top to bottom\nwith a gaping wound.\n\nThe spectators frenziedly applauded this magnificent opening scene: the\njaguars had scented blood, and were mad.\n\n\"What a glorious fight!\" they exclaimed with admiration.\n\nIn the meanwhile the two combatants, rendered hideous by the blood that\nstreamed from their wounds and stained their faces, were again watching\nfor the moment to leap on one another. Suddenly they broke ground; but\nthis time it was no skirmish, but the real fight, atrocious and\nmerciless. The two men seized each other round the waist, and entwined\nlike serpents, they twisted about, trying to stab each other, and\nexciting themselves to the struggle by cries of rage and triumph. The\nenthusiasm of the spectators was at its height: they laughed, clapped\nhands, and uttered inarticulate howls as they urged the fighters not to\nloose their hold.\n\nAt length the enemies rolled on the ground still enclasped. For some\nseconds the combat continued on the ground, and it was impossible to\ndistinguish who was the conqueror. All at once one of them, who no\nlonger had a human form, and whose body was as red as an Indian's,\nbounded to his feet brandishing his knife. It was Joaquin.\n\nHis brother rushed toward him to congratulate him on his victory, but\nall at once the gambusino tottered and fainted. Tomaso did not rise\nagain: he remained motionless, stretched out on the uneven floor of the\nmeson. He was stark dead.\n\nThis scene had been so rapid, its conclusion so unforeseen, that, in\nspite of themselves, the spectators had remained dumb, and as if struck\nwith stupor. Suddenly the priest, whom all had forgotten, rose and\nwalked into the centre of the room, looking round with a glance that\ncaused all to let their eyes fall.\n\n\"Retire, all of you,\" he said in a gloomy voice, \"now that you have\nallowed this deed worthy of savages to be accomplished. The priest must\noffer his ministry, and get back from Satan, if there be still time, the\nsoul of this Christian who is about to die. Begone!\"\n\nThe adventurers hung their heads, and in a few moments the priest was\nleft alone with the two men, one of whom was dead, the other at the last\ngasp. No one could say what occurred in that room; but when the priest\nleft it, a quarter of an hour later, his eyes flashed wildly. Joaquin\nhad given his parting sigh. On opening the door to go out Fray Ambrosio\njostled against a man, who drew back sharply to make room for him. It\nwas Andres Garote. What was he doing with his eye at the keyhole while\nthe monk was shriving his brother?\n\nThe adventurer told no one what he had seen during this last quarter of\nan hour, nor did the monk notice in the shade the man he had almost\nthrown down.\n\nSuch was the way in which Fray Ambrosio became master of the gambusino's\nsecret, and how he alone knew at present the spot where the placer was.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\nTWO VARIETIES OF VILLAINS.\n\n\nNow that the reader is well informed touching Fray Ambrosio, we will\nfollow him on his road home from the meson. The night was calm, silent\nand serene. Not a sound troubled the silence, save the trot of the mule\nover the pebbles on the road, or at times, in the distance, the snapping\nbark of the coyotes chasing in a pack, according to their wont, some\nstraggling hind.\n\nFray Ambrosio ambled gently on, while reflecting on the events of the\nevening, and calculating mentally the probable profits of the expedition\nhe meditated. He had left far behind him the last houses of the village,\nand was advancing cautiously along a narrow path that wound through an\nimmense sugar cane field. Already the shadow of the tall hacienda walls\nstood out blackly in the horizon. He expected to reach it within twenty\nminutes, when suddenly his mule, which had hitherto gone so quietly,\npricked up its ears, raised its head, and stopped short.\n\nRoughly aroused from his meditations by this unexpected halt, the monk\nlooked about for some obstacle that might impede his progress. About ten\npaces from him a man was standing right in the middle of the path. Fray\nAmbrosio was a man not easily to be frightened: besides, he was well\narmed. He drew out one of the pistols hidden under his gown, cocked it,\nand prepared to cross-question the person who so resolutely barred his\nway. But the latter, at the sharp sound of the setting hammer, thought\nit prudent to make himself known, and not await the consequences of an\naddress nearly always stormy under similar circumstances.\n\n\"Halloh!\" he shouted in a loud voice, \"Return your pistol to your belt,\nFray Ambrosio; I only want to talk with you.\"\n\n\"_Diavolo_!\" the monk said, \"the hour and moment are singularly chosen\nfor a friendly conversation, my good fellow.\"\n\n\"Time belongs to nobody,\" the stranger answered sententiously. \"I am\nobliged to choose that which I have at my disposal.\"\n\n\"That is true,\" the monk said as he quietly uncocked his pistol, though\nnot returning it to his belt. \"Who the deuce are you, and why are you so\nanxious to speak with me? Do you want to confess?\n\n\"Have you not recognised me yet, Fray Ambrosio? Must I tell you my name\nthat you may know with whom you have to deal?\"\n\n\"Needless, my good sir, needless; but how the deuce is it, Red Cedar,\nthat I meet you here! What can you have so pressing to communicate to\nme?\"\n\n\"You shall know if you will stop for a few moments and dismount.\"\n\n\"The deuce take you with your whims! Cannot you tell me that as well\ntomorrow! Night is getting on, my home is still some distance off and I\nam literally worn out.\"\n\n\"Bah! you will sleep capitally by the side of a ditch, where you could\nnot be more comfortable. Besides, what I have to say to you does not\nadmit of delay.\"\n\n\"You wish to make a proposal to me, then?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What about, if you please?\"\n\n\"About the affair we discussed this evening at the Paso.\"\n\n\"Why, I fancied we had settled all that, and you accepted my offer.\"\n\n\"Not yet, not yet, my master. That will depend on the conversation we\nare about to have, so you had better dismount and sit down quietly by my\nside; for if you don't do it, it will come to nothing.\"\n\n\"The deuce take people that change their minds every minute, and on whom\none cannot reckon more than on an old surplice!\" the monk growled with\nan air of annoyance, while, for all that, getting off his mule, which he\nfastened to a shrub.\n\nThe squatter did not seem to remark the chaplain's ill temper, and let\nhim sit down by his side without uttering a syllable.\n\n\"Here I am,\" the monk went on, so soon as he was seated. \"I really do\nnot know, Red Cedar, why I yield so easily to all your whims.\"\n\n\"Because you suspect that your interest depends on it: were it not for\nthat, you would not do so.\"\n\n\"Why talk thus in the open country, instead of going to your house,\nwhere we should be much more comfortable?\"\n\nRed Cedar shook his head in denial.\n\n\"No,\" he said; \"the open is better for what we have to talk about. Here\nwe need not fear listeners at out doors.\"\n\n\"That is true. Well, go on; I am listening.\"\n\n\"Hum! You insist upon my commanding the expedition you project?\"\n\n\"Of course. I have known you a long time. I am aware that you are a sure\nman, perfectly versed in Indian signs; for, if I am not mistaken, the\ngreater part of your life has been spent among them.\"\n\n\"Do not speak about what I have done? The question now concerns you, and\nnot me.\"\n\n\"How so?\"\n\n\"Good, good! Let me speak. You need me, so it is to my interest to make\nyou pay as dearly as I can for me.\"\n\n\"Eh?\" the monk muttered, as he made a grimace. \"I am not rich, gossip,\nas you are aware.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes; I know that, so soon as you have a few piastres or ounces,\nthe monte table strips you of them immediately.\"\n\n\"Hang it! I have always been unlucky at play.\"\n\n\"For that reason I do not intend asking you for money.\"\n\n\"Very good. If you have no designs on my purse we can easily come to an\nunderstanding. You may speak boldly.\"\n\n\"I hope that we shall easily understand one another, the mere so as the\nservice I expect from you is almost a mere nothing.\"\n\n\"Come to the point, Red Cedar: with your deuced way of twining your\nphrases together in the Indian way, you never make an end of it.\"\n\n\"You know that I have a deadly hatred against Don Miguel Zarate?\"\n\n\"I have heard some say about it. Did he not lodge his knife somewhere in\nyour chest?\"\n\n\"Yes, and the blow was so rude that I all but died of it; but, thanks to\nthe devil, I am on my legs again, after remaining three weeks on my back\nlike a cast sheep. I want my revenge.\"\n\n\"I can't help saying you are right: in your place, may Satan twist my\nneck if I would not do the same!\"\n\n\"For that I count on your help.\"\n\n\"Hum! that is a delicate affair. I have no cause of complaint against\nDon Miguel--on the contrary: besides, I do not see how I can serve you.\"\n\n\"Oh! very easily.\"\n\n\"You believe so?\"\n\n\"You shall see.\"\n\n\"Go on, then; I am listening.\"\n\n\"Don Miguel has a daughter?\"\n\n\"Dona Clara.\"\n\n\"I mean to carry her off.\"\n\n\"Deuce take the mad ideas that pass through your brain-pan, gossip! How\nwould you have me help you in carrying off the daughter of Don Miguel,\nto whom I owe so many obligations? No, I cannot do that, indeed.\"\n\n\"You must, though.\"\n\n\"I will not, I tell you.\"\n\n\"Measure your words well, Fray Ambrosio, for this conversation is\nserious. Before refusing so peremptorily to give me the help I ask,\nreflect well.\"\n\n\"I have reflected well, Red Cedar, and never will I consent to help you\nin carrying off the daughter of my benefactor. Say what you like,\nnothing will ever change my resolution on that head, for it is\ninflexible.\"\n\n\"Perhaps.\"\n\n\"Oh! Whatever may happen, I swear that nothing will make me alter.\"\n\n\"Swear not, Fray Ambrosio, for you will be a perjurer.\"\n\n\"Ta, ta, ta! You are mad, my good fellow. Don't let us waste our time.\nIf you have nothing else to say to me, I will leave you, though I take\nsuch pleasure in your society.\"\n\n\"You have become scrupulous all of a sudden, my master.\"\n\n\"There is a beginning to everything, compadre; so let us say no more,\nbut good-bye.\"\n\nAnd the monk rose.\n\n\"You are really going?\"\n\n\"_Caray_! Do you fancy I mean to sleep here?\"\n\n\"Very good. You understand that you need not count on me for your\nexpedition?\"\n\n\"I am sorry for it; but I will try to find someone to take your place.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\nThe two men were standing, and the monk had put his foot in the stirrup.\nRed Cedar also appeared ready to make a start. At the moment of\nseparation a sudden idea seemed to occur to the squatter.\n\n\"By the way,\" he said carelessly, \"be kind enough to give me some\ninformation I require.\"\n\n\"What is it now?\" the monk asked.\n\n\"Oh! a mere trifle,\" the squatter remarked indifferently. \"It concerns a\ncertain Don Pedro de Tudela, whom I think you formerly knew.\"\n\n\"Eh!?\" the monk exclaimed, as he turned, with his leg still in the air.\n\n\"Come, come, Fray Ambrosio,\" Red Cedar continued in a jeering voice,\n\"let us have a little more talk together. I will tell you, if you like,\na very remarkable story about this Don Pedro, with whom you were\nacquainted.\"\n\nThe monk was livid; a nervous tremor agitated all his limbs; he let\nloose his mule's bridle, and followed the squatter mechanically, who\nseated himself tranquilly on the ground, making him a sign to follow his\nexample. The monk fell, suppressing a sigh, and wiping away the drops of\ncold perspiration that beaded on his forehead.\n\n\"Eh, eh!\" the squatter continued at the end of a moment, \"we must allow\nthat Don Pedro was a charming gentleman--a little wild, perhaps; but\nwhat would you have? He was young. I remember meeting him at Albany a\nlong time ago--some sixteen or seventeen years ago--how old one\ngets!--at the house of one--wait awhile, the name has slipped my\nmemory--could you not help me to it, Fray Ambrosio?\"\n\n\"I do not know what you mean,\" the monk said in a hollow voice.\n\nThe man was in a state that would have produced pity; the veins in his\nforehead were swollen ready to burst; he was choking; his right hand\nclutched the hilt of his dagger; and he bent on the squatter a glance\nfull of deadly hatred. The latter seemed to see nothing of all this.\n\n\"I have it!\" he continued. \"The man's name was Walter Brunnel, a very\nworthy gentleman.\"\n\n\"Demon!\" the monk howled in a gasping voice, \"I know not who made you\nmaster of that horrible secret, but you shall die.\"\n\nAnd he rushed upon him, dagger in hand.\n\nRed Cedar had known Fray Ambrosio a long time, and was on his guard. By\na rapid movement he checked his arm, twisted it, and seized the dagger,\nwhich he threw a long distance off.\n\n\"Enough,\" he said in a harsh voice. \"We understand one another, my\nmaster. Do not play that game with me, for you will be sick of it, I\nwarn you.\"\n\nThe monk fell back on his seat, without the strength to make a sign or\nutter a syllable. The squatter regarded him for a moment with mingled\npity and contempt and shrugged his shoulders.\n\n\"For sixteen years I have held that secret,\" he said, \"and it has never\npassed my lips. I will continue to keep silence on one condition.\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"I want you to help me in carrying off the hacendero's daughter.\"\n\n\"I will do it.\"\n\n\"Mind, I expect honest assistance; so do not attempt any treachery.\"\n\n\"I will help you, I tell you.\"\n\n\"Good! I count on your word. Besides you may be easy, master; I will\nwatch you.\"\n\n\"Enough of threats. What is to be done?\"\n\n\"When do we start for Apacheria?\"\n\n\"You are coming, then?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\nA sinister smile played round the monk's pale lips.\n\n\"We shall start in a week,\" he said.\n\n\"Good! On the day of the start you will hand over the girl to me, one\nhour before our departure.\"\n\n\"What shall I do to compel her to follow me?\"\n\n\"That is not my business.\"\n\n\"Still--\"\n\n\"I insist.\"\n\n\"Be it so,\" the monk said with an effort. \"I will do it; but remember,\ndemon, if I ever hold you in my hands, as I am this day in yours, I\nshall be pitiless and make you pay for all I suffer at this moment.\"\n\n\"You will be right to do so--it is your due; still I doubt whether you\nwill ever be able to reach me.\"\n\n\"Perhaps.\"\n\n\"Live and learn. In the meanwhile I am your master, and I reckon on your\nobedience.\"\n\n\"I will obey.\"\n\n\"That is settled. Now, one thing more; how many men have you enlisted\nthis evening?\"\n\n\"About twenty.\"\n\n\"That's not many; but, with the sixty I shall supply, we shall have a\nvery decent band to hold the Indians in check.\"\n\n\"May Heaven grant it!\"\n\n\"Don't be alarmed, my master,\" the squatter said, re-assuming the\nfriendly tone which he employed at the outset of the conversation; \"I\npledge myself, to lead you straight to your placer. I have not lived ten\nyears with the Indians not to be up to all their tricks.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" the monk answered as he rose, \"You know, Red Cedar, what\nwas agreed upon; the placer will be shared between us. It is, therefore,\nto your interest to enable us to reach it without obstacle.\"\n\n\"We shall reach it. Now that we have nothing more to say to each other\nand have agreed on all points--for we have done so, I think?\" he said\nsignificantly.\n\n\"Yes, all.\"\n\n\"We can part, and go each home. No matter, my master! I told you that I\nshould succeed in making you alter your mind. Look you, Fray Ambrosio,\"\nhe added in impudent tone, which made the monk turn pale with rage;\n\"people need only to understand one another to do anything.\"\n\nHe rose, threw his rifle over his shoulder, and turning away sharply,\nwent off with lengthened strides. The monk remained for a moment as if\nstunned by what had happened. Suddenly he thrust his hand under his\ngown, seized a pistol, and aimed at the squatter. But ere he had time to\npull the trigger his enemy disappeared round a turning, uttering a\nformidable burst of laughter, which the mocking echo bore to his ear,\nand revealed to him all the immensity of his impotence.\n\n\"Oh!\" he muttered as he got in the saddle, \"How did this fiend discover\nthe secret which I believed no one knew?\"\n\nAnd he went off gloomy and thoughtful. Half an hour later he reached the\nHacienda de la Noria, when the gate was opened for him by a trusty peon,\nfor everybody was asleep. It was past midnight.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII.\n\nEL CANYON DEL BUITRE.\n\n\nWe will now return to the hacendero, who, accompanied by his two\nfriends, is galloping at full speed in the direction of Valentine's\njacal. The road the three men followed led them further and further from\nthe Paso del Norte. Around them nature grew more abrupt, the scenery\nsterner. They had left the forest, and were galloping over a wide and\narid plain. On each side of the way the trees, becoming rarer, defiled\nlike a legion of phantoms. They crossed several tributary streams of the\nDel Norte, in which their horses were immersed up to the chest.\n\nAt length they entered a ravine deeply imbedded between two wooded\nhills, the soil of which, composed of large flat stones and rounded\npebbles, proved that this spot was one of those _desaguaderos_ which\nserve to carry off the waters in the rainy season. They had reached the\nCanyon del Buitre, so named on account of the numerous vultures\nconstantly perched on the tops of the surrounding hills.\n\nThe defile was deserted, and Valentine had his cabin not far from this\nspot. So soon as the three men had dismounted, Curumilla took the horses\nand led them to the jacal.\n\n\"Follow me,\" Valentine said to Don Miguel.\n\nThe latter obeyed, and the two men began then climbing the escarped\nflanks of the right hand hill. The climb was rude, for no road was\ntraced; but the two hunters, long accustomed to force a passage through\nthe most impracticable places, seemed hardly to perceive the difficulty\nof the ascent, which would have been impossible for men less used to a\ndesert life.\n\n\"This spot is really delicious,\" Valentine said with the complacent\nsimplicity of a landowner who boasts of his estate. \"If it were day, Don\nMiguel, you would enjoy from this spot a magnificent view. A few hundred\nyards from the place where we are, down there on that hill to the right,\nare the ruins of an ancient Aztec camp in a very fine state of\npreservation. Just imagine that this hill, carved by human hands, though\nyou cannot see it in the darkness, is of the shape of a pyramidal cone:\nits base is triangular, the sides are covered with masonry, and it is\ndivided into several terraces. The platform is about ninety yards long\nby seventy-five in width, and is surrounded on three sides by a\nplatform, and flanked by a bastion on the north. You see that it is a\nperfect fortress, constructed according to all the rules of military\nart. On the platform are the remains of a species of small teocali,\nabout twenty feet high, composed of large stones covered with\nhieroglyphics sculptured in relief, representing weapons, monsters,\nrabbits, crocodiles, and all sorts of things; for instance, men seated\nin the oriental fashion, and wearing spectacles. Is not that really\ncurious? This little monument, which has no staircase, doubtless served\nas the last refuge to the besieged when they were too closely\nbeleaguered by the enemy.\"\n\n\"It is astonishing,\" Don Miguel answered, \"that I never heard of these\nruins.\"\n\n\"Who knows them? Nobody. However, they bear a considerable likeness to\nthose found at Jochicalco.\"\n\n\"Where are you leading me, my friend? Are you aware that the road is not\none of the pleasantest, and I am beginning to feel tired?\"\n\n\"A little patience: in ten minutes we shall arrive. I am leading you to\na natural grotto which I discovered a short time back. It is admirable.\nIt is probable that the Spaniards were unacquainted with it, although\nthe Indians, to my knowledge, have visited it from time immemorial. The\nApaches imagine it serves as a palace to the genius of the mountain. At\nany rate, I was so struck by its beauty that I abandoned my jacal, and\nconverted it into my residence. Its extent is immense. I am certain,\nthough I never tried to convince myself, that it goes for more than ten\nleagues under ground. I will not allude to the stalactites that hang\nfrom the roof, and form the quaintest and most curious designs; but the\nthing that struck me is this: this grotto is divided into an infinite\nnumber of chambers, some of them containing pools in which swim immense\nnumbers of blind fish.\"\n\n\"Blind fish! You are jesting, my friend,\" Don Miguel exclaimed, and\nstopped.\n\n\"I am wrong: blind is not the word I should have employed, for these\nfish have no eyes.\"\n\n\"What! No eyes?\"\n\n\"None at all; but that does not prevent them being very dainty food.\"\n\n\"That is strange.\"\n\n\"Is it not? But stay--we have arrived.\"\n\nIn fact, they found themselves in front of a gloomy, gaping orifice,\nabout ten feet high by eight wide.\n\n\"Let me do the honours of my mansion,\" Valentine said.\n\n\"Do so, my friend.\"\n\nThe two men entered the grotto: the hunter struck a match, and lit a\ntorch of candlewood. The fairy picture which suddenly rose before Don\nMiguel drew from him a cry of admiration. There was an indescribable\nconfusion: here a gothic chapel, with its graceful soaring pillars;\nfurther on, obelisks, cones, trunks of trees covered with moss and\nacanthus leaves, hollow stalactites of a cylindrical form, drawn\ntogether and ranged side by side like the pipes of an organ, and\nyielding to the slightest touch varied metallic sounds which completed\nthe illusion. Then, in the immeasurable depths of these cavernous halls,\nat times formidable sounds arose, which, returned by the echoes, rolled\nalong the sides of the grotto like peals of thunder.\n\n\"Oh, it is grand, it is grand!\" Don Miguel exclaimed, struck with fear\nand respect at the sight.\n\n\"Does not man,\" Valentine answered, \"feel very small and miserable\nbefore these sublime creations of nature, which God has scattered here\nas if in sport? Oh, my friend! It is only in the desert that we\nunderstand the grandeur and infinite omnipotence of the Supreme Being;\nfor at every step man finds himself face to face with Him who placed him\non this earth, and traces the mark of His mighty finger engraved in an\nindelible manner on everything that presents itself to his sight.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Don Miguel said, who had suddenly become thoughtful, \"it is only\nin the desert that a man learns to know, love, and fear God, for He is\neverywhere.\"\n\n\"Come,\" said Valentine.\n\nHe led his friend to a hall of not more than twenty square feet, the\nvault of which, however, was more than a hundred yards above them. In\nthis hall a fire was lighted. The two men sat down on the ground and\nwaited, while thinking deeply. After a few moments the sound of\nfootsteps was audible, and the Mexican quickly raised his head.\nValentine did not stir, for he had recognised his friend's tread. In\nfact, within a moment the Indian chief appeared.\n\n\"Well?\" Valentine asked him.\n\n\"Nothing yet,\" Curumilla laconically answered.\n\n\"They are late, I fancy,\" Don Miguel observed.\n\n\"No,\" the chief continued, \"it is hardly half past eleven: we are before\nour time.\"\n\n\"But will they find us here?\"\n\n\"They know we shall await them in this hall.\"\n\nAfter these few words each fell back into his thoughts. The silence was\nonly troubled by the mysterious sounds of the grotto, which re-echoed\nnearly at equal intervals with an horrific din. A long period elapsed.\nAll at once, ere any sensible noise had warned Don Miguel, Valentine\nraised his head with a hurried movement.\n\n\"Here they are,\" he said.\n\n\"You are mistaken, my friend,\" Don Miguel observed; \"I heard nothing.\"\n\nThe hunter smiled.\n\n\"If you had spent,\" he said, \"like we have, ten years in the desert,\ninterrogating the mysterious voices of the night, your ear would be\nhabituated to the vague rumours and sighs of nature which have no meaning\nto you at this moment, but which have all a significance for me, and, so\nto speak, a voice every note of which I understand, and you would not\nsay I was mistaken. Ask the chief: you will hear his answer.\"\n\n\"Two men are climbing the hill at this moment,\" Curumilla answered\nsententiously. \"They are an Indian and a white man.\"\n\n\"How can you recognise the distinction?\"\n\n\"Very easily,\" Valentine responded with a smile. \"The Indian wears\nmoccasins, which touch the ground without producing any other sound than\na species of friction: the step is sure and unhesitating, as taken by a\nman accustomed to walk in the desert, and only put down his foot firmly:\nthe white man wears high-heeled boots, which at each step produce a\ndistinct and loud sound; the spurs fastened to his boots give out a\ncontinuous metallic clink; the step is awkward and timid; at each moment\na stone or crumble of earth rolls away under the foot, which is only put\ndown hesitatingly. It is easy to see that the man thus walking is\naccustomed to a horse, and does not know the use of his feet. Stay! They\nare now entering the grotto: you will soon hear the signal.\"\n\nAt this moment the bark of the coyote was raised thrice at equal\nintervals. Valentine answered by a similar cry.\n\n\"Well, was I mistaken?\" he said.\n\n\"I know not what to think, my friend. What astonishes me most is that\nyou heard them so long before they arrived.\"\n\n\"The ground of this cave is an excellent conductor of sound,\" the hunter\nanswered simply: \"that is all the mystery.\"\n\n\"The devil!\" Don Miguel could not refrain from saying; \"You neglect\nnothing, I fancy.\"\n\n\"If a man wants to live in the desert he must neglect nothing: the\nsmallest things have their importance, and an observation carefully made\nmay often save a man's life.\"\n\nWhile these few words were being exchanged between the two friends the\nnoise of footsteps was heard drawing nearer and nearer. Two men\nappeared: one was Eagle-wing, the Chief of the Coras; the second,\nGeneral Ibanez.\n\nThe general was a man of about thirty-five, tall and well-built, with a\ndelicate and intelligent face. His manners were graceful and noble. He\nbowed cordially to the hacendero and Valentine, squeezed Curumilla's\nhand, and fell down in a sitting posture by the fire.\n\n\"Ouf!\" he said, \"I am done, gentlemen. I have just ridden an awful\ndistance. My poor horse is foundered, and to recover myself I made an\nascent, during which I thought twenty times I must break down; and that\nwould have infallibly happened, had not friend Eagle-wing charitably\ncome to my aid. I must confess that these Indians climb like real cats:\nwe _gente de razon_[1] are worth nothing for that trade.\"\n\n\"At length you have arrived, my friend,\" Don Miguel answered. \"Heaven be\npraised! I was anxious to see you.\"\n\n\"For my part I confess that my impatience was equally lively, especially\nsince I learned the treachery of that scoundrelly Red Cedar. That humbug\nof a Wood sent him to me with so warm a recommendation that, in spite of\nall my prudence, I let myself be taken in, and nearly told him all our\nsecrets. Unfortunately, the little I did let him know is sufficient to\nhave us shot a hundred times like vulgar conspirators of no\nconsequence.\"\n\n\"Do not feel alarmed, my friend. After what. Valentine told me today, we\nhave, perchance, a way of foiling the tricks of the infamous spy who has\ndenounced us.\"\n\n\"May Heaven grant it! But nothing will remove my impression that Wood\nhas something to do with what has happened to us. I always doubted that\nAmerican, who is cold as an iceberg, sour as a glass of lemonade, and\nmethodical as a Quaker. What good is to be expected from these men, who\ncovet the possession of our territory, and who, unable to take it from\nus at one lump, tear it away in parcels?\"\n\n\"Who knows, my friend? Perhaps you are right. Unfortunately, what is\ndone cannot be helped, and our retrospective recriminations will do us\nno good.\"\n\n\"That is true; but, as you know, man is the same everywhere. When he has\ncommitted a folly he is happy to find a scapegoat on which he can lay\nthe iniquities with which he reproaches himself. That is slightly my\ncase at this moment.\"\n\n\"Do not take more blame on yourself, my friend, than you deserve; I\nguarantee your integrity and the loyalty of your sentiments. Whatever\nmay happen, be persuaded that I will always do you justice, and, if\nneeded, defend you against all.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Don Miguel. What you say causes me pleasure and reconciles me\nwith myself. I needed the assurance you give me in order to regain some\nslight courage, and not let myself be completely crushed by the\nunforeseen blow which threatens to overthrow our hopes at the very\nmoment when we expected to find them realised.\"\n\n\"Come, come, gentlemen,\" Valentine said, \"the time is slipping away, and\nwe have none to waste. Let us seek to find the means by which to repair\nthe check we have suffered. If you permit me I will submit to your\napproval a plan which, I believe, combines all the desirable chances of\nsuccess, and will turn in our favour the very treachery to which we have\nfallen victims.\"\n\n\"Speak, speak, my friend!\" the two men exclaimed, as they prepared to\nlisten.\n\nValentine took the word.\n\n\n[1] Literally, \"men of reason\"--a graceful expression the whites employ\nto distinguish themselves from the Indians, whom they affect to consider\nbrute beasts, and to whom they do not even grant a soul.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII.\n\nFATHER SERAPHIN.\n\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" said Valentine, \"this is what I propose. The treachery of\nRed Cedar, in surrendering to the Government the secret of your\nconspiracy, places you in a critical position, from which you cannot\nescape save by violent measures. You are between life and death. You\nhave no alternative save victory or defeat. The powder is fired, the\nground is mined under your feet, and an explosion is imminent. Well,\nthen, pick up the glove treachery throws to you--accept frankly the\nposition offered you. Do not wait till you are attacked, but commence\nthe contest. Remember the vulgar adage, which is perfectly true in\npolitics, and specially in revolution--that 'the first blow is half the\nbattle.' Your enemies will be terrified by your boldness--dashed by this\nuprising which they are far from expecting, especially now, when they\nimagine they hold in their hands all the threads of the conspiracy--an\nerror which makes them put faith in the revelations of a common spy, and\nwill ruin them if you act with skill--above all, with promptitude. All\ndepends on the first blow. It must be terrible, and terrify them: if\nnot, you are lost.\"\n\n\"All that is true; but we lack time,\" General Ibanez observed.\n\n\"Time is never lacking when a man knows how to employ it properly,\"\nValentine answered peremptorily. \"I repeat, you must be beforehand with\nyour adversaries.\"\n\nAt this moment the sound of footsteps was heard under the vault of the\ncave. The most extreme silence at once reigned in the chamber where the\nfive conspirators were assembled. Mechanically each sought his weapons.\nThe steps rapidly approached, and a man appeared in the entrance of the\nhall. On seeing him all present uttered a cry of joy and rose\nrespectfully, repeating, \"Father Seraphin!\"\n\nThe man advanced smiling, bowed gracefully, and answered in a gentle and\nmelodious voice, which went straight to the soul,--\n\n\"Take your places again, gentlemen, I beg of you. I should be truly\nvexed if I caused you any disturbance. Permit me only to sit down for a\nfew moments by your side.\"\n\nThey hastened to make room for him. Let us say in a few words who this\nperson was, whose unexpected arrival caused so much pleasure to the\npeople assembled in the grotto.\n\nFather Seraphin was a man of twenty-four at the most, although the\nfatigues he supported, the harsh labours he had imposed on himself, and\nwhich he fulfilled with more than apostolic abnegation, had left\nnumerous traces on his face, with its delicate features, its gentle and\nfirm expression, imprinted with a sublime melancholy, rendered even more\ntouching by the beam of ineffable goodness which escaped from his large,\nblue and thoughtful eyes. His whole person, however, exhaled a perfume\nof youth and health which disguised his age, as to which a superficial\nobserver might have been easily deceived.\n\nFather Seraphin was a Frenchman, and belonged to the order of the\nLazarists. For five years he had been traversing as an indefatigable\nmissionary, with no other weapon than his staff, the unexplored\nsolitudes of Texas and New Mexico, preaching the gospel to the Indians,\nwhile caring nothing for the terrible privations and nameless sufferings\nhe incessantly endured, and the death constantly suspended over his\nhead.\n\nFather Seraphin was one of those numerous soldiers, ignored martyrs of\nthe army of faith, who, making a shield of the Gospel, spread at the\nperil of their lives the word of God in those barbarous countries, and\ndie heroically, falling bravely on their battlefield, worn out by the\npainful exigencies of their sublime mission, aged at thirty, but having\ngained over a few souls to the truth, and shed light among the ignorant\nmasses.\n\nThe abnegation and devotion of these modest men, yet so great in heart,\nare too much despised in France, where however, the greater number of\nthese martyrs are recruited. Their sacrifices pass unnoticed; for, owing\nto the false knowledge possessed of beyond-sea countries, people are far\nfrom suspecting the continual struggles they have to sustain against a\ndeadly climate. And who would credit it? The most obstinate adversaries\nthey meet with in the accomplishment of their mission are not among the\nIndians, who always nearly welcome them with respect, if not joy, but\namong the men whom their labours benefit, and who ought to aid and\nprotect them with all their might. There is no vexation or humiliation\nwhich they do not endure from the agents of Mexico and the American\nUnion, to try and disgust and compel them to abandon the arena in which\nthey combat so nobly.\n\nFather Seraphin had gained the friendship and respect of all those with\nwhom accident had brought him into contact. Charmed with meeting a\nfellow countryman in the midst of those vast solitudes so distant from\nthat France he never hoped to see again, he had attached himself closely\nto Valentine, to whom he vowed a deep and sincere affection. For the\nsame motives, the hunter, who admired the greatness of character of this\npriest so full of true religion, felt himself drawn to him by an\nirresistible liking. They had frequently taken long journeys together,\nthe hunter guiding his friend to the Indian tribes across the desolate\nregions of Apacheria.\n\nSo soon as Father Seraphin had taken his place near the fire, Eagle-wing\nand Curumilla hastened to offer him all those slight services which they\nfancied might be agreeable to him, and offered him a few lumps of roast\nvenison with maize tortillas. The missionary gladly gratified the two\nchiefs, and accepted their offerings.\n\n\"It is a long time since we saw you, father,\" the hacendero said. \"You\nneglect us. My daughter asked me about you only two days ago, for she is\nanxious to see you.\"\n\n\"Dona Clara is an angel who does not require me,\" the missionary replied\ngently. \"I have spent nearly two months with the Comanche tribe of the\nTortoise. Those poor Indians claim all my care. They are thirsting for\nthe Divine Word.\"\n\n\"Are you satisfied with your journey?\"\n\n\"Sufficiently so, for these men are not such as they are represented to\nus. Their instincts are noble, and, as their primitive nature is not\nadulterated by contact with the vicious civilization that surrounds\nthem, they easily understood what is explained to them.\"\n\n\"Do you reckon on staying long among us?\"\n\n\"Yes; this last journey has fatigued me extremely. My health is in a\ndeplorable state, and I absolutely need a few days' rest in order to\nregain the requisite strength to continue my ministry.\"\n\n\"Well, father, come with me to the hacienda; you will remain with us,\nand make us all truly happy.\"\n\n\"I am going to make that request to you, Don Miguel. I am delighted that\nyou have thus met my wishes. If I accept your obliging offer, it is\nbecause I know I shall not incommode you.\"\n\n\"On the contrary, we shall be delighted to have you among us.\"\n\n\"Ah! I know the goodness of your heart.\"\n\n\"Do not make me better than I am, father: there is a spice of egotism in\nwhat I am doing.\"\n\n\"How so?\"\n\n\"Hang it! By labouring at the education of the Indians you render an\nimmense service to the race I have the honor of belonging to; for I,\ntoo, am an Indian.\"\n\n\"That is true,\" the priest answered with a laugh. \"Come, I absolve you\nfrom the sin of egotism, in favour of the intention which makes you\ncommit it.\"\n\n\"Father,\" Valentine then said, \"is the game plentiful in the desert just\nat present?\"\n\n\"Yes, there is a great deal: the buffaloes have come down from the\nmountains in herds--the elks, the deer, and the antelopes swarm.\"\n\nValentine rubbed his hands.\n\n\"It will be a good season,\" he said.\n\n\"Yes, for you. As for myself, I have no cause of complaint, for the\nIndians have been most attentive to me.\"\n\n\"All the better. I ever tremble when I know you are among those red\ndevils. I do not say that of the Comanches, who are warriors I esteem,\nand have always displayed the sincerest affection for you; but I have a\nterrible fear lest those villains of Apaches may play you a wicked trick\nsome fine day.\"\n\n\"Why entertain such ideas, my friend?\"\n\n\"They are correct. You cannot imagine what treacherous and cruel cowards\nthose Apache thieves are. I know them, and carry their marks; but do not\nfrighten yourself. If ever they ventured on any extremities against you,\nI know the road to their villages: there is not a nook in the desert\nwhich I have not thoroughly explored. It is not for nothing I have\nreceived the name of the 'Trail-hunter.' I swear to you I will not leave\nthem a scalp.\"\n\n\"Valentine, you know I do not like to hear you speak so. The Indians are\npoor ignorant men, who know not what they do, and must be pardoned for\nthe evil they commit.\"\n\n\"All right--all right!\" the hunter growled. \"You have your ideas on that\nscore, and I mine.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the missionary replied with a smile, \"but I believe mine be\nbetter.\"\n\n\"It is possible. You know I do not discuss that subject with you; for I\ndo not know how you do it, but you always succeed in proving to me that\nI am wrong.\"\n\nEverybody laughed at this sally.\n\n\"And what are the Indians doing at this moment?\" Valentine continued.\n\"Are they still fighting?\"\n\n\"No; I succeeded in bringing Unicorn, the principal chief of the\nComanches, and Stanapat (the Handful of Blood), the Apache sachem, to an\ninterview, at which peace was sworn.\"\n\n\"Hum!\" Valentine said incredulously, \"that peace will not last long, for\nUnicorn has too many reasons to owe the Apaches a grudge.\"\n\n\"Nothing leads to the supposition, at present, that your forebodings\nwill be speedily realised.\"\n\n\"Why so?\"\n\n\"Because, when I left Unicorn, he was preparing for a grand buffalo\nhunt, in which five hundred picked warriors were to take part.\"\n\n\"Ah, ah! and where do you think the hunt will take place, father?\"\n\n\"I know for a certainty, because, when I left Unicorn, he begged me to\ninvite you to it, as he knew I should see you shortly.\"\n\n\"I willingly accept, for a buffalo hunt always had great attractions for\nme.\"\n\n\"You will not have far to go to find Unicorn, for he is scarce ten\nleagues from this place.\"\n\n\"The hunt will take place, then, in the neighbourhood?\"\n\n\"The meeting-place is Yellowstone Plain.\"\n\n\"I shall not fail to be there, father. Ah! I am delighted, more than you\ncan suppose, at the happy news you have brought me.\"\n\n\"All the better, my friend. Now, gentlemen, I will ask you to excuse me;\nfor I feel so broken with fatigue that, with your permission, I will go\nand take a few hours' rest.\"\n\n\"I was a fool not to think of it before,\" Valentine exclaimed with\nvexation as he struck his forehead. \"Pardon me, father.\"\n\n\"I thought for my brother,\" said Curumilla. \"If my father will follow me\nall is ready.\"\n\nThe missionary thanked him with a smile and rose, bowed to all present,\nand supported by Eagle-wing, he followed Curumilla into another chamber\nof the grotto. Father Seraphin found a bed of dry leaves covered with\nbear skins, and a fire so arranged as to burn all night. The two Indians\nretired after bowing respectfully to the father, and assuring themselves\nthat he needed nothing more.\n\nAfter kneeling on the ground of the grotto Father Seraphin laid himself\non his bed of leaves, crossed his arms on his chest, and fell into that\nchildlike sleep which only the just enjoy. After his departure Valentine\nbent over to his two friends.\n\n\"All is saved,\" he said in a low voice.\n\n\"How? Explain yourself,\" they eagerly answered.\n\n\"Listen to me. You will spend the night here; at daybreak you will start\nfor the Hacienda de la Noria, accompanied by Father Seraphin.\"\n\n\"Good! What next?\"\n\n\"General Ibanez will proceed, as from you, to the governor, and invite\nhim to a grand hunt of wild horses, to take place in three days.\"\n\n\"I do not understand what you are driving at.\"\n\n\"That is not necessary at this moment. Let me guide you; but, above all,\narrange it so that all the authorities of the town accept your\ninvitation and are present at the hunt.\"\n\n\"That I take on myself.\"\n\n\"Very good. You, general, will collect all the men you can, so that they\ncan support you on a given signal, but hide themselves so that no one\ncan suspect their presence.\"\n\n\"Very good,\" Don Miguel answered; \"all shall be done as you recommend.\nBut where will you be all this while?\"'\n\n\"You know very well,\" he answered with a smile of undefinable meaning.\n\"I shall be hunting the buffalo with my friend Unicorn, the great chief\nof the Comanches.\"\n\nHastily breaking off the interview, the hunter wrapped himself in his\nbuffalo robe, stretched himself before the fire, closed his eyes, and\nslept, or feigned to sleep. After a few minutes' hesitation his friend\nimitated his example, and the grotto became calm and silent as on the\nday of the creation.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX.\n\nUNICORN.\n\n\nBefore retiring to rest Father Seraphin, on the previous evening, had\nwhispered a couple of words in the Indians' ears. The sun had scarce\nbegun to rise a little above the extreme blue line of the horizon ere\nthe missionary opened his eyes, and after a short prayer hurried to the\nhall in which his companions had remained. The four men were still\nasleep, wrapped in their furs and buffalo skins.\n\n\"Wake up, brothers,\" Father Seraphin said, \"for day is appearing.\"\n\nThe four men started up in an instant.\n\n\"My brothers,\" the young missionary said in a gentle and penetrating\nvoice, \"I thought that we ought, before separating, to thank God in\ncommon: for the blessings He does not cease to vouchsafe to us--to\ncelebrate our happy meeting of last night. I have, therefore, resolved\nto hold a mass, at which I shall be happy to see you with that purity of\nheart which such a duty demands.\"\n\nAt this proposition the four men exclaimed gladly their assent.\n\n\"I will help you to prepare the altar, father,\" Valentine said; \"the\nidea is excellent.\"\n\n\"The altar is all ready, my friends. Have the kindness to follow me.\"\n\nFather Seraphin then led them out of the grotto.\n\nIn the centre of a small esplanade in front of the cave an altar had\nbeen built by Eagle-wing and Curumilla on a grassy mound. It was very\nsimple. A copper crucifix planted in the centre of the mound, covered by\na cloth of dazzling whiteness; on either side of it two block-tin\ncandlesticks, in which burned candles of yellow tallow, a Bible on the\nright, the pyx in the centre--that was all.\n\nThe hunter and the two Mexicans knelt piously, and Father Seraphin\ncommenced offering the holy sacrifice, served devotedly by the two\nIndian chiefs.\n\nIt was a magnificent morning; thousands of birds, hidden beneath the\nfoliage, saluted the birth of day with their harmonious songs; a fickle\nbreeze poured through the branches, and refreshed the air; in the\ndistance, far as eye could extend, undulated the prairie, with its\noceans of tall grass incessantly agitated by the hurried foot falls of\nthe wild beasts returning to their dens; and on the naked side of this\nhill, at the entrance of this grotto--one of the marvels of the New\nWorld--a priest, simple as an apostle, was celebrating mass on a grass\naltar under the eye of Heaven, served by two poor savages, and having as\nsole congregation three half-civilised men.\n\nThis spectacle, so simple primitive, had something about it imposing and\nsublime, which inspired respect and summoned up dreams of ancient days,\nwhen the persecuted church took refuse in the desert, to find itself\nface to face with God. Hence the emotion experienced by the witnesses of\nthis religious act was sincere. A beam of happiness descended into their\nsouls, and it was with real effusion that they thanked the priest for\nthe pleasant surprise he had reserved for them. Father Seraphin was\ndelighted at the result he had attained. Seeing the truly profound faith\nof his friends, he felt his courage heightened to continue the rude and\nnoble task he had imposed on himself.\n\nThe mass lasted about three quarters of an hour. When it was finished\nthe missionary placed the poor holy vessels in the bag he constantly\ncarried with him, and they returned to the grotto for breakfast. An hour\nlater, Don Miguel, General Ibanez, and the missionary took leave of\nValentine, and mounted on their horses, which Curumilla had led to the\nentrance of the ravine. They started at a gallop in the direction of the\nPaso del Norte, whence they were about twenty leagues distant. Valentine\nand the two Indian chiefs remained behind.\n\n\"I am about to leave my brother,\" Eagle-wing said.\n\n\"Why not remain with us, chief?\"\n\n\"My pale brother no longer requires Eagle-wing. The chief hears the\ncries of the men and women of his tribe who were cowardly assassinated,\nand demand vengeance.\"\n\n\"Where goes my brother?\" the hunter asked, who was too thoroughly\nacquainted with the character of the Indians to try and change the\nwarrior's determination, though he was vexed at his departure.\n\n\"The Coras dwell in villages on the banks of the Colorado. Eagle-wing is\nreturning to his friends. He will ask for warriors to avenge his\nbrothers who are dead.\"\n\nValentine bowed.\n\n\"May the Great Spirit protect my father!\" he said. \"The road is long to\nthe villages of his tribe. The chief is leaving friends who love him.\"\n\n\"Eagle-wing knows it: he will remember,\" the chief said with a deep\nintonation.\n\nAnd, after pressing the hands the two hunters held out to him, he\nbounded on his horse, and soon disappeared in the windings of the\ncanyon.\n\nValentine watched his departure with a sad and melancholy look.\n\n\"Shall I ever see him again!\" he murmured. \"He is an Indian: he is\nfollowing his vengeance. It is his nature: he obeys it, and God will\njudge him. Every man must obey his destiny.\"\n\nAfter this aside the hunter threw his rifle on his shoulder and started\nin his turn, followed by Curumilla. Valentine and his comrade were on\nfoot: they preferred that mode of travelling, which seemed to them sure,\nand quite as quick as on horseback. The two men, after the Indian\ncustom, walked one behind the other, not uttering a syllable; but toward\nmidday the heat became so insupportable that they were obliged to stop\nto take a few moments' repose. At length the sunbeams lost their\nstrength, the evening breeze rose, and the hunters could resume their\njourney. They soon reached the banks of the Rio Puerco (Dirty River),\nwhich they began ascending, keeping as close as they could to the banks,\nwhile following the tracks made since time immemorial by wild animals\ncoming down to drink.\n\nThe man unacquainted with the splendid American scenery will have a\ndifficulty in imagining the imposing and savage majesty of the prairie\nthe hunters were traversing. The river, studded with islets covered with\ncottonwood trees, flowed silent and rapid between banks of slight\nelevation, and overgrown with grass so tall that it obeyed the impulse\nof the wind from a long distance. Over the vast plain were scattered\ninnumerable hills, whose summits, nearly all of the same height, present\na flat surface; and for a greater distance northward the ground was\nbroadcast with large lumps of pebbles resembling gravestones.\n\nAt a few hundred yards from the river rose a conical mound, bearing on\nits summit a granite obelisk one hundred and twenty feet in height. The\nIndians, who, like all primitive nations, are caught by anything\nstrange, frequently assembled at this spot; and here the hecatombs are\noffered to the Kitchi Manitou.\n\nA great number of buffalo skulls, piled up at the foot of the column,\nand arranged in circles, ellipses, and other geometrical figures, attest\ntheir piety for this god of the hunt, whose protecting spirit, they say,\nlooks down from the top of the monolith. Here and there grew patches of\nthe Indian potato, wild onion, prairie tomato, and those millions of\nstrange flowers and trees composing the American flora. The rest of the\ncountry was covered with tall grass, continually undulating beneath the\nlight footfall of the graceful antelopes or big horns, which bounded\nfrom one rock to the other, startled by the approach of the travellers.\n\nFar, far away on the horizon, mingling with the azure of the sky,\nappeared the denuded peaks of the lofty mountains that serve as\nunassailable fortresses to the Indians: their summits, covered with\neternal snow, formed the frame of this immense and imposing picture,\nwhich was stamped with a gloomy and mysterious grandeur.\n\nAt the hour when the _maukawis_ uttered its last song to salute the\nsetting of the sun, which, half plunged in the purple of evening, still\njaspered the sky with long red bands, the travellers perceived the tents\nof the Comanches picturesquely grouped on the sides of a verdurous hill.\nThe Indians had, in a few hours, improvised a real village with their\nbuffalo skin tents, aligned to form streets and squares.\n\nOn arriving at about five hundred yards from the village the hunters\nsuddenly perceived an Indian horseman. Evincing not the slightest\nsurprise, they stopped and unfolded their buffalo robes, which floated\nin the breeze, as a signal of peace. The horseman uttered a loud cry. At\nthis signal--for it was evidently one--a troop of Comanche warriors\ndebouched at a gallop from the village, and poured like a torrent down\nthe sides of the hill, coming up close to the motionless travellers,\nbrandishing their weapons, and uttering their war yell.\n\nThe hunters waited, carelessly leaning on their guns. Assuredly, to a\nman not acquainted with the singular manners of the prairie, this mode\nof reception would have seemed overt hostilities. But it was not so;\nfor, on coming within range of the hunters, the Comanches began making\ntheir horses leap and curvet with that grace and skill characteristic of\nthe Indians, and deploying to the right and left, they formed a vast\ncircle, inclosing the two unmoved hunters.\n\nThen a horseman quitted the group, dismounted, and rapidly approached\nthe newcomers: the latter hastened to meet him. All three had their arm\nextended with the palm forward in sign of peace. The Indian who thus\nadvanced to meet the hunters was Unicorn, the great chief of the\nComanches.\n\nAs a distinctive sign of his race, his skin was of a red tinge, brighter\nthan the palest new copper. He was a man of thirty at the most, with\nmasculine and expressive features; his face possessed a remarkable\nintelligence, and was stamped with that natural majesty found among the\nsavage children of the prairie; he was tall and well built; and his\nmuscular limbs evidenced a vigour and suppleness against which few men\nwould have contended with advantage.\n\nHe was completely painted and armed for war; his black hair was drawn up\non his head in the form of a casque, and fell down his back like a mane;\na profusion of wampum collars, claws of grizzly bear, and buffalo teeth\nadorned his breast, on which was painted with rare dexterity a blue\ntortoise, the distinctive sign of the tribe to which he belonged, and of\nthe size of a hand.\n\nThe rest of his costume was composed of the _mitasses_, fastened round\nthe hips by a leathern belt, and descending to the ankles; a deerskin\nshirt, with long hanging sleeves, the seams of which, like those of the\nmitasse, were fringed with leather strips and feathers; a wide cloak, of\nthe hide of a female buffalo, was fastened across his shoulders with a\nbuckle of pure gold, and fell down to the ground; on his feet he had\nelegant moccasins of different colours, embroidered with beads and\nporcupine quills, from the heels of which trailed several wolf tails; a\nlight round shield, covered with buffalo hide, and decorated with human\nscalps, hung on his left side by his panther skin quiver full of arrows.\nHis weapons were those of the Comanche Indians; that is to say, the\nscalping knife, the tomahawk, a bow, and an American rifle; but a long\nwhip, the handle of which painted red, was adorned with scalps,\nindicated his rank as chief.\n\nWhen the three men were close together they saluted by raising their\nhands to their foreheads; then Valentine and Unicorn crossed their arms\nby passing the right hand over the left shoulder, and bowing their heads\nat the same time, kissed each other's mouth after the prairie fashion.\nUnicorn then saluted Curumilla in the same way; and this preliminary\nceremony terminated, the Comanche chief took the word.\n\n\"My brothers are welcome at the village of my tribe,\" he said. \"I was\nexpecting them impatiently. I had begged the Chief of Prayer of the\npalefaces to invite them in my name.\"\n\n\"He performed his promise last night. I thank my brother for having\nthought of me.\"\n\n\"The two stranger great hunters are friends of Unicorn. His heart was\nsad not to see them near him for the buffalo hunt his young people are\npreparing.\"\n\n\"Here we are! We set out this morning at sunrise.\"\n\n\"My brothers will follow me, and rest at the council fire.\"\n\nThe hunters bowed assent. Each received a horse, and at a signal from\nUnicorn, who had placed himself between them, the troop started at a\ngallop, and returned to the village, which it entered to the deafening\nsound of drums, chikikouis, shouts of joy from the women and children\nwho saluted their return, and the furious barking of the dogs. When the\nchiefs were seated round the council fire the pipe was lit, and\nceremoniously presented to the two strangers, who smoked in silence for\nsome minutes. When the pipe had gone the round several times Unicorn\naddressed Valentine.\n\n\"Koutonepi is a great hunter,\" he said to him; \"he has often followed\nthe buffalo on the plains of the Dirty River. The chief will tell him\nthe preparations he has made, that the hunter may give his opinion.\"\n\n\"It is needless, chiefs,\" Valentine replied. \"The buffalo is the friend\nof the redskins: the Comanches know all its stratagems. I should like to\nask a question of my brother.\"\n\n\"The hunter can speak; my ears are open.\"\n\n\"How long will the chief remain on the hunting grounds with his young\nmen?\"\n\n\"About a week. The buffaloes are suspicious: my young men are\nsurrounding them, but they drive them in our direction before four or\nfive days.\"\n\nValentine gave a start of joy.\n\n\"Good,\" he said. \"Is my brother sure of it?\"\n\n\"Very sure.\"\n\n\"How many warriors have remained with the chief?\"\n\n\"About four hundred: the rest are scattered over the plain to announce\nthe approach of the buffaloes.\"\n\n\"Good! If my brother likes I will procure him a fine hunt within three\ndays.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" the chief exclaimed, \"then my brother has started some game?\"\n\n\"Oh!\" Valentine answered with a laugh, \"Let my brother trust to me, and\nI promise him rich spoils.\"\n\n\"Good! Of what game does my brother speak?\"\n\n\"Of _gachupinos_[1]. In two days they will meet in large numbers not far\nfrom here.\"\n\n\"Wah!\" said the Comanche, whose eyes sparkled at this news, \"My young\nmen will hunt them. My brother must explain.\"\n\nValentine shook his head.\n\n\"My words are for the ears of a chief,\" he said.\n\nWithout replying, Unicorn made a signal: the Indians rose silently, and\nleft the tent. Curumilla and Unicorn alone remained near the fire.\nValentine then explained to the Comanche, in its fullest details, the\nplan he had conceived, in the execution of which the aid of the Indians\nwas indispensable for him. Unicorn listened attentively without\ninterrupting. When Valentine had ended,--\n\n\"What does my brother think?\" the latter asked, fixing a scrutinising\nglance on the impassive countenance of the chief.\n\n\"Wah!\" the other replied, \"the paleface is very crafty. Unicorn will do\nwhat he desires.\"\n\nThis assurance filled Valentine's heart with joy.\n\n\n[1] Wearers of shoes--a name given by the Indians to the Spaniards at\nthe conquest.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX.\n\nTHE HUNT OF WILD HORSES.\n\n\nDon Miguel Zarate and his two friends did not reach the hacienda till\nlate. They were received in the porch by Don Pablo and Dona Clara, who\nmanifested great joy at the sight of the French missionary, for whom\nthey felt a sincere esteem and great friendship. Spite of all his care,\nFray Ambrosio had always seen his advances repelled by the young people,\nin whom he instinctively inspired that fear mingled with disgust that is\nexperienced at the sight of a reptile.\n\nDona Clara, who was very pious, carried this repulsion to such a pitch\nthat she only confessed her faults and approached the holy table when\nFather Seraphin came to spend a few days at the hacienda.\n\nFray Ambrosio was too adroit to appear to notice the effect his presence\nproduced on the hacendero's children: he feigned to attribute to\ntimidity and indifference on religious matters what was in reality a\nstrongly expressed loathing for himself personally. But in his heart a\ndull hatred fermented against the two young folk, and especially against\nthe missionary, whom he had several times already attempted to destroy\nby well-laid snares.\n\nFather Seraphin had always escaped them by a providential chance; but in\nspite of the chaplain's obsequious advances, and the offers of service\nhe did not fail to overwhelm him with each time they met, the missionary\nhad thoroughly read the Mexican monk. He had guessed what fearful\ncorruption was hidden beneath his apparent simplicity and feigned piety:\nand while keeping to himself the certainty he had acquired, he remained\non his guard, and carefully watched this man, whom he suspected of\nincessantly planning some dark treachery against him. Don Miguel left\nhis children with the missionary, who immediately took possession of him\nand dragged him away, lavishing on him every possible attention. The\nhacendero retired to his study with General Ibanez, when the two men\ndrew up a list of the persons they intended to invite; that is to say,\nthe persons Valentine proposed to get out of the way, though they were\ninnocent of his scheme. The general then mounted his horse, and rode off\nto deliver the invitations personally. For his part Don Miguel sent off\na dozen peons and vaqueros in search of the wild horses, and to drive\nthem gradually toward the spot chosen for the hunt.\n\nGen. Ibanez succeeded perfectly: the invitations were gladly accepted,\nand the next evening the guests began arriving at the hacienda, Don\nMiguel receiving them with marks of the most profound respect and lavish\nhospitality.\n\nThe governor, General Isturitz, Don Luciano Perez, and seven or eight\npersons of inferior rank were soon assembled at the hacienda. At sunrise\na numerous party, composed of forty persons, left the hacienda, and\nproceeded, accompanied by a crowd of well-mounted peons, towards the\nmeet. This was a vast plain on the banks of the Rio del Norte, where the\nwild horses were accustomed to graze at this season. The caravan\nproduced the most singular and picturesque effect with the brilliant\ncostumes of the persons who composed it, and their horses glittering\nwith gold and silver. Starting at about four a.m. from the hacienda,\nthey reached four hours later a clump of trees, beneath whose shade\ntents had been raised and tables laid by Don Miguel's orders, so that\nthey might breakfast before the hunt.\n\nThe riders, who had been journeying for four hours, already exposed to\nthe rays of the sun and the dust, uttered a shout of joy at the sight of\nthe tents. Each dismounted: the ladies were invited to do the same,\namong them being the wives of the governor and General Isturitz, and\nDona Clara, and they gaily sat down round the tables.\n\nToward the end of the breakfast Don Pablo arrived, who had started the\nevening previously to join the vaqueros. He announced that the horses\nhad been started, that a large manada was now crossing the Plain of the\nCoyotes, watched by the vaqueros, and that they must make haste if they\nwished to have good sport. This news augmented the ardor of the hunters.\nThe ladies were left in camp under the guard of a dozen well-armed\npeons, and the whole party rushed at a gallop in the direction indicated\nby Don Pablo.\n\nThe Plain of the Coyotes extended for an enormous distance along the\nbanks of the river. Here and there rose wooded hills, which varied the\nlandscape that was rendered monotonous by the tall grass, in which the\nriders disappeared up to their waists. When the hunting party reached\nthe skirt of the plain Don Miguel ordered a halt, that they might hold a\ncouncil, and hear the report of the leader of the vaqueros.\n\nThe races of wild horses that nowadays people the deserts of North\nAmerica, and especially of Mexico, is descended from Cortez' cavalry.\nHence it is a pure breed, for at the period of the Spanish conquest only\nArab horses were employed. These horses have multiplied in really an\nextraordinary manner. It is not rare to meet with manadas of twenty and\neven thirty thousand head. They are small, but gifted with an energy and\nvigour of which it is impossible to form a fair idea without having seen\nthem. They accomplish without fatigue journeys of prodigious length.\nTheir coat is the same as that of other horses, save that during winter\nit grows very long, and frizzy like the wool of sheep. In spring this\nspecies of fur falls off. The American horses may be easily trained.\nGenerally, so soon as they find themselves caught they easily submit to\nthe saddle.\n\nThe Mexicans treat their steeds very harshly, make them journey the\nwhole day without food or drink, and only give them their ration of\nmaize and water on reaching the bivouac, where they let them wander\nabout the whole night under guard of the _nena_, a mare whose bell the\nhorses follow, and will never leave. It is not from any cruel motive,\nhowever, that the Mexicans treat their horses thus, for the riders are\nvery fond of their animals, which at a given moment may save their\nlives. But it seems that this mode of treatment, which would be\nimpracticable in Europe, is perfectly successful in Mexico, where the\nhorses are much better off than if treated in a more gentle way.\n\nThe leader of the vaqueros made his report. A manada of about ten\nthousand head was two leagues off on the plain, quietly grazing in the\ncompany of a few elks and buffaloes. The hunters scaled a hill, from the\ntop of which they easily saw on the horizon a countless mob of animals,\ngrouped in a most picturesque way, and apparently not at all suspecting\nthe danger that threatened them.\n\nTo hunt the wild horses men must be like the Mexicans, perfect centaurs.\nI have seen the _jinetes_ of that country accomplish feats of\nhorsemanship before which our Europeans would turn pale.\n\nAfter the vaquero's report Don Miguel and his friends held a council,\nand this is the resolution they came to. They formed what is called in\nMexico the grand circle of the wild horses; that is to say, the most\nskilful riders were echeloned in every direction at a certain distance\nfrom each other, so as to form an immense circle. The wild horses are\nextremely suspicious: their instinct is so great, their scent is so\nsubtle, that the slightest breath of wind is sufficient to carry to them\nthe smell of their enemies, and make them set off at headlong speed.\nHence it is necessary to act with the greatest prudence, and use many\nprecautions, if a surprise is desired.\n\nWhen all the preparations were made the hunters dismounted, and dragging\ntheir horses after them, glided through the tall grass so as to contract\nthe circle. This manoeuvre had gone on for some time, and they had\nsensibly drawn nearer, when the manada began to display some signs of\nrestlessness. The horses, which had hitherto grazed calmly, raised their\nheads, pricked their ears, and neighed as they inhaled the air. Suddenly\nthey collected, formed a compact band, and started at a trot in the\ndirection of some cottonwood trees which stood on the banks of the\nriver. The hunt was about to commence.\n\nAt a signal from Don Miguel six well-mounted vaqueros rushed at full\nspeed ahead of the manada, making their lassoes whistle round their\nheads. The horses, startled by the apparition of the riders, turned back\nhastily, uttering snorts of terror, and fled in another direction. But\neach time they tried to force the circle, horsemen rode into the midst\nof them, and compelled them to turn back.\n\nIt is necessary to have been present at such a chase, to have seen this\nhunt on the prairies, to form an idea of the magnificent sight offered\nby all these noble brutes, their eyes afire, their mouths foaming, their\nheads haughtily thrown up, and their manes fluttering in the wind, as\nthey bounded and galloped in the fatal circle the hunters had formed\nround them. There is in such a sight something intoxicating, which\ncarries away the most phlegmatic, and renders them mad with enthusiasm\nand pleasure.\n\nWhen this manoeuvre had lasted long enough, and the horses began to grow\nblinded with terror, at a signal given by Don Miguel the circle was\nbroken at a certain spot. The horses rushed, with a sound like thunder,\ntoward this issue which opened before them, overturning with their\nchests everything that barred their progress. But it was this the\nhunters expected. The horses, in their mad race, galloped on without\ndreaming that the road they followed grew gradually narrower in front of\nthem, and terminated in inevitable captivity.\n\nLet us explain the termination of the hunt. The manada had been cleverly\nguided by the hunters toward the entrance of a canyon, or ravine, which\nran between two rather lofty hills. At the end of this ravine the\nvaqueros had formed, with stakes fifteen feet long, planted in the\nground, and firmly fastened together with cords of twisted bark, an\nimmense corral or inclosure, into which the horses rushed without seeing\nit. In less than no time the corral was full; then the hunters went to\nmeet the manada, which they cut off at the risk of their lives, while\nthe others closed the entrance of the corral. More than fifteen hundred\nmagnificent wild horses were thus captured at one stroke.\n\nThe noble animals rushed with snorts of fury at the walls of the\ninclosure, trying to tear up the stakes with their teeth, and dashing\nmadly against them. At length they recognised the futility of their\nefforts, lay down, and remained motionless. In the meanwhile a\ntremendous struggle was going on in the ravine between the hunters and\nthe rest of the manada. The horses confined in this narrow space made\nextraordinary efforts to open a passage and fly anew. They neighed,\nstamped, and flew at everything that came within their reach. At length\nthey succeeded in regaining their first direction, and rushed into the\nplain with the velocity of an avalanche. Several vaqueros had been\ndismounted and trampled on by the horses, and two of them had received\nsuch injuries that they were carried off the ground in a state of\ninsensibility.\n\nWith all the impetuosity of youth Don Pablo had rushed into the very\nheart of the manada. Suddenly his horse received a kick which broke its\noff foreleg, and it fell to the ground, dragging its rider with it. The\nhunters uttered a cry of terror and agony. In the midst of this band of\nmaddened horses the young man was lost, for he must be trampled to death\nunder their hoofs. But he rose with the rapidity of lightning, and quick\nas thought seizing the mane of the nearest horse, he leaped on its back,\nand held on by his knees. The horses were so pressed against one another\nthat any other position was impossible. Then a strange thing\noccurred--an extraordinary struggle between the horse and its rider. The\nnoble beast, furious at feeling its back dishonoured by the weight it\nbore, bounded, reared, rushed forward; but all was useless, for Don\nPablo adhered firmly.\n\nSo long as it was in the ravine, the horse, impeded by its comrades,\ncould not do all it might have wished to get rid of the burden it bore;\nbut so soon as it found itself on the plain it threw up its head, made\nseveral leaps on one side, and then started forward at a speed which\ntook away the young man's breath.\n\nDon Pablo held on firmly by digging his knees into the panting sides of\nhis steed; he unfastened his cravat, and prepared to play the last scene\nin this drama, which threatened to terminate in a tragic way for him.\nThe horse had changed its tactics; it was racing in a straight line to\nthe river, resolved to drown itself with its rider sooner than submit.\nThe hunters followed with an interest mingled with terror the moving\ninterludes of this mad race, when suddenly the horse changed its plans\nagain, reared, and tried to fall back with its rider. The hunters\nuttered a shout of agony. Don Pablo clung convulsively to his animal's\nneck, and, at the moment it was falling back, he threw his cravat over\nits eyes with extraordinary skill.\n\nThe horse, suddenly blinded, fell back again on its feet, and stood\ntrembling with terror. Then the young man dismounted, put his face to\nthe horse's head, and breathed into its nostrils, while gently\nscratching its forehead. This operation lasted ten minutes at the most,\nthe horse panting and snorting, but not daring to leave the spot. The\nMexican again leaped on the horse's back, and removed the bandage; it\nremained stunned--Don Pablo had tamed it[1]. Everybody rushed toward the\nyoung man, who smiled proudly, in order to compliment him on his\nsplendid victory. Don Pablo dismounted, gave his horse to a vaquero, who\nimmediately passed a bridle round its neck, and then walked toward his\nfather, who embraced him tenderly. For more than an hour Don Miguel had\ndespaired of his son's life.\n\n\n[1] This mode of taming horses is well known to the Indians, and we\nsubmit the fact to our readers without comment.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI.\n\nTHE SURPRISE.\n\n\nSo soon as the emotion caused by Don Pablo's prowess was calmed they\nbegan thinking about returning. The sun was rapidly descending in the\nhorizon: the whole day had been spent with the exciting incidents of the\nchase. The Hacienda de la Noria was nearly ten leagues distant: it was,\ntherefore, urgent to start as speedily as possible, unless the party\nwished to run the risk of bivouacking in the open air.\n\nThe men would easily have put up with this slight annoyance, which, in a\nclimate like that of New Mexico, and at this season of the year, has\nnothing painful about it; but they had ladies with them. Left one or two\nleagues in the rear, they must feel alarmed by the absence of the\nhunters--an absence which, as so frequently happens when out hunting,\nhad been protracted far beyond all expectation.\n\nDon Miguel gave the vaqueros orders to brand the captured horses with\nhis cipher; and the whole party then returned, laughing and singing, in\nthe direction of the tents where the ladies had been left. The vaqueros\nwho had served as beaters during the day remained behind to guard the\nhorses.\n\nIn these countries, where there is scarce any twilight, night succeeds\nthe day almost without transition. As soon as the sun had set the\nhunters found themselves in complete darkness; for, as the sun descended\non the horizon, the shade invaded the sky in equal proportions, and, at\nthe moment when the day planet disappeared, the night was complete. The\ndesert, hitherto silent, seemed to wake up all at once: the birds,\nstupefied by the heat, commenced a formidable concert, in which joined\nat intervals, from the inaccessible depths of the forest, the snapping\nof the _carcajous_ and the barking of the coyotes mingled with the\nhoarse howling of the wild beasts that had left their dens to come down\nand drink in the river.\n\nThen gradually the cries, the songs, and the howling ceased, and nothing\nwas audible save the hurried footfalls of the hunters' horses on the\npebbles of the road. A solemn silence seemed to brood over this abrupt\nand primitive scenery. At intervals the green tufts of the trees and the\ntall grass bowed slowly with a prolonged rustling of leaves and\nbranches, as if a mysterious breath passed over them, and compelled them\nto bend their heads. There was something at once striking and terrible\nin the imposing appearance offered by the prairie at this hour of the\nnight, beneath this sky studded with brilliant stars, which sparkled\nlike emeralds, in the presence of this sublime immensity, which only\nsuffered one voice to be heard--that of Deity.\n\nThe young and enthusiastic man to whom it is given to be present at such\na spectacle feels a thrill run over all his body: he experiences an\nundefinable feeling of happiness and extraordinary pleasure on looking\nround him at the desert, whose unexplored depths conceal from him so\nmany secrets, and display to him Divine Majesty in all its grandeur and\nomnipotence. Many a time during our adventurous journeys on the American\ncontinent, when marching at hazard during these lovely nights so full of\ncharms, which nothing can make those comprehend who have not experienced\nthem, we have yielded to the soft emotions that overcame us. Isolating\nand absorbing ourselves within ourselves, we, have fallen into a state\nof beatitude, from which nothing had the power of drawing us.\n\nThe hunters so gay and talkative at the start, had yielded to this\nomnipotent influence of the desert, and advanced rapidly and silently,\nonly exchanging a few syllables at lengthened intervals. The profoundest\ncalm still continued to reign over the desert; and while, owing to the\nastonishing transparency of the atmosphere, the eye could embrace a\nhorizon, nothing suspicious was visible.\n\nThe fireflies buzzed carelessly round the top of the grass, and the\nflickering fires burning before the tents to which the hunters were\nbound could be already seen about half a league ahead. At a signal from\nDon Miguel the party, which had, up to the present, only trotted, set\nout at a long canter; for each felt anxious to leave a scene which, in\nthe darkness, had assumed a sinister aspect.\n\nThey thus arrived within a hundred yards of the fires, whose ruddy glow\nwas reflected on the distant trees, when suddenly a fearful yell crossed\nthe air, and from behind every bush out started an Indian horseman\nbrandishing his weapons, and making his horse curvet round the white\nmen, while uttering his war cry. The Mexicans, taken unawares, were\nsurrounded ere they sufficiently recovered from their stupor to think\nabout employing their weapons. At a glance Don Miguel judged the\nposition: it was a critical one. The hunters were at the most but\ntwenty: the number of Comanche warriors surrounding them was at least\nthree hundred.\n\nThe Comanches and Apaches are the most implacable foes of the white\nrace. In their periodical invasions of the frontiers they hardly ever\nmake any prisoners: they mercilessly kill all who fall into their hands.\nStill the Mexicans rallied. Certain of the fate that awaited them, they\nwere resolved to sell their lives dearly. There was a moment of supreme\nexpectation before the commencement of the deadly combat, when suddenly\nan Indian galloped out of the ranks of the warriors, and rode within\nthree paces of the little band of Mexicans. On arriving there he\nstopped, and waved his buffalo robe in sign of peace. The governor of\nthe provinces prepared to speak.\n\n\"Let me carry on the negotiations,\" Don Miguel said. \"I know the Indians\nbetter than you do, and perhaps I shall succeed in getting out of this\nawkward position.\"\n\n\"Do so,\" the governor answered.\n\nGeneral Ibanez was the only one who had remained calm and impassive\nsince the surprise: he did not make a move to seize his weapons; on the\ncontrary, he crossed his arms carelessly on his chest, and took a\nmocking glance at his comrades as he hummed a seguidilla between his\nteeth. Don Pablo had placed himself by his father's side, ready to\ndefend him at the peril of his life. The Indian chief took the word.\n\n\"Let the palefaces listen,\" he said; \"an Indian sachem is about to\nspeak.\"\n\n\"We have no time to spare in listening to the insidious words which you\nare preparing to say to us,\" Don Miguel replied in a haughty voice.\n\"Withdraw, and do not obstinately bar our passage, or there will be\nblood spilt.\"\n\n\"The palefaces will have brought it on themselves,\" the Comanche\nanswered in a gentle voice. \"The Indians mean no harm to the pale\nwarriors.\"\n\n\"Why, then, this sudden attack? The chief is mad. We do not let\nourselves be so easily deceived as he seems to suppose: we know very\nwell that he wants our scalps.\"\n\n\"No; Unicorn wishes to make a bargain with the palefaces.\"\n\n\"Come, chief, explain yourself; perhaps your intentions are as you\ndescribe them. I do not wish to reproach myself with having refused to\nlisten to you.\"\n\nThe Indian smiled.\n\n\"Good!\" he said. \"The great white chief is becoming reasonable. Let him\nlisten, then, to the words Unicorn will pronounce.\"\n\n\"Go on, chief; my comrades and myself are listening.\"\n\n\"The palefaces are thieving dogs,\" the chief said in a rough voice;\n\"they carry on a continual war with the redskins, and buy their scalps\nas if they were peltry; but the Comanches are magnanimous warriors, who\ndisdain to avenge themselves. The squaws of the white men are in their\npower: they will restore them.\"\n\nAt these words a shudder of terror ran along the ranks of the hunters;\ntheir courage failed them; they had only one desire left--that of saving\nthose who had so wretchedly fallen into the hands of these bloodthirsty\nmen.\n\n\"On what conditions will the Comanches restore their prisoners?\" Don\nMiguel asked, whose heart was contracted at the thought of his daughter,\nwho was also a prisoner. He secretly cursed Valentine, whose fatal\nadvice was the sole cause of the frightful evil that assailed him at\nthis moment.\n\n\"The palefaces,\" the chief continued, \"will dismount and arrange\nthemselves in a line. Unicorn will choose from among his enemies those\nwhom he thinks proper to carry off as prisoners; the rest will be free,\nand all the women restored.\"\n\n\"Those conditions are harsh, chief. Can you not modify them?\"\n\n\"A chief has only one word. Do the palefaces consent?\"\n\n\"Let us consult together for a few moments at any rate.\"\n\n\"Good! Let the white men consult. Unicorn grants them ten minutes,\" the\nchief made answer.\n\nAnd turning his horse, he went back to his men. Don Miguel then\naddressed his friends.\n\n\"Well; what do you think of what has occurred?\"\n\nThe Mexicans were terrified: still they were compelled to allow that the\nconduct of the Indians was extraordinary, and that they had never before\nevinced such lenity. Now that reflection had followed on the first\nfeeling of excitement, they understood that a struggle against enemies\nso numerous was insensate, and could only result in rendering their\nposition worse than it was before, and that the chiefs conditions, harsh\nas they were, offered at least some chance of safety for a portion of\nthem, and the ladies would be saved.\n\nThis last and all powerful consideration decided them. Don Miguel had no\noccasion to convince them of the necessity of submission. Whatever\nstruggle it cost them, they dismounted and arranged themselves in a\nline, as the chief had demanded, Don Miguel and his son placing\nthemselves at the head.\n\nUnicorn, with that cool courage characteristic of the Indians, then\nadvanced alone toward the Mexicans, who still held their weapons, and\nwho, impelled by their despair, and at the risk of being all massacred,\nwould have sacrificed him to their vengeance. The chief had also\ndismounted. With his hands crossed on his back, and frowning brow, he\nnow commenced his inspection.\n\nMany a heart contracted at his approach, for a question of life and\ndeath was being decided for these hapless men: only the perspective of\nthe atrocious tortures which menaced the ladies could have made them\nconsent to this humiliating and degrading condition. The Unicorn,\nhowever, was generous: he only selected eight of the Mexicans, and the\nrest received permission to mount their horses, and leave the fatal\ncircle that begirt them. Still, by a strange accident, or a\npremeditation of which the reason escaped them, these, eight\nprisoners--among whom were the governor, General Isturitz, and the\ncriminal judge, Don Luciano Perez--were the most important personages in\nthe party, and the members of the Provincial Government.\n\nIt was not without surprise that Don Miguel observed this; the\nComanches, however, faithfully fulfilled their compact, and the ladies\nwere at once set at liberty. They had been treated with the greatest\nrespect by the Indians, who had surprised their camp, and seized them\nalmost in the same way as they had done the hunters--that is to say, the\ncamp was invaded simultaneously on all sides. It was a matter worthy of\nremark in an Indian ambuscade that not a drop of blood had been spilt.\n\nAfter the moments given up to the happiness of seeing his daughter again\nsafe and sound, Don Miguel resolved to make a last attempt with Unicorn\nin favour of the unhappy men who remained in his hands. The chief\nlistened with deference, and let him speak without interruption; then he\nreplied with a smile whose expression the hacendero tried in vain to\nexplain,--\n\n\"My father has Indian blood in his veins; the redskins love him: never\nwill they do him the slightest injury. Unicorn would like to restore him\nimmediately the prisoners, for whom he cares very little; but that is\nimpossible. My father himself would speedily regret Unicorn's obedience\nto his Wish; but, in order to prove to my father how much the chief\ndesires to do a thing that will be agreeable to him, the prisoners will\nnot be ill-treated, and will be let off with a few days' annoyance.\nUnicorn consents to accept a ransom for them, instead of making them\nslaves. My father can himself tell them this good news.\"\n\n\"Thanks, chief,\" Don Miguel answered. \"The nobility of your character\ntouches my heart: I shall not forget it. Be persuaded that, under all\ncircumstances, I shall be happy to prove to you how grateful I am.\"\n\nThe chief bowed gracefully and withdrew, in order to give the hacendero\nliberty to communicate with his companions. The latter were seated sadly\non the ground, gloomy and downcast. Don Miguel repeated to them the\nconversation he had held with Unicorn, and the promise he had made with\nrespect to them. This restored them all their courage; and, with the\nmost affectionate words and marks of the liveliest joy, they thanked the\nhacendero for the attempt he had made in their favour.\n\nIn fact, thanks to the promise of liberating them for a ransom at the\nend of a week, and treating them well during the period of their\ncaptivity, there was nothing so very terrifying about the prospect; and\nit was one of those thousand annoyances to which men are exposed by\naccident, but whose proportions had been so reduced in their eyes, that,\nwith the carelessness which forms the staple of the national character,\nthey were the first to laugh at their mishap.\n\nDon Miguel, however, was anxious to retire; so he took leave of his\ncompanions, and rejoined the chief. The latter repeated his assurances\nthat the prisoners should be free within a week, if they consented each\nto pay a ransom of one thousand piastres, which was a trifle. He assured\nthe hacendero that he was at liberty to withdraw whenever he pleased,\nand he should not oppose his departure.\n\nDon Miguel did not allow the invitation to be repeated. His friends and\nhimself immediately mounted their horses, together with the ladies, who\nwere placed in the centre of the detachment; and after taking leave of\nUnicorn, the Mexicans dug their spurs into their horses, and started at\na gallop, glad to have got off so cheaply. The campfires were soon left\nfar behind them, and General Ibanez then approached his friend, and\nbending down to his ear, whispered,--\n\n\"Don Miguel, can the Comanches be our allies? I fancy that they have\nthis night given a bold push to the success of our enterprise.\"\n\nThis thought, like a ray of light, had already crossed the hacendero's\nbrain several times.\n\n\"I do not know,\" he said with a clever smile; \"but at any rate, my dear\ngeneral, they are very adroit foes.\"\n\nThe little band continued to advance rapidly toward the hacienda, which\nwas now no great distance, and which they hoped to reach before sunrise.\nThe events we have described had occurred in less than an hour.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII.\n\nTHE MEETING.\n\n\n\"By Jove!\" General Ibanez said, \"it must be confessed that these red\ndevils have done us an immense service without suspecting it. It might\nbe said, deuce take me, that they acted under a knowledge of facts. This\nUnicorn, as the chief is called, is a precious man in certain\ncircumstances. I am anxious to cultivate his acquaintance, for no one\nknows what may happen. It is often good to have so intelligent a friend\nas him at hand.\"\n\n\"You are always jesting, general. When will you be serious for once?\"\nDon Miguel said with a smile.\n\n\"What would you have, my friend? We are at this moment staking our heads\nin a desperate game, so let us at any rate keep our gaiety. If we are\nconquered, it will be time enough then to be sad, and make bitter\nreflections about the instability of human affairs.\"\n\n\"Yes, your philosophy is not without a certain dose of fatalism, which\nrenders it more valuable to me. I am happy to see you in this good\ntemper, especially at a moment when we are preparing to play our last\ncard.\"\n\n\"All is not desperate yet, and I have a secret foreboding, on the\ncontrary, that all is for the best. Our friend the Trail-hunter, I feel\nconvinced, has something to do, if not all, with what has happened to\nus.\"\n\n\"Do you believe it?\" Don Miguel asked quickly.\n\n\"I am certain of it. You know as well as I do these Indios Bravos, and\nthe implacable hatred they have vowed against us. The war they wage with\nus is atrocious; and for them to be suddenly changed from wolves into\nlambs requires some powerful motive to make them act thus. People do not\nlay aside in a moment a hatred which has endured for ages. The\nComanches, by the choice they made, know the importance of the prisoners\nthey have seized. How is it that they consent so easily to give them up\nfor a trifling ransom? There is some inexplicable mystery in all this.\"\n\n\"Which is very easy to explain though,\" a laughing voice interrupted\nfrom behind the shrubs.\n\nThe two Mexicans started, and checked their horses. A man leaped from a\nthicket, and suddenly appeared in the centre of the track the little\nband of hunters was following. The latter, believing in a fresh attack\nand treachery on the part of the Comanches, seized their weapons.\n\n\"Stop!\" Don Miguel said sharply, \"the man is alone. Let me speak with\nhim.\"\n\nEach waited with his hand on his weapon.\n\n\"Hold!\" Don Miguel continued, addressing the stranger, who stood\nmotionless, carelessly resting on his gun. \"Who are you, my master?\"\n\n\"Do you not recognise me, Don Miguel? and must I really tell you my\nname?\" the stranger answered with a laugh.\n\n\"The Trail-hunter!\" Don Miguel exclaimed.\n\n\"Himself,\" Valentine continued. \"Hang it all! You take a long time to\nrecognise your friends.\"\n\n\"You will forgive us when you know all that has happened to us, and how\nmuch we must keep on our guard.\"\n\n\"Confound it!\" Valentine said laughingly, as he regulated his pace by\nthe trot of the horses, \"do you fancy you are going to tell me any news?\nDid you not really suspect from what quarter the blow came?\"\n\n\"What!\" Don Miguel exclaimed in surprise, \"did you--\"\n\n\"Who else but I? Do you think the Spaniards are such friends of the\nIndians that the latter would treat them so kindly when meeting them\nface to face in the desert?\"\n\n\"I was sure of it,\" General Ibanez affirmed. \"I guessed it at the first\nmoment.\"\n\n\"Good heavens! Nothing was more simple. Your position, through Red\nCedar's treachery, was most critical. I wished to give you the time to\nturn round by removing, for a few days, the obstacles that prevented the\nsuccess of your plans. I have succeeded, I fancy.\"\n\n\"You could not have managed better,\" exclaimed the general.\n\n\"Oh!\" Don Miguel said with a reproachful accent, \"why did you hide it\nfrom me?\"\n\n\"For a very simple reason, my friend. I wished that in these\ncircumstances your will and conscience should be free.\"\n\n\"But--\"\n\n\"Let me finish. Had I told you of my plan, it is certain that you would\nhave opposed it. You are a man of honor, Don Miguel: your heart is most\nloyal.\"\n\n\"My friend--\"\n\n\"Answer me. Had I explained to you the plan I formed, what would you\nhave done?\"\n\n\"Well--\"\n\n\"Answer frankly.\"\n\n\"I should have refused.\"\n\n\"I was sure of it. Why would you have done so? Because you would never\nhave consented to violate the laws of hospitality, and betray enemies\nyou sheltered beneath your roof, though you knew all the while that\nthese men, on leaving you, would have considered it their duty to seize\nyou, and that they watched your every movement while sitting by your\nside, and eating at your table. Is it not so?\"\n\n\"It is true; my honor as a gentleman would have revolted. I could not\nhave suffered such horrible treachery to be carried out under my very\neyes.\"\n\n\"There! You see that I acted wisely in saying nothing to you. In that\nway your honor is protected, your conscience easy, and I have in the\nmost simple fashion freed you for some days from your enemies.\"\n\n\"That is true; still--\"\n\n\"What? Have the prisoners to complain of the way in which they have been\ntreated?\"\n\n\"Not at all; on the contrary, the Comanches, and Unicorn in particular,\ntreated them most kindly.\"\n\n\"All is for the best, then. You must congratulate yourself on the\nunexpected success you have achieved, and must now profit by it without\ndelay.\"\n\n\n\"I intend to do so.\"\n\n\"You must act at once.\"\n\n\"I ask nothing better. All is ready. Our men are warned, and they will\nrise at the first signal.\"\n\n\"It must be given immediately.\"\n\n\"I only ask the time to leave my daughter at the hacienda; then\naccompanied by my friends, I will march on Paso, while General Ibanez,\nat the head of a second band, seizes Santa Fe.\"\n\n\"The plan is well conceived. Can you count on the persons who follow\nyou?\"\n\n\"Yes; they are all my relatives or friends.\"\n\n\"All for the best. Let us not go further. We are here at the place where\nthe roads part; let your horses breathe awhile, and I will tell you a\nplan I have formed, and which, I think, will please you.\"\n\nThe small party halted. The horsemen dismounted, and lay down on the\ngrass. As all knew of the conspiracy formed by Don Miguel, and were his\naccomplices in different degrees, this halt did not surprise them, for\nthey suspected that the moment for action was not far off, and that\ntheir chief doubtless wished to take his final measures before throwing\noff the mask, and proclaiming the independence of New Mexico. On\ninviting them to hunt the wild horses, Don Miguel had not concealed from\nthem Red Cedar's treachery, and the necessity in which he found himself\nof dealing a great blow, if he did not wish all to be hopelessly lost.\n\nValentine led the hacendero and the general a short distance apart.\nWhen they were out of ear-shot the hunter carefully examined the\nneighbourhood; then within a few minutes rejoined his friends, whom his\nway of acting considerably perplexed.\n\n\"Caballeros,\" he said to them, \"what do you intend doing? In our\nposition minutes are ages. Are you ready to make your pronunciamento?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" they answered.\n\n\"This is what I propose. You, Don Miguel, will proceed direct on Paso.\nAt about half a league from that town you will find Curumilla, with\ntwenty of the best rifles on the frontier. These men, in whom you can\ntrust, are Canadian and Indian hunters devoted to me. They will form the\nnucleus of a band sufficient for you to seize on Paso without striking a\nblow, as it is only defended by a garrison of forty soldiers. Does that\nplan suit you?\"\n\n\"Yes; I will set about it at once. But my daughter?\"\n\n\"I will take charge of her. You will also leave me your son, and I will\nconvey them both to the hacienda. As for the other ladies, on reaching\nthe town, they will merely go to their homes, which I fancy, presents no\ndifficulty.\"\n\n\"None.\"\n\n\"Good! Then that is settled?\"\n\n\"Perfectly.\"\n\n\"As for you, general, your men have been echelonned by my care in\nparties of ten and twenty along the Santa Fe road, up to two leagues of\nthe city, so that you will only have to pick them up. In this way you\nwill find yourself, within three hours, at the head of five hundred\nresolute and well-armed men.\"\n\n\"Why, Valentine, my friend,\" the general said laughingly, \"do you know\nthere is the stuff in you to make a partisan chief, and that I am almost\njealous of you.\"\n\n\"Oh! that would be wrong, general: I assure you I am most disinterested\nin the affair.\"\n\n\"Well, my friend, I know it: you are a free desert hunter, caring very\nlittle for our paltry schemes.\"\n\n\"That is true; but I have vowed to Don Miguel and his family a\nfriendship which will terminate with my life. I tremble for him and his\nchildren when I think of the numberless dangers that surround him, and I\ntry to aid him as far as my experience and activity permit me. That is\nthe secret of my conduct.\"\n\n\"This profession of faith was at least useless, my friend. I have known\nyou too intimately and too long to doubt your intentions. Hence, you\nsee, I place such confidence in you, that I accept your ideas without\ndiscussion, so convinced am I of the purity of your intentions.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Don Miguel; you have judged me correctly. Come, gentlemen, to\nhorse, and start. We must separate here--you, Don Miguel, to proceed by\nthe right-hand track to Paso; you, general, by the left hand one to\nSanta Fe; while I, with Don Pablo and his sister proceed straight on\ntill we reach the Hacienda de la Noria.\"\n\n\"To horse, then!\" the hacendero shouted resolutely; \"And may God defend\nthe right!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the general added; \"for from this moment the revolution is\ncommenced.\"\n\nThe three men returned to their friends. Don Miguel said a few words to\nhis children, and in an instant the whole party were in the saddle.\n\n\"The die is cast!\" Valentine exclaimed. \"May Heaven keep you,\ngentlemen!\"\n\n\"Forward!\" Don Miguel commanded.\n\n\"Forward!\" General Ibanez shouted, as he rushed in the opposite\ndirection.\n\nValentine looked after his departing friends. Their black outlines were\nsoon blended with the darkness, and then the footfalls of their horses\ndied out in the night. Valentine gave a sigh and raised his head.\n\n\"God will protect them,\" he murmured; then turning to the two young\npeople, \"Come on, children,\" he said.\n\nThey started, and for some minutes kept silence. Valentine was too busy\nin thought to address his companions; and yet Dona Clara and Don Pablo,\nwhose curiosity was excited to the highest pitch, were burning to\nquestion him. At length the girl, by whose side the hunter marched with\nthat quick step which easily keeps up with a horse, bent down to him.\n\n\"My friend,\" she said to him in her soft voice, \"what is taking place?\nWhy has my father left us, instead of coming to his house?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Don Pablo added, \"he seemed agitated when he parted from us. His\nvoice was stern, his words sharp. What is happening, my friend? Why did\nnot my father consent to my accompanying him?\"\n\nValentine hesitated to answer.\n\n\"I implore you, my friend,\" Dona Clara continued, \"do not leave us in\nthis mortal anxiety. The announcement of a misfortune would certainly\ncause us less pain than the perplexity in which we are.\"\n\n\"Why force me to speak, my children?\" the hunter answered in a saddened\nvoice. \"The secret you ask of me is not mine. If your father did not\nimpart his plans to you, it was doubtless because weighty reasons oppose\nit. Do not force me to render you more sorrowful by telling you things\nyou ought not to know.\"\n\n\"But I am not a child,\" Don Pablo exclaimed. \"It seems tome that my\nfather ought not to have thus held his confidence from me.\"\n\n\"Do not accuse your father, my friend,\" Valentine answered gravely:\n\"probably he could not have acted otherwise.\"\n\n\"Valentine, Valentine! I will not accept those poor reasons,\" the young\nman urged. \"In the name of our friendship I insist on your explaining\nyourself.\"\n\n\"Silence!\" the hunter suddenly interrupted him. \"I hear suspicious\nsounds around us.\"\n\nThe three travellers stopped and listened, but all was quiet. The\nhacienda was about five hundred yards at the most from the spot where\nthey halted. Don Pablo and Dona Clara heard nothing, but Valentine made\nthem a sign to remain quiet; then he dismounted and placed his ear to\nthe ground.\n\n\"Follow me,\" he said. \"Something is happening here which I cannot make\nout; but it alarms me.\"\n\nThe young people obeyed without hesitation; but they had only gone a few\npaces when Valentine stopped again.\n\n\"Are your weapons loaded?\" he sharply asked Don Pablo.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Good! Perhaps you will have to make use of them.\"\n\nAll at once the gallop of a horse urged to its utmost speed was audible.\n\n\"Attention!\" Valentine muttered.\n\nStill the horseman, whoever he might be, rapidly advanced in the\ndirection of the travellers, and soon came up to them. Suddenly\nValentine bounded like a panther, seized the horse by the bridle and\nstopped it dead.\n\n\"Who are you, and where are you going?\" he shouted, as he put a pistol\nbarrel against the stranger's chest.\n\n\"Heaven be praised!\" the latter said, not replying to the question.\n\"Perhaps I shall be able to save you. Fly, fly, in all haste!\"\n\n\"Father Seraphin!\" Valentine said with stupor, as he lowered his pistol.\n\"What has happened?\"\n\n\"Fly, fly!\" the missionary repeated, who seemed a prey to the most\nprofound terror.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII.\n\nTHE ABDUCTION.\n\n\nRed Cedar and Fray Ambrosio had not remained inactive since their last\ninterview up to the day when Don Miguel set out to hunt the wild horses.\nThese two fellows, so suited to understand each other, had manoeuvred\nwith extreme skill. Fray Ambrosio, all whose avaricious instincts had\nbeen aroused since he had so artfully stolen from poor Joaquin the\nsecret of his placer, had assembled a formidable collection of the\nbandits who always swarm on the Indian frontiers. In a few days he found\nhimself at the head of one hundred and twenty adventurers, all men who\nhad cheated the gallows, and of whom he felt the more sure as the secret\nof the expedition was concealed from them, and they fancied they formed\na war party engaged to go scalp hunting.\n\nThese men, who all knew Red Cedar by reputation, burnt to set out, so\nconvinced were they of carrying out a successful expedition under such a\nleader. Only two men formed an exception to this band of scoundrels, the\nsmallest culprit of whom had at least three or four murders on his\nconscience. They were Harry, and Dick, who, for reasons the reader has\ndoubtless guessed, found themselves, to their great regret, mixed up\nwith these bandits. Still we must say, in justice to Fray Ambrosio's\nsoldiers, that they were all bold hunters, accustomed for many a year to\ndesert life, who knew all its perils, and feared none of its dangers.\n\nFray Ambrosio; apprehending the effects of mezcal and pulque on his men,\nhad made them bivouac at the entrance of the desert, at a sufficiently\ngreat distance from the Paso del Norte to prevent them easily going\nthere. The adventurers spent their time joyously in playing, not for\nmoney, as they had none, but for the scalps they intended presently to\nlift from the Indians, each of which represented a very decent sum.\nStill Fray Ambrosio, so soon as his expedition was completely organised,\nhad only one desire--to start as speedily as possible; but for two days\nRed Cedar was not to be found. At length Fray Ambrosio succeeded in\ncatching him just as he was entering his jacal.\n\n\"What has become of you?\" he asked him.\n\n\"What does that concern you?\" the squatter answered brutally. \"Have I to\nanswer for my conduct to you?\"\n\n\"I do not say so: still, connected as we are at this moment, it would be\nas well for me to know where to find you when I want you.\"\n\n\"I have been attending to my business, as you have to yours.\"\n\n\"Well, are you satisfied?\"\n\n\"Very much so,\" he answered with a sinister smile. \"You will soon learn\nthe result of my journey.\"\n\n\"All the better. If you are satisfied, I am so too.\"\n\n\"Ah, ah!\"\n\n\"Yes, all is ready for departure.\"\n\n\"Let us be off--tomorrow if you like.\"\n\n\"On this very night.\"\n\n\"Very good. You are like me, and don't care to travel by day on account\nof the heat of the sun.\"\n\nThe two accomplices smiled at this delicate jest.\n\n\"But before starting,\" the squatter continued, becoming serious again,\n\"we have something left to do here.\"\n\n\"What is it?\" Fray Ambrosio asked with candor.\n\n\"It is wonderful what a short memory you have. Take care: that failing\nmay play an awkward trick some day.\"\n\n\"Thanks! I will try to correct it.\"\n\n\"Yes, and the sooner the better: in the meanwhile I will refresh your\nmemory.\"\n\n\"I shall feel obliged to you.\"\n\n\"And Dona Clara, do you fancy we are going to leave her behind?\"\n\n\"Hum! Then you still think of that?\"\n\n\"By Jove! More than ever.\"\n\n\"The fact is it will not be easy to carry her off at this moment.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"In the first place, she is not at the hacienda.\"\n\n\"That is certainly a reason.\"\n\n\"Is it not?\"\n\n\"Yes; but she must be somewhere, I suppose?\" the squatter said with a\ncoarse laugh.\n\n\"She has gone with her father to a hunt of wild horses.\"\n\n\"The hunt is over and they are on their return.\"\n\n\"You are well informed.\"\n\n\"It is my trade. Come, do you still mean serving me?\"\n\n\"I must.\"\n\n\"That is how I like you. There cannot be many people at the hacienda?\"\n\n\"A dozen at the most.\"\n\n\"Better still. Listen to me: it is now four in the afternoon. I have a\nride to take. Return to the hacienda, and I will come there this evening\nat nine, with twenty resolute men. You will open the little gate of the\ncorral, and leave me to act. I'll answer for all.\"\n\n\"If you wish it it must be so,\" Fray Ambrosio said with a sigh.\n\n\"Are you going to begin again?\" the squatter asked in a meaning voice as\nhe rose.\n\n\"No, no, it is unnecessary,\" the monk exclaimed. \"I shall expect you.\"\n\n\"Good: till this evening.\"\n\n\"Very well.\"\n\nOn which the two accomplices separated. All happened as had been\narranged between them. At nine o'clock Red Cedar reached the little\ngate, which was opened for him by Fray Ambrosio, and the squatter\nentered the hacienda at the head of his three sons and a party of\nbandits. The peons, surprised in their sleep, were bound before they\neven knew what was taking place.\n\n\"Now,\" Red Cedar said, \"we are masters of the place, the girl can come\nas soon as she likes.\"\n\n\"Eh?\" the monk went on. \"All is not finished yet. Don Miguel is a\nresolute man, and is well accompanied: he will not let his daughter be\ncarried off under his eyes without defending her.\"\n\n\"Don Miguel will not come,\" the squatter said with a sardonic grin.\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"That is not your business.\"\n\n\"We shall see.\"\n\nBut the bandits had forgotten Father Seraphin. The missionary, aroused\nby the unusual noise he heard in the hacienda, had hastily risen. He had\nheard the few words exchanged between the accomplices, and they were\nsufficient to make him guess the fearful treachery they meditated. Only\nlistening to his heart, the missionary glided out into the corral,\nsaddled a horse, and opening a door, of which he had a key, so that he\ncould enter or leave the hacienda as his duties required, he started at\nfull speed in the direction which he supposed the hunters must follow in\nreturning to the hacienda. Unfortunately, Father Seraphin had been\nunable to effect his flight unheard by the squatter's practised ear.\n\n\"Malediction!\" Red Cedar shouted, as he rushed, rifle in hand, toward a\nwindow, which he dashed out with his fist, \"We are betrayed.\"\n\nThe bandits rushed in disorder into the corral where their horses were\ntied up, and leaped into their saddles. At this moment a shadow flitted\nacross the plain in front of the squatter, who rapidly shouldered his\nrifle and fired. Then he went out: a stifled cry reached his ear, but\nthe person the bandit had fired at still went on.\n\n\"No matter,\" the squatter muttered; \"that fine bird has lead in its\nwing. Sharp, sharp, my men, on the trail!\"\n\nAnd all the bandits rushed off in pursuit of the fugitive.\n\nFather Seraphin had fallen in a fainting condition at Valentine's feet.\n\n\"Good heavens!\" the hunter exclaimed in despair, \"what can have\nhappened?\"\n\nAnd he gently carried the missionary into a ditch that ran by the side\nof the road. Father Seraphin had his shoulder fractured, and the blood\npoured in a stream from the wound. The hunter looked around him; but at\nthis moment a confused sound could be heard like the rolling of distant\nthunder.\n\n\"We must fall like brave men, Don Pablo, that is all,\" he said sharply.\n\n\"Be at your ease,\" the young man answered coldly.\n\nDona Clara was pale and trembling.\n\n\"Come,\" Valentine said.\n\nAnd, with a movement rapid as thought, he bounded on to the missionary's\nhorse. The three fugitives started at full speed. The flight lasted a\nquarter of an hour, and then Valentine stopped. He dismounted, gave the\nyoung people a signal to wait, lay down on the ground, and began\ncrawling on his hands and knees, gliding like a serpent through the long\ngrass that concealed him, and stopping at intervals to look around him,\nand listen attentively to the sounds of the desert. Suddenly he rushed\ntowards his companions, seized the horses by the bridle, and dragged\nthem behind a mound, where they remained concealed, breathless and\nunable to speak.\n\nA formidable noise of horses was audible. Some twenty black shadows\npassed like a tornado within ten paces of their hiding place, not seeing\nthem in consequence of the darkness.\n\nValentine drew a deep breath.\n\n\"All hope is not lost,\" he muttered.\n\nHe waited anxiously for five minutes: their pursuers were going further\naway. Presently the sound of their horses' hoofs ceased to disturb the\nsilence of the night.\n\n\"To horse!\" Valentine said.\n\nThey leaped into their saddles and started again, not in the direction\nof the hacienda, but in that of the Paso.\n\n\"Loosen your bridles,\" the hunter said: \"more still--we are not moving.\"\n\nSuddenly a loud neigh was borne on the breeze to the ears of the\nfugitives.\n\n\"We are lost!\" Valentine muttered. \"They have found our trail.\"\n\nRed Cedar was too old a hand on the prairie to be long thrown out: he\nsoon perceived that he was mistaken, and was now turning back, quite\ncertain this time of holding the trail. Then began one of those fabulous\nraces which only the dwellers on the prairie can witness--races which\nintoxicate and cause a giddiness, and which no obstacle is powerful\nenough to stop or check, for the object is success or death. The\nbandits' half wild horses, apparently identifying themselves with the\nferocious passions of their riders, glided through the night with the\nrapidity of the phantom steed in the German ballad, bounded over\nprecipices, and rushed with prodigious speed.\n\nAt times a horseman rolled with his steed from the top of a rock, and\nfell into an abyss, uttering a yell of distress; but his comrades passed\nover his body, borne along like a whirlwind, and responding to this cry\nof agony, the final appeal of a brother, by a formidable howl of rage.\nThis pursuit had already lasted two hours, and the fugitives had not\nlost an inch of ground: their horses, white with foam, uttered hoarse\ncries of fatigue and exhaustion as a dense smoke came out of their\nnostrils. Dona Clara, with her hair untied and floating in the breeze,\nwith sparkling eye and closely pressed lips, constantly urged her horse\non with voice and hand.\n\n\"All is over!\" the hunter suddenly said. \"Save yourselves! I will let\nmyself be killed here, so that you may go on for ten minutes longer, and\nbe saved. I will hold out for that time, so go on.\"\n\n\"No,\" Don Pablo answered nobly; \"we will be all saved or perish\ntogether.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the maiden remarked.\n\nValentine shrugged his shoulders.\n\n\"You are mad,\" he said.\n\nAll at once he started, for their pursuers were rapidly approaching.\n\n\"Listen,\" he said. \"Do you two let yourselves be captured; they will not\nfollow me, as they owe me no grudge. I swear to you that if I remain at\nliberty I will deliver you, even if they hide you in the bowels of the\nearth.\"\n\nWithout replying Don Pablo dismounted, and Valentine leaped on to his\nhorse.\n\n\"Hope for the best!\" he shouted hoarsely, and disappeared.\n\nDon Pablo, so soon as he was alone with his sister, made her dismount,\nseated her at the foot of a tree, and stood before her with a pistol in\neither hand. He had not to wait long, for almost immediately he was\nsurrounded by the bandits.\n\n\"Surrender!\" Red Cedar shouted in a panting voice.\n\nDon Pablo smiled disdainfully.\n\n\"Here is my answer,\" he said.\n\nAnd with two pistol shots he laid two bandits low; then he threw away\nhis useless weapons, and crossing his arms on his breast said,--\n\n\"Do what you please now; I am avenged.\"\n\nRed Cedar bounded with fury.\n\n\"Kill that dog!\" he shouted.\n\nShaw rushed toward the young man, threw his nervous arms around him, and\nwhispered in his ear,--\n\n\"Do not resist, but fall as if dead.\"\n\nDon Pablo mechanically followed his advice.\n\n\"It is all over,\" said Shaw. \"Poor devil! He did not cling to life.\"\n\nHe returned his knife to his belt, threw the supposed corpse on his\nshoulders, and dragged it into a ditch. At the sight of her brother's\nbody, whom she supposed to be dead, Dona Clara uttered a shriek of\ndespair and fainted. Red Cedar laid the maiden across his saddle-bow,\nand the whole band, starting at a gallop was soon lost in the darkness.\nDon Pablo then rose slowly, and took a sorrowful glance around.\n\n\"My poor sister!\" he murmured.\n\nThen he perceived her horse near him.\n\n\"Valentine alone can save her,\" he said.\n\nHe mounted the horse, and proceeded toward the Paso, asking himself this\nquestion, which he found it impossible to answer:--\n\n\"But why did not that man kill me?\"\n\nA few paces from the village he perceived two men halting on the road,\nand conversing with the greatest animation. They hurriedly advanced\ntoward him, and the young man uttered a cry of surprise on recognising\nthem. They were Valentine and Curumilla.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV.\n\nTHE REVOLT.\n\n\nDon Miguel Zarate had marched rapidly on the Paso, and an hour after\nleaving Valentine he saw flashing in the distance the lights that shone\nin the village windows. The greatest calmness prevailed in the vicinity;\nonly at times could be heard the barking of the dogs baying at the moon,\nor the savage miawling of the wild cats hidden in the shrubs. At about\none hundred yards from the village a man suddenly rose before the small\nparty.\n\n\"Who goes there?\" he shouted.\n\n\"_Mejico e independencia!_\" the hacendero answered.\n\n\"_?Que gente?_\" the stranger continued.\n\n\"Don Miguel Zarate.\"\n\nAt these words twenty men hidden in the brushwood rose suddenly, and\nthrowing their rifles on their shoulders, advanced to meet the horsemen.\nThey were the hunters commanded by Curumilla, who, by Valentine's\norders, were awaiting the hacendero's arrival to join him.\n\n\"Well,\" Don Miguel asked the chief, \"is there anything new?\"\n\nCurumilla shook his head.\n\n\"Then we can advance?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What is the matter, chief? Have you seen anything alarming?\"\n\n\"No; and yet I have a feeling of treachery.\"\n\n\"How so?\"\n\n\"I cannot tell you. Apparently everything is as usual: still there is\nsomething which is not so. Look you, it is scarce ten o'clock: generally\nat that hour all the mesones are full, the ventas are crammed with\ngamblers and drinkers, the streets flocked with promenaders. This night\nthere is nothing of the sort: all is closed--the town seems abandoned.\nThis tranquillity is factitious. I am alarmed, for _I hear the silence_.\nTake care.\"\n\nDon Miguel was involuntarily struck by the chief's remarks. He had known\nCurumilla for a long time. He had often seen him display in the most\ndangerous circumstances a coolness and contempt for death beyond all\npraise: hence some importance must be attached to the apprehensions and\nanxiety of such a man. The hacendero ordered his party to halt,\nassembled his friends, and held a council. All were of opinion that,\nbefore venturing to advance further, they should send as scout a clever\nman to traverse the town, and see for himself if the fears of the Indian\nchief were well founded.\n\nOne of the hunters offered himself. The conspirators concealed\nthemselves on either side the road, and awaited, lying in the shrubs,\nthe return of their messenger. He was a half-breed, Simon Munez by\nname, to whom the Indians had given the soubriquet of \"Dog-face,\" owing\nto his extraordinary likeness to that animal. This name had stuck to the\nhunter, who, _nolens volens_, had been compelled to accept it. He was\nshort and clumsy, but endowed with marvellous strength; and we may say\nat once that he was an emissary of Red Cedar, and had only joined the\nhunters in order to betray them.\n\nWhen he left the conspirators he proceeded toward the village whistling.\nHe had scarce taken a dozen steps into the first street ere a door\nopened, and a man appeared. This man stepped forward and addressed the\nhunter.\n\n\"You whistle very late, my friend.\"\n\n\"A whistle to wake those who are asleep,\" the half breed made answer.\n\n\"Come in,\" the man continued.\n\nDog-face went in, and the door closed upon him. He remained in the house\nhalf an hour, then went out, and hurried back along the road he had\ntraversed.\n\nRed Cedar, who wished before all to avenge himself on Don Miguel Zarate,\nhad discovered, through Fray Ambrosio, the conspirators' new plan.\nWithout loss of time he had taken his measures in consequence, and had\nmanaged so well that, although the general, the governor, and the\ncriminal judge were prisoners, Don Miguel must succumb in the contest he\nwas preparing to provoke. Fray Ambrosio, to his other qualities, joined\nthat of being a listener at doors. In spite of the distrust which his\npatron was beginning to display toward him on Valentine's\nrecommendation, he had surprised a conversation between Don Miguel and\nGeneral Ibanez. This conversation, immediately reported to Red Cedar,\nwho, according to his usual custom, had appeared to attach no importance\nto it, had been sufficient, however, to make the squatter prepare his\nbatteries and countermine the conspiracy.\n\nDog-face rejoined his companions after an hour's absence.\n\n\"Well?\" Don Miguel asked him.\n\n\"All is quiet,\" the half-breed answered; \"the inhabitants have retired\nto their houses, and everybody is asleep.\"\n\n\"You noticed nothing of a suspicious nature?\"\n\n\"I went through the town from one end to the other, and saw nothing.\"\n\n\"We can advance, then?\"\n\n\"In all security: it will only be a promenade.\"\n\nOn this assurance the conspirators regained their courage, Curumilla was\ntreated as a visionary, and the order was given to advance. Still\nDog-face's report, far from dissipating the Indian chief's doubts, had\nproduced the contrary effect, and considerably augmented them. Saying\nnothing, he placed himself by the hunter's side, with the secret\nintention of watching him closely.\n\nThe plan of the conspirators was very simple. They would march directly\non the Cabildo (Town hall), seize it, and proclaim a Provisional\nGovernment. Under present circumstances nothing appeared to be easier.\nDon Miguel and his band entered the Paso, and nothing occurred to arouse\ntheir suspicions. It resembled that town in the \"Arabian Nights,\" in\nwhich all the inhabitants, struck by the wand of the wicked enchanter,\nsleep an eternal sleep. The conspirators advanced into the town with\ntheir rifle barrels thrust forward, with eye and ear on the watch, and\nready to fire at the slightest alarm; but nothing stirred. As Curumilla\nhad observed, the town was too quiet. This tranquillity hid something\nextraordinary, and must conceal the tempest. In spite of himself Don\nMiguel felt a secret apprehension which he could not master.\n\nTo our European eyes Don Miguel will perhaps appear a poor conspirator,\nwithout foresight or any great connection in his ideas. From our point\nof view that is possible; but in a country like Mexico, which counts its\nrevolutions by hundreds, and where _pronunciamentos_ take place, in most\ncases, without sense or reason because a colonel wishes to become a\ngeneral, or a lieutenant a captain, things are not regarded so closely;\nand the hacendero, on the contrary, had evidenced tact, prudence, and\ntalent in carrying out a conspiracy which, during the several years it\nhad been preparing, had only come across one traitor. And now it was too\nlate to turn back: the alarm had been given, and the Government was on\nits guard. They must go onwards, even if they succumbed in the struggle.\n\nAll these considerations had been fully weighed by Don Miguel; and he\nhad not given the signal till he was driven into his last intrenchments,\nand convinced that there was no way of escape left him. Was it not a\nthousand fold better to die bravely with arms in their hands, in support\nof a just cause, than wait to be arrested without having made an attempt\nto succeed? Don Miguel had sacrificed his life, and no more could be\nexpected of him.\n\nIn the meanwhile the conspirators advanced. They had nearly reached the\nheart of the town; they were at this moment in a little, dirty, and\nnarrow street, called the Calle de San Isidro, which opens out on the\nPlaza Mayor, when suddenly a dazzling light illumined the darkness;\ntorches flashed from all the windows; and Don Miguel saw that the two\nends of the street in which he was were guarded by strong detachments of\ncavalry.\n\n\"Treachery!\" the conspirators shouted in terror.\n\nCurumilla bounded on Dog-face, and buried his knife between his\nshoulders. The half-breed fell in a lump, quite dead, and not uttering a\ncry. Don Miguel judged the position at the first glance: he saw that he\nand his party were lost.\n\n\"Let us die!\" he said.\n\n\"We will!\" the conspirators resolutely responded.\n\nCurumilla with the butt of his rifle beat in the door of the nearest\nhouse, and rushed in, the conspirators following him. They were soon\nintrenched on the roof. In Mexico all the houses have flat roofs, formed\nlike terraces. Thanks to the Indian chief's idea, the rebels found\nthemselves in possession of an improvised fortress, where they could\ndefend themselves for a long time, and sell their lives dearly.\n\nThe troops advanced from each end of the street, while the roofs of all\nthe houses were occupied by soldiers. The battle was about to begin\nbetween earth and heaven, and promised to be terrible. At this moment\nGeneral Guerrero, who commanded the troops, bade them halt, and advanced\nalone to the house on the top of which the conspirators were intrenched.\nDon Miguel beat up the guns of his comrades, who aimed at the officer.\n\n\"Wait,\" he said to them; and, addressing the general, \"What do you\nwant?\" he shouted.\n\n\"To offer you propositions.\"\n\n\"Speak.\"\n\nThe general came a few paces nearer, so that those he addressed could\nnot miss one of his words.\n\n\"I offer you life and liberty if you consent to surrender your leader,\"\nhe said.\n\n\"Never!\" the conspirators shouted in one voice.\n\n\"It is my place to answer,\" Don Miguel said; and then turning to the\ngeneral, \"What assurance do you give me that these conditions will be\nhonourably carried out?\"\n\n\"My word of honor as a soldier,\" the general answered.\n\n\"Very good,\" Don Miguel went on; \"I accept. All the men who accompany me\nwill leave the town one after the other.\"\n\n\"No, we will not!\" the conspirators shouted as they brandished their\nweapons; \"we would sooner die.\"\n\n\"Silence!\" the hacendero said in a loud voice. \"I alone have the right\nto speak here, for I am your chief. The life of brave men like you must\nnot be needlessly sacrificed. Go, I say; I order you--I implore it of\nyou,\" he added with tears in his voice. \"Perhaps you will soon take your\nrevenge.\"\n\nThe conspirators hung their heads mournfully.\n\n\"Well?\" the general asked.\n\n\"My friends, accept. I will remain alone here. If you break your word I\nwill kill myself.\"\n\n\"I repeat that you hold my word,\" the general answered.\n\nThe conspirators came one after the other to embrace Don Miguel, and\nthen went down into the street without being in any way interfered with.\nThings happen thus in this country, where conspiracies and revolutions\nare on the order of the day, as it were. The defeated are spared as far\nas possible, from the simple reason that the victors may find themselves\ntomorrow fighting side by side with them for the same cause. Curumilla\nwas the last to depart.\n\n\"All is not ended yet,\" he said to Don Miguel. \"Koutonepi will save you,\nfather.\"\n\nThe hacendero shook his head sadly.\n\n\"Chief,\" he said in a deeply moved voice, \"I leave my daughter to\nValentine, Father Seraphin, and yourself. Watch over her: the poor child\nwill soon have no father.\"\n\nCurumilla embraced Don Miguel silently and retired; he had soon\ndisappeared in the crowd, the general having honourably kept his word.\n\nDon Miguel threw down his weapons and descended.\n\n\"I am your prisoner,\" he said.\n\nGeneral Guerrero bowed, and made him a sign to mount the horse a soldier\nhad brought up.\n\n\"Where are we going?\" the hacendero said.\n\n\"To Santa Fe,\" the general answered, \"where you will be tried with\nGeneral Ibanez, who will doubtless soon be a prisoner like yourself.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" Don Miguel muttered thoughtfully, \"who betrayed us this time?\"\n\n\"It was still Red Cedar,\" the general answered.\n\nThe hacendero let his head sink on his chest, and remained silent. A\nquarter of an hour later the prisoner left the Paso del Norte, escorted\nby a regiment of dragoons. When the last trooper had disappeared in the\nwindings of the road three men left the shrubs that concealed them, and\nstood like three phantoms in the midst of the desolate plain.\n\n\"O heavens!\" Don Pablo cried in a heart-rending voice, \"my father, my\nsister--who will restore them to me?\"\n\n\"I!\" Valentine said in a grave voice, as he laid his hand on his\nshoulder. \"Am I not the TRAIL-HUNTER?\"\n\n\n\n\nPART II.--EL PRESIDIO DE SANTA FE.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nEL RANCHO DEL COYOTE.\n\n\nAbout a month after the events we have described in the first part of\nthis veracious history, two horsemen, well mounted, and carefully\nenwrapped in their cloaks, entered at a smart trot the town of Santa Fe\nbetween three and four o'clock in the afternoon.\n\nSanta Fe, the capital of New Mexico, is a pretty town, built in the\nmidst of a laughing and fertile plain. One of its sides occupies the\nangle formed by a small stream: it is surrounded by the _adobe_ walls of\nthe houses by which it is bordered. The entrance of each street is\nclosed by stakes in the form of palisades; and like the majority of\ntowns in Spanish America, the houses, built only one story high in\nconsequence of the earthquakes, are covered with terraces of well-beaten\nearth, called _azoteas,_ which are a sufficient protection in this\nglorious climate, where the sky is constantly pure.\n\nIn the time of the Castilian rule Santa Fe enjoyed a certain importance,\nowing to its strategic position, which allowed an easy defence against\nthe incursions of the Indians; but since the emancipation of Mexico this\ncity, like all the other centres of population in his unhappy country,\nhas seen its splendour vanish forever, and despite the fertility of its\nsoil and the magnificence of its climate, it has entered into such a\nstate of decadence that the day is at hand when it will be only an\nuninhabited ruin. In a word, this city, which fifty years back contained\nmore than ten thousand inhabitants, has now scarcely three thousand,\neaten up by fevers and the utmost wretchedness.\n\nStill during the last few weeks Santa Fe had appeared to emerge, as if\nby magic from the lethargy into which it is ordinarily plunged; a\ncertain degree of animation prevailed in its usually deserted streets;\nin short, a new life circulated in the veins of this population, to\nwhom, however, all must appear a matter of indifference. The fact was\nthat an event of immense importance had recently taken place in this\ntown. The two leaders of the conspiracy lately attempted had been\ntransferred to safe keeping at Santa Fe.\n\nThe Mexicans, ordinarily so slow when justice has to be dealt, are the\nmost expeditious people in the world when a conspiracy has to be\npunished. Don Miguel and General Ibanez had not pined long in prison. A\ncourt martial, hurriedly convened, had assembled under the presidency of\nthe governor, and the two conspirators were unanimously condemned to be\nshot.\n\nThe hacendero, through his name and his position, and especially on\naccount of his fortune, had numerous partisans in the province: hence\nthe announcement of the verdict had caused a profound stupor, which\nalmost immediately changed into anger, among the rich land owners and\nthe Indians of New Mexico. A dull agitation prevailed throughout the\ncountry; and the governor, who felt too weak to hold head against the\nstorm that threatened him, and regretted that he had carried matters so\nfar, was temporising, and trying to evade the peril of his position\nuntil a regiment of dragoons he had asked of the Government arrived, and\ngave strength to the law. The condemned men, whom the governor had not\nyet dared to place in _capilla_, were still provisionally detained in\nthe prison.\n\nThe two men of whom we have spoken, rode without stopping through the\nstreets of the town, deserted at this hour, when everybody is at home\nenjoying his siesta, and proceeded toward an unpretending rancho, built\non the banks of the stream, at the opposite end of the town from that by\nwhich they entered.\n\n\"Well,\" one of the horsemen said, addressing his comrade, \"was I not\nright? You see everyone is asleep: there is nobody to watch us. We have\narrived at a capital moment.\"\n\n\"Bah!\" the other answered in a rough voice, \"Do you believe that? In\ntowns there is always somebody watching to see what does not concern\nhim, and report it after his fashion.\"\n\n\"That is possible,\" the first said, shrugging his shoulders\ndisdainfully. \"I care about it as little as I do for a stringhalt\nhorse.\"\n\n\"And I, too,\" the other said sharply. \"Do you imagine that I care more\nthan you do for the gossips? But stay; I fancy we have reached the\nrancho of Andres Garote. This must be the filthy tenement, unless I am\nmistaken.\"\n\n\"It is the house. I only hope the scamp has not forgotten, the meeting I\ngave him. Wait a minute, senor padre; I will give the agreed-on signal.\"\n\n\"It is not worth while, Red Cedar. You know that I am always at your\nexcellency's orders when you may please to give them,\" a mocking voice\nsaid from inside the rancho, the door of which immediately opened to\ngive admission to the newcomers, and allowed a glimpse of the tall\nfigure and intelligent face of Andres Garote himself.\n\n\"_Ave Maria purisima!_\" the travellers said, as they dismounted and\nentered the rancho.\n\n\"_Sin pecado concebida!_\" Andres replied, as he took the bridles of the\nhorses and led them to the corral, where he unsaddled them and gave each\na truss of alfalfa.\n\nThe travellers, fatigued by a long journey, sat down on butacas arranged\nagainst the wall, and awaited the host's return, while wiping their dank\nforeheads and twisting a maize cigarette between their fingers. The room\nin which they were had nothing extremely attractive about it. It was a\nlarge chamber with two windows, protected by iron bars, the greasy panes\nallowing but a doubtful light to pass. The naked and smoky walls were\ncovered with clumsily-painted pictures, representing various holy\nobjects. The furniture only consisted of three or four halting tables,\nthe same number of benches, and a few butacas, the torn and harsh\nleather of which evinced lengthened use. As for the floor, it was merely\nof beaten earth, but rendered uneven by the mud incessantly brought in\nupon the feet of visitors. A door carefully closed led to an inner room,\nin which the ranchero slept. Another door was opposite to it, and\nthrough this Andres speedily entered after giving the horses their\nprovender.\n\n\"I did not expect you yet,\" he said as he entered; \"but you are welcome.\nIs there anything new?\"\n\n\"My faith, I know nothing but the affair that brings us. It is rather\nserious, I fancy, and prevents us attending to anything else,\" Red Cedar\nremarked.\n\n\"_Caspita_! what vivacity, compadre!\" Andres exclaimed. \"But, before\ntalking, I hope you will take some refreshment at any rate. There is\nnothing like a cup of mezcal or pulque to clear the brain.\"\n\n\"Not to forget,\" Fray Ambrosio said, \"that it is infernally hot, and my\ntongue is glued to my palate, as I have swallowed so much dust.\"\n\n\"_Cuerpo de Dios_!\" Andres said as he went to look for a bottle among\nseveral others arranged on a sort of bar, and placed it before the\ntravellers. \"Pay attention to that, senor padre; for it is serious, and\nyou run a risk of death, _caray!_\"\n\n\"Give me the remedy, then, chatterer,\" the monk replied as he held out\nhis glass.\n\nThe mezcal, liberally poured out, was swallowed at a draught by the\nthree men, who put back their glasses on the table with a \"hum\" of\nsatisfaction, and that clinking of the tongue peculiar to topers when\nthey are swallowing anything that tickles the throat.\n\n\"And now suppose we talk seriously,\" Red Cedar said.\n\n\"At your orders, senores caballeros,\" Andres replied. \"Still, if you\nprefer a hand at monte, you know that I have cards at your service.\"\n\n\"Presently, senor Andres, presently. Everything will have its turn. Let\nus first settle our little business,\" Fray Ambrosio judiciously\nobserved.\n\nAndres Garote bowed his head in resignation, while thrusting back into\nhis pocket the pack of cards he had already half drawn out. The three\nmen made themselves as comfortable as they could, and Red Cedar, after\ncasting a suspicious glance around him, at length took the word.\n\n\"You know, caballeros,\" he said, \"how, when we thought we had nothing to\ndo but proceed straight to Apacheria, the sudden desertion of nearly all\nour gambusinos checked us. The position was most critical for us, and\nthe abduction of Dona Clara compelled us to take the utmost\nprecautions.\"\n\n\"That is true,\" Andres Garote observed with an air of conviction.\n\n\"Although certain influential persons protect us under the rose,\" Red\nCedar continued, \"we are compelled to keep in the shade as far as we\ncan. I therefore sought to remedy the gravest points in the business. In\nthe first place, the girl was hidden in an inaccessible retreat, and\nthen I began looking for comrades to take the place of those who\nabandoned us so suddenly.\"\n\n\"Well?\" the two men interrupted him sharply.\n\n\"At this moment,\" Red Cedar calmly continued, \"when the placers of\nCalifornia call away all the men belonging to the profession, it was\ncertainly no easy task to collect one hundred men of the sort we want,\nthe more so as we shall have to fight the Indios Bravos in our\nexpedition. I did not care to enlist novices, who at the sight of the\nfirst Apache or Comanche savages, would bolt in terror, and leave us in\nthe lurch on the prairies. What I wanted were resolute men, whom no\nfatigue would disgust, and who, once attached to our enterprise, would\nfollow it out to the end. I have, therefore, during the past month, been\nrunning about to all the frontier presidios; and the devil has come to\nmy help tolerably well, for the evil is now repaired, and the band\ncomplete.\"\n\n\"I hope, Red Cedar,\" Fray Ambrosio asked, \"that you have not spoken\nabout the placer to your men?\"\n\n\"Do you take me for a fool! No, padre,\" the squatter answered sharply,\n\"no, no. A hundred thousand reasons urge us to be prudent, and keep the\nexpedition secret. In the first place, I do not wish to make the fortune\nof the Government while making our own. An indiscretion would ruin us\nnow, when the whole world only dreams of mines and placers, and Europe\nsends us a mob of lean and starving vagabonds, greedy to grow fat at our\nexpense.\"\n\n\"Famously reasoned,\" said Andres.\n\n\"No, no, trust to me. I have assembled the finest collection of picaros\never brought together for an expedition, all food for the gallows,\nruined by monte, who do not care for hard blows, and on whom I can fully\ncount, while being very careful not to drop a word that can enlighten\nthem as to the spot whither we propose leading them; for, in that case,\nI know as well as you do that they would abandon us without the\nslightest scruples, or, as is even more probable, assassinate us to gain\npossession of the immense treasures we covet.\"\n\n\"Nothing can be more just,\" Fray Ambrosio answered. \"I am quite of your\nopinion, Red Cedar. Now what have you resolved on?\"\n\n\"We have not an instant to lose,\" the squatter continued. \"This very\nevening, or tomorrow at the latest, we must set out. Who knows whether\nwe have not already delayed our start too long? Perhaps one of those\nEuropean vagabonds may have discovered our placer, for those scoundrels\nhave a peculiar scent for gold.\"\n\nFray Ambrosio cast a suspicious glance at his partner.\n\n\"Hum!\" he muttered, \"that would be very unlucky, for hitherto the\nbusiness has been well managed.\"\n\n\"For that reason,\" Red Cedar hastened to add, \"I only suggest a doubt\n--nothing more.\"\n\n\"Come, Red Cedar,\" the monk said, \"you have yourself narrated all the\nembarrassments of our position, and the countless difficulties we shall\nhave to surmount before reaching our object. Why, then, complicate the\ngravity of our situation still more, and create fresh enemies\nneedlessly?\"\n\n\"I do not understand you, senor padre. Be good enough to explain\nyourself more clearly.\"\n\n\"I allude to the young girl you carried off.\"\n\n\"Ah, ah!\" Red Cedar said with a grin, \"Is that where the shoe pinches\nyou, comrade? I am vexed at it; but I will not answer your question. If\nI carried off that woman, it was because I had pressing reasons to do\nso. These reasons still exist; that is all I can tell you. All the\nbetter if these explanations are sufficient for you; if not, you must\nput up with them, for you will get no others.\"\n\n\"Still it appears to me that, regarding the terms on which we stand to\neach other--\"\n\n\"What can there be in common between the abduction of Dona Clara and the\ndiscovery of a placer in the heart of Apacheria? Come, you are mad, Fray\nAmbrosio; the mezcal is getting to your head.\"\n\n\"Still--\" the monk insisted.\n\n\"Enough of that!\" Red Cedar shouted as he roughly smote the table with\nhis clenched fist. \"I will not hear another word on the subject.\"\n\nAt this moment two smart blows were heard on the carefully-bolted door.\n\nThe three men started, and Red Cedar broke off.\n\n\"Shall I open?\" Andres asked.\n\n\"Yes,\" Fray Ambrosio answered: \"hesitation or refusal might give an\nalarm. We must foresee everything.\"\n\nRed Cedar consented with a toss of his head, and the ranchero went with\nan ill grace toward the door, which was being struck as if about to be\nbeaten in.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE CUCHILLADA.\n\n\nSo soon as the door was opened two men appeared on the threshold. The\nfirst was Curumilla; the other, wrapped up in a large cloak, and with\nhis broad-brimmed hat drawn over his eyes, entered the room, making the\nIndian chief a sign to follow him. The latter was evidently a Mexican.\n\n\"_Santas tardes!_\" he said as he raised his hand to his hat, but not\nremoving it.\n\n\"_Dios las de a usted buenas!_\" the ranchero answered. \"What shall I\nserve to your excellencies?\"\n\n\"A bottle of mezcal,\" the stranger said.\n\nThe newcomers seated themselves at the end of the room, at a spot which\nthe light reached in such a weakened state that it was almost dark. When\nthey were served each poured out a glass of liquor, which he drank; and\nleaning his head on his hands, the Mexican appeared plunged in deep\nthought, not occupying himself the least in the world about the persons\nnear him. Curumilla crossed his arms on his chest, half closed his eyes,\nand remained motionless.\n\nStill the arrival of these two men, especially the presence of the\nstranger, had suddenly frozen the eloquence of our three friends. Gloomy\nand silent, they instinctively felt that the newcomers were enemies, and\nanxiously waited for what was about to occur. At length Red Cedar,\ndoubtless more impatient than his comrades, and wishful to know at once\nwhat he had to expect, rose, filled his glass, and turned toward the\nstrangers.\n\n\"Senores caballeros,\" he said, imitating that exquisite politeness which\nthe Mexicans possess in the highest degree. \"I have the honor of\ndrinking to your health.\"\n\nAt this invitation Curumilla remained insensible as a granite statue:\nhis companion slowly raised his head, fixed his eye for a moment on the\nspeaker, and answered in a loud and firm voice,--\n\n\"It is needless, senor, for I shall not drink to yours. What I say to\nyou,\" he added, laying a stress on the words, \"your friends can also\ntake for themselves if they think proper.\"\n\nFray Ambrosio rose violently.\n\n\"What do you say?\" he exclaimed in a threatening voice. \"Do you mean to\ninsult me?\"\n\n\"There are people whom a man cannot mean to insult,\" the stranger\ncontinued in a cutting voice. \"Remember this, senor padre--I do not wish\nto have any dealings with you.\"\n\n\"Why so?\"\n\n\"Because I do not please--that is all. Now, gentlemen, do not trouble\nyourselves about me, I beg, but continue your conversation: it was most\ninteresting when I arrived. You were speaking, I believe, about an\nexpedition you are preparing: there was a question too, I fancy, when I\nentered, about a girl your worthy friend, or partner--I do not know\nwhich he is--carried off with your assistance. Do not let me disturb\nyou. I should, on the contrary, be delighted to learn what you intend\ndoing with that unhappy creature.\"\n\nNo words could render the feeling of stupor and terror which seized on\nthe three partners at this, crushing revelation of their plans. When\nthey fancied they had completely concealed them by their cunning and\nskill, to see them thus suddenly unveiled in all their extent by a man\nwhom they did not know, but who knew them, and in consequence could only\nbe an enemy--this terrified them to such a degree that for a moment they\nfancied they had to do with the spirit of evil. The two Mexicans crossed\nthemselves simultaneously, while the American uttered a hoarse\nexclamation of rage.\n\nBut Red Cedar and Fray Ambrosio were men too hardened in iniquity for\nany event, however grave in its nature, to crush them for long. The\nfirst moment past, they recovered themselves, and amazement gave way to\nfury. The monk drew from his vaquera boot a knife, and posted himself\nbefore the door to prevent egress; while Red Cedar, with frowning brow\nand a machete in his hand, advanced resolutely toward the table, behind\nwhich their bold adversary, standing with folded arms, seemed to defy\nthem by his ironical smile.\n\n\"Whoever you may be,\" Red Cedar said, stopping two paces from his\nopponent, \"chance has made you master of a secret that kills, and you\nshall die.\"\n\n\"Do you really believe that I owe a knowledge of your secrets to\nchance?\" the other said with a mocking accent.\n\n\"Defend yourself,\" Red Cedar howled furiously, \"If you do not wish me to\nassassinate you; for, _con mil diablos!_ I shall not hesitate, I warn\nyou.\"\n\n\"I know it,\" the stranger replied quietly. \"I shall not be the first\nperson to whom that has happened: the Sierra Madre and El Bolson de\nMapimi have often heard the agonising cries of your victims, when\nIndians were wanting to fill up your number of scalps.\"\n\nAt this allusion to his frightful trade the squatter felt a livid pallor\ncover his face, a tremor agitated all his limbs, and he yelled in a\nchoking voice,--\n\n\"You lie! I am a hunter.\"\n\n\"Of scalps,\" the stranger immediately retorted, \"unless you have given\nup that lucrative and honourable profession since your last expedition to\nthe village of the Coras.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" the squatter shouted with an indescribable burst of fury, \"He is a\ncoward who hides his face while uttering such words.\"\n\nThe stranger shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and let the folds of\nhis mantle fall sharply.\n\n\"Do you recognise me, Red Cedar, since your conscience has not yet\nwhispered my name to you?\"\n\n\"Oh!\" the three men exclaimed in horror, and instinctively recoiling\n\"Don Pablo de Zarate!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the young man continued, \"Don Pablo, who has come, Red Cedar, to\nask of you an account of his sister, whom you carried off.\"\n\nRed Cedar was in a state of extraordinary agitation: with eyes dilated\nby terror, and contracted features, he felt the cold perspiration\nbeading on his temples at this unexpected apparition.\n\n\"Ah!\" he said in a hollow voice, \"Do the dead, then, leave the tomb?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the young man shouted loudly, \"they leave their tomb to tear your\nvictims from you. Red Cedar, restore me my sister!\"\n\nThe squatter leaped like a hyena on the young man, brandishing his\nmachete.\n\n\"Dog!\" he yelled, \"I will kill you a second time.\"\n\nBut his wrist was suddenly seized by a hand of iron, and the bandit\ntottered back to the wall of the rancho, against which he was forced to\nlean, lest he should roll on the ground. Curumilla, who had hitherto\nremained an impassive witness of the scene that took place before him,\nhad thought the moment for interference, had arrived, and had sharply\nhurled him back. The squatter, with eyes injected with blood, and lips\nclenched by rage, looked around him with glaring worthy of a wild beast.\nFray Ambrosio and the ranchero, held in check by the Indian chief, did\nnot dare to interfere. Don Pablo walked with slow and measured step\ntoward the bandit. When he was ten paces from him he stopped, and looked\nfixedly at him.\n\n\"Red Cedar,\" he repeated in a calm voice, \"give me back my sister.\"\n\n\"Never!\" the squatter answered in a voice choked by rage.\n\nIn the meanwhile the monk and the ranchero had treacherously approached\nthe young man, watching for the propitious moment to fall on him. The\nfive men assembled in this room offered a strange and sinister scene by\nthe uncertain light that filtered through the windows, as each stood\nwith his hand on his weapon, ready to kill or be killed, and only\nawaiting the opportunity to rush on his enemy. There was a moment of\nsupreme silence. Assuredly these men were brave. In many circumstances\nthey had seen death under every aspect; and yet their hearts beat as if\nto burst their breasts, for they knew that the combat about to commence\nbetween them was without truce or mercy. At length Don Pablo spoke\nagain.\n\n\"Take care, Red Cedar,\" he said. \"I have come to meet you alone and\nhonourably. I have asked you for my sister several times, and you have\nnot answered; so take care.\"\n\n\"I will sell your sister to the Apaches,\" the squatter howled. \"As for\nyou, accursed one, you shall not leave this room alive. May I be\neternally condemned if your heart does not serve as a sheath to my\nknife!\"\n\n\"The scoundrel is mad!\" the young man said contemptuously.\n\nHe fell back a pace, and then stopped.\n\n\"Listen,\" he continued. \"I will now retire, but we shall meet again; and\nwoe to you then, for I shall be as pitiless to you as you have been to\nme. Farewell!\"\n\n\"Oh! you shall not go in that way, my master,\" replied the squatter, who\nhad regained all his boldness and impudence. \"Did I not tell you I would\nkill you?\"\n\nThe young man fixed upon him a glance of undefinable expression, and\ncrossed his arms boldly on his chest.\n\n\"Try it,\" he said in a voice rendered harsh by the fury boiling in his\nheart.\n\nRed Cedar uttered a yell of rage, and bounded on Don Pablo. The latter\ncalmly awaited the attack; but, so soon as the squatter was within reach\nhe suddenly took off his mantle, and threw it over his enemy's head,\nwho, blinded by the folds of the thick garment, rolled about on the\nground, unable to free himself from the accursed cloth that held him\nlike a net. With one bound the young man was over the table, and\ntroubling himself no further about Red Cedar, proceeded toward the door.\n\nAt this moment Fray Ambrosio rushed upon him, trying to bury his knife\nin his chest. Feeling not the slightest alarm, Don Pablo seized his\nassailant's wrist, and with a strength he was far from anticipating,\ntwisted his arm so violently that his fingers opened, and he let the\nknife fall with a yell of pain. Don Pablo picked it up, and seized the\nmonk by the throat.\n\n\"Listen, villain!\" he said to him. \"I am master of your life. You\nbetrayed my father, who took pity on you, and received you into his\nhouse. You dishonour the gown you wear by your connection with\ncriminals, whose ill deeds you share in. I could kill you, and perhaps\nought to do so; but it would be robbing the executioner to whom you\nbelong, and cheating the garrote which awaits you. This gown, of which\nyou are unworthy, saves your life; but I will mark you so that you shall\nnever forget me.\"\n\nAnd placing the point of the knife on the monk's livid face, he made two\ngashes in the shape of a cross along the whole length and breadth of his\nface.\n\n\"We shall meet again!\" he added in a thundering voice, as he threw the\nknife away in disgust.\n\nAndres Garote had not dared to make a move: terror nailed him motionless\nto the ground beneath the implacable eye of the Indian warrior. Don\nPablo and Curumilla then rushed from the room and disappeared, and ere\nlong the hoofs of two horses departing at full speed from the town could\nbe heard clattering over the pavement.\n\nBy the aid of the ranchero, Red Cedar presently succeeded in freeing\nhimself from the fold of the cloak that embarrassed him. When the three\naccomplices found themselves alone again an expression of impotent rage\nand deadly hatred distorted their faces.\n\n\"Oh!\" the squatter muttered, grinding his teeth, and raising his fist to\nheaven, \"I will be revenged.\"\n\n\"And I too,\" said Fray Ambrosio in a hollow voice, as he wiped away the\nblood that stained his face.\n\n\"Hum! I do not care,\" Andres Garote said to himself aside. \"That family\nof the Zarates is a fine one; but, _caray_! it must be confessed that\nDon Pablo is a rough fellow.\"\n\nThe worthy ranchero was the only one chance had favoured in this meeting\nby letting him escape safe and sound.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE HUNTERS.\n\n\nAt about two leagues from Santa Fe, in a clearing situated on the banks\nof the stream which borders that town, and on the evening of the same\nday, a man was seated before a large fire, which he carefully kept up,\nwhile actively engaged in making preparations for supper. A frugal meal,\nat any rate, this supper! It was composed of a buffalo hump, a few\npotatoes, and maize tortillas baked on the ashes, the whole washed down\nwith pulque.\n\nThe night was gloomy. Heavy black clouds coursed athwart the sky, at\ntimes intercepting the sickly rays of the moon, which only shed an\nuncertain light over the landscape, which was itself buried in one of\nthose dense mists that, in equatorial countries, exhale from the ground\nafter a hot day. The wind blew violently through the trees, whose\nbranches came in contact, with plaintive moans: and in the depths of the\nwoods the miawling of the wild cats was mingled with the snarl of the\ncoyotes and the howls of the pumas and jaguars. All at once the sound of\ngalloping horses could be heard in the forest, and two riders burst into\nthe clearing. On seeing them the hunter uttered an exclamation of joy,\nand hurried to meet them. They were Don Pablo and Curumilla.\n\n\"Heaven be praised!\" the hunter said. \"Here you are at last. I was\nbeginning to grow alarmed at your long absence.\"\n\n\"You see that nothing has happened to me,\" the young man answered,\naffectionately pressing the hunter's hands.\n\nDon Pablo had dismounted, and hobbled his own horse and Curumilla's near\nValentine, while the Indian chief busied himself in preparing the\nsupper.\n\n\"Come, come,\" the hunter said gaily, \"to table. You must be hungry, and\nI am dying of inanition. You can tell me all that has occurred while we\nare eating.\"\n\nThe three men went to the table; that is, they seated themselves on the\ngrass in front of the fire, and vigorously assailed their meagre repast.\nDesert life has this peculiarity--that in whatever position you may find\nyourself, as the struggles you go through are generally physical rather\nthan moral, nature never resigns her claims: you feel the need of\nkeeping up your strength, so as to be ready for all eventualities. There\nis no alarm great enough to prevent you from eating and drinking.\n\n\"Now,\" Valentine asked presently, \"what have you done? I fancy you\nremained much longer than was necessary in that accursed town.\"\n\n\"We did, my friend. Certain reasons forced me to remain longer than I\nhad at first intended.\"\n\n\"Proceed in regular order, if you have no objection. I fancy that is the\nonly way of understanding each other.\"\n\n\"Act as you please, my friend.\"\n\n\"Very good: the chief and I will light our Indian pipes while you make\nyour cigarette. We will sit with our backs to the fire, so as to watch\nthe neighbourhood, and in that way can converse without apprehension.\nWhat do you say, Pablo?\"\n\n\"You are always right, my friend. Your inexhaustible gaiety, your honest\ncarelessness, restore me all my courage, and make me quite a different\nman.\"\n\n\"Hum!\" Valentine said, \"I am glad to hear you speak so. The position is\nserious, it is true; but it is far from being desperate. The chief and I\nhave many times been in situations were our lives only depended on a\nthread: and yet we always emerged from them honourably--did we not,\nchief?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the Indian answered laconically, drawing in a mouthful of smoke,\nwhich he sent forth again from his mouth and nostrils.\n\n\"But that is not the question of the moment. I have sworn to save your\nfather and sister, Pablo, and will do so, or my carcass shall be food\nfor the wild beasts of the prairie; so leave me to act. Have you seen\nFather Seraphin?\"\n\n\"Yes, I have. Our poor friend is still very weak and pale, and his wound\nis scarce cicatrised. Still, paying no heed to his sufferings, and\nderiving strength from his unbounded devotion to humanity, he has done\nall we agreed on. For the last week he has only left my father to hasten\nto his judges. He has seen the general, the governor, the\nbishop--everybody, in short--and has neglected nothing. Unfortunately\nall his exertions have hitherto been fruitless.\"\n\n\"Patience!\" the hunter said with a smile of singular meaning.\n\n\"Father Seraphin believes for certain that my father will be placed in\nthe capilla within two days. The governor wishes to have done with\nit--that is the expression he employed; and Father Seraphin told me that\nwe have not a moment to lose.\"\n\n\"Two days are a long time, my friend; before they have elapsed many\nthings may have occurred.\"\n\n\"That is true; but my father's life is at stake, and I feel timid.\"\n\n\"Good, Don Pablo; I like to hear you speak so. But reassure yourself;\nall is going on well, I repeat.\"\n\n\"Still, my friend, I believe it would be wise to take certain\nprecautions. Remember it is a question of life or death, and we must\nmake haste. How many times, under similar circumstances, have the best\narranged plans failed! Do you think that your measures are well taken?\nDo you not fear lest an unhappy accident may derange all your plans at\nthe decisive moment?\"\n\n\"We are playing at this moment the devil's own game, my friend,\"\nValentine answered coldly. \"We have chance on our side; that is to say,\nthe greatest power that exists, and which governs the world.\"\n\nThe young man lowered his head, as if but slightly convinced. The hunter\nregarded him for a moment with a mixture of interest and tender pity,\nand then continued in a soothing voice,--\n\n\"Listen, Don Pablo de Zarate,\" he said. \"I have said that I will save\nyour father, and mean to do so. Still I wish him to leave the prison in\nwhich he now is, like a man of his character ought to leave it, in open\nday, greeted by the applause of the crowd, and not by escaping furtively\nduring the night, like a vile criminal. Hang it all! Do you think it\nwould have been difficult for me to enter the town, and effect your\nfather's escape by filing the bars or bribing the jailer? I would not do\nit. Don Miguel would not have accepted that cowardly and shameful\nflight. Your father shall leave his prison, but begged to do so by the\ngovernor himself, and all the authorities of Santa Fe. So regain your\ncourage, and no longer doubt a man whose friendship and experience\nshould, on the contrary, restore your confidence.\"\n\nThe young man had listened to these words with even increasing interest.\nWhen Valentine ceased speaking he seized his hand.\n\n\"Pardon me, my friend,\" he answered him. \"I know how devoted you are to\nmy family; but I suffer, and grief renders me unjust. Forgive me.\"\n\n\"Child, let us forget it all. Was the town quiet today?\"\n\n\"I cannot tell you, for I was so absorbed in thought that I saw nothing\ngoing on around me. Still I fancy there was a certain agitation, which\nwas not natural, on the Plaza Mayor, near the governor's palace.\"\n\nValentine indulged once again in that strange smile that had already\nplayed round the corners of his delicate lips.\n\n\"Good!\" he said. \"And did you, as I advised, try to gain any information\nabout Red Cedar?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he answered with a start of joy, \"I did; and I have positive\nnews.\"\n\n\"Ah, ah! How so?\"\n\n\"I will tell you.\"\n\nAnd Don Pablo described the scene that had taken place in the rancho.\nThe hunter listened to it with the utmost attention, and when it was\nfinished he tossed his head several times with an air of\ndissatisfaction.\n\n\"All young people are so,\" he muttered; \"they always allow their passion\nto carry them beyond the bounds of reason. You were wrong, extremely\nwrong, Don Pablo,\" he then added. \"Red Cedar believed you dead, and that\nmight have been of great use to us presently. You do not know the\nimmense power that demon has at his disposal: all the bandits on the\nfrontier are devoted to him. Your outbreak will be most injurious to\nyour sister's safety.\"\n\n\"Still, my friend--\"\n\n\"You acted like a madman in arousing the slumbering fury of the tiger.\nRed Cedar will persist in destroying you. I have known the wretch for a\nlong time. But that is not the worst you have done.\"\n\n\"What is it, then?\"\n\n\"Why, madman as you are, instead of keeping dark, watching your enemies\nwithout saying a word--in short, seeing through their game--by an\nunpardonable act of bravado you have unmasked all your batteries.\"\n\n\"I do not understand you, my friend.\"\n\n\"Fray Ambrosio is a villain of a different stamp from Red Cedar, it is\ntrue; but I consider him even a greater scoundrel than the scalp hunter.\nAt any rate, the latter is purely a rogue, and you know what to expect\nfrom him: all about him bears the stamp of his hideous soul. Had you\nstabbed that wild beast, who perspires blood by every pore, and dreams\nof naught but murder, I might possibly have pardoned you; but you have\ncompletely failed, not only in prudence, but in good sense, by acting as\nyou have done with Fray Ambrosio. That man is a hypocrite. He owes all\nto your family, and is furious at seeing this treachery discovered. Take\ncare, Don Pablo. You have made at one blow two implacable enemies, the\nmore terrible now because they have nothing to guard against.\"\n\n\"It is true,\" the young man said; \"I acted like a fool. But what would\nyou? At the sight of those two men, when I heard from their very lips\nthe crimes they had committed, and those they still meditate against us,\nI was no longer master of myself. I entered the rancho, and you know the\nrest.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, the cuchillada was a fine one. Certainly the bandit deserved\nit; but I fear lest the cross you so smartly drew on his face will cost\nyou dearly some day.\"\n\n\"Well, let us leave it in the hand of Heaven. You know the proverb, 'It\nis better to forget what cannot be remedied.' Provided my father escape\nthe fate that menaces him, I shall be happy. I shall take my precautions\nto defend myself.\"\n\n\"Did you learn nothing further?\"\n\n\"Yes; Red Cedar's gambusinos are encamped a short distance from us. I\nknow that their chief intends starting tomorrow at the latest.\"\n\n\"Oh, oh! Already? We must make haste and prepare our ambuscade, if we\nwish to discover the road they mean to follow.\"\n\n\"When shall we start?\"\n\n\"At once.\"\n\nThe three men made their preparations; the horses were saddled, the\nsmall skins the horseman always carries at his saddle-bow in these dry\ncountries were filled with water, and five minutes later the hunters\nmounted. At the moment they were leaving the clearing a rustling of\nleaves was heard, the branches parted, and an Indian appeared. It was\nUnicorn, the great sachem of the Comanches. On seeing him the three men\ndismounted and waited. Valentine advanced alone to meet the Indian.\n\n\"My brother is welcome,\" he said. \"What does he want of me?\"\n\n\"To see the face of a friend,\" the chief answered in a gentle voice.\n\nThe two men then bowed after the fashion of the prairie. After this\nceremony Valentine went on:\n\n\"My father must approach the fire, and smoke from the calumet of his\nwhite friends.\"\n\n\"I will do so,\" Unicorn answered.\n\nAnd drawing near the fire, he crouched down in Indian fashion, took his\npipe from his belt, and smoked in silence. The hunters, seeing the turn\nthis unexpected interview was taking, had fastened up their horses, and\nseated themselves again round the fire. A few minutes passed thus, no\none speaking, each waiting till the Indian chief should explain the\nmotive of his coming. At length Unicorn shook the ashes from his\ncalumet, returned it to his belt, and addressed Valentine.\n\n\"Is my brother setting out to hunt buffaloes again?\" he said. \"There are\nmany this year on the prairies of the Rio Gila.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the Frenchman replied, \"we are going hunting. Does my brother\nintend to accompany us?\"\n\n\"No; my heart is sad.\n\n\"What means the chief? Has any misfortune happened to him?\"\n\n\"Does not my brother understand me, or am I really mistaken? It is that\nmy brother only really loves the buffaloes, whose meat he eats, and\nwhose hides he sells at the _tolderia_?\"\n\n\"Let my brother explain himself more clearly; then I will try to answer\nhim.\"\n\nThere was a moment of silence. The Indian seemed to be reflecting\ndeeply: his nostrils were dilated, and at times his black eye flashed\nfire. The hunters calmly awaited the issue of this conversation, whose\nobject they had not yet caught. At length Unicorn raised his head,\nrestored all the serenity to his glance, and said in a soft and\nmelodious voice,--\n\n\"Why pretend not to understand me, Koutonepi? A warrior must not have a\nforked tongue. What a man cannot do alone, two can attempt and carry\nout. Let my brother speak: the ears of a friend are open.\"\n\n\"My brother is right. I will not deceive his expectations. The hunt I\nwish to make is serious. I am anxious to save a woman of my colour; but\nwhat can the will of one man effect?\"\n\n\"Koutonepi is not alone: I see at his side the best two rifles of the\nfrontier. What does the white hunter tell me? Is he no longer the great\nwarrior I knew? Does he doubt the friendship of his brother Haboutzelze,\nthe great sachem of the Comanches?\"\n\n\"I never doubted the friendship of my brother. I am an adopted son of\nhis nation. At this very moment is he not seeking to do me a service?\"\n\n\"That service is only half what I wish to do. Let my brother speak the\nword, and two hundred Comanche warriors shall join him to deliver the\nvirgin of the palefaces, and take the scalps of her ravishers.\"\n\nValentine started with joy at this noble offer.\n\n\"Thanks, chief,\" he said eagerly. \"I accept; and I know that your word\nis sacred.\"\n\n\"Michabou protects us,\" the Indian said. \"My brother can count on me. A\nchief does not forget a service. I owe obligations to the pale hunter,\nand will deliver to him the gachupino robbers.\"\n\n\"Here is my hand, chief: my heart has long been yours.\"\n\n\"My brother speaks well. I have done what he requested of me.\"\n\nAnd, bowing courteously, the Comanche chief withdrew without adding a\nword.\n\n\"Don Pablo,\" Valentine exclaimed joyously, \"I can now guarantee your\nfather's safety: this night--perhaps tomorrow--he will be free.\"\n\nThe young man fell into the hunter's arms, and hid his head on his\nhonest chest, not having the strength to utter a word. A few minutes\nlater, the hunters left the clearing to go in search of the gambusinos,\nand prepare their ambuscade.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nSUNBEAM.\n\n\nWe will now go a little way back, in order to clear up certain portions\nof the conversation between Valentine and Unicorn, whose meaning the\nreader can not have caught.\n\nOnly a few months after their arrival in Apacheria the Frenchman and\nCurumilla were hunting the buffalo on the banks of the Rio Gila. It was\na splendid day in the month of July. The two hunters, fatigued by a long\nmarch under the beams of the parching sun, that fell vertically on their\nheads, had sheltered themselves under a clump of cedar wood trees, and,\ncarelessly stretched out on the ground, were smoking while waiting till\nthe great heat had passed, and the evening breeze rose to enable them to\ncontinue their hunt. A quarter of elk was roasting for their dinner.\n\n\"Eh, _penni_,\" Valentine said, addressing his comrade, and rising on his\nelbow, \"the dinner seems to be ready; so suppose we feed? The sun is\nrapidly sinking behind the virgin forest, and we shall soon have to\nstart again.\"\n\n\"Eat,\" Curumilla answered, sharply.\n\nThe meat was laid on a leaf between the two hunters, who began eating\nwith good appetite, and indulging in cakes of _hautle_. These cakes,\nwhich are very good, are certainly curious. They are made of the pounded\neggs of a species of water bug, collected by a sort of harvest in the\nMexican lakes. They are found on the leaves of the _toule_ (bulrush),\nand the farina is prepared in various ways. It is an Aztec preparation\n_par excellence_, for so long back as 1625 they were sold on the\nmarketplace of the Mexican capital. They form the chief food of the\nIndians, who consider them as great a dainty as the Chinese do their\nswallow nests, with which this article of food has a certain resemblance\nin taste. Valentine had taken a third bite at his hautle cake when he\nstopped, with his arm raised and his head bent forward, as if an unusual\nsound had suddenly smitten his ear. Curumilla imitated his friend, and\nboth listened with that deep attention that only results from a\nlengthened desert life; for on the prairie every sound is\nsuspicious--every meeting is feared, especially with man.\n\nSome time elapsed ere the noise which startled the hunters was repeated.\nFor a moment they fancied themselves deceived, and Valentine took\nanother bite, when he was again checked. This time he had distinctly\nheard a sound resembling a stifled sigh, but so weak and hollow that it\nneeded the Trail-hunter's practised ear to catch it. Curumilla himself\nhad perceived nothing. He looked at his friend in amazement, not knowing\nto what he should attribute his state of agitation. Valentine rose\nhurriedly, seized his rifle, and rushed in the direction of the river,\nhis friend following him in all haste.\n\nIt was from the river, in fact, that the sigh heard by Valentine had\ncome, and fortunately it was but a few paces distant. So soon as the\nhunters had leaped over the intervening bushes they found themselves on\nthe bank, and a fearful sight presented itself to their startled eyes. A\nlong plank was descending the river, turning on its axis, and borne by\nthe current, which ran rather strongly at this point. On this plank was\nfastened a woman, who held a child in her clasped arms. Each time the\nplank revolved the unhappy woman plunged with her child into the stream,\nand at ten yards at the most from it an enormous cayman was swimming\nvigorously to snap at its two victims.\n\nValentine raised his rifle. Curumilla at the same moment glided into the\nwater, holding his knife blade between his teeth, and swam toward the\nplank. Valentine remained for a few seconds motionless, as if changed\ninto a block of marble. All at once he pulled the trigger, and the\ndischarge was re-echoed by the distant mountains. The cayman leaped out\nof the water, and plunged down again; but it reappeared a moment later,\nbelly upwards. It was dead. Valentine's bullet had passed through its\neye.\n\nIn the meanwhile Curumilla, had reached the plank with a few strokes,\nwithout loss of time he turned it in the opposite direction from what it\nwas following; and while holding it so that it could not revolve, he\npushed it onto the sand. In two strokes he cut the bonds that held the\nhapless woman, seized her in his arms, and ran off with her to the\nbivouac fire.\n\nThe poor woman gave no signs of life, and the two hunters eagerly sought\nto restore her. She was an Indian, apparently not more than eighteen,\nand very beautiful. Valentine found great difficulty in loosening her\narms and removing the baby; for the frail creature about a year old, by\nan incomprehensible miracle, had been preserved--thanks, doubtless to\nits mother's devotion. It smiled pleasantly at the hunter when he laid\nit on a bed of dry leaves.\n\nCurumilla opened the woman's mouth slightly with his knife blade, placed\nin it the mouth of his gourd, and made her swallow a few drops of\nmezcal. A long time elapsed ere she gave the slightest move that\nindicated an approaching return to life. The hunters, however, would not\nbe foiled by the ill-success of their attentions, but redoubled their\nefforts. At length a deep sigh burst painfully from the sufferer's\noppressed chest, and she opened her eyes, murmuring in a voice weak as a\nbreath!\n\n\"_Xocoyotl_ (My child)!\"\n\nThe cry of the soul--this first and supreme appeal of a mother on the\nverge of the tomb--affected the two men with their hearts of bronze.\nValentine cautiously lifted the child, which had gone to sleep\npeacefully on the leaves, and presented it to the mother, saying in a\nsoft voice:\n\n\"_Nantli joltinemi_ (Mother, he lives)!\"\n\nAt these words, which restored her hope, the woman leaped up as if moved\nby a spring, seized the child, and covered it with kisses, as she burst\ninto tears. The hunters respected this outpouring of maternal love: they\nwithdrew, leaving food and water by the woman's side. At sunset the two\nmen returned. The woman was squatting by the fire, nursing her child,\nand lulling it to sleep by singing an Indian song. The night passed\ntranquilly, the two hunters watching in turn over the slumbers of the\nwoman they had saved, and who reposed in peace.\n\nAt sunrise she awoke; and, with the skill and handiness peculiar to the\nwomen of her race, she rekindled the fire and prepared breakfast. The\ntwo men looked at her with a smile, then threw their rifles over their\nshoulders, and set out in search of game. When they returned to the\nbivouac the meal was ready. After eating, Valentine lit his Indian pipe,\nseated himself at the foot of a tree, and addressed the young woman.\n\n\"What is my sister's name?\" he asked.\n\n\"Tonameyotl (the Sunbeam),\" she replied, with a joyous smile that\nrevealed the double row of pearls that adorned her mouth.\n\n\"My sister has a pretty name,\" Valentine answered. \"She doubtless\nbelongs to the great nation of the Apaches.\"\n\n\"The Apaches are dogs,\" she said in a hollow voice, and with a flash of\nhatred in her glance. \"The Comanche women will weave them petticoats.\nThe Apaches are cowardly as the coyotes: they only fight a hundred\nagainst one. The Comanche warriors are like the tempest.\"\n\n\"Is my sister the wife of a cacique?\"\n\n\"Where is the warrior who does not know Unicorn?\" she said proudly.\n\nValentine bowed. He had already heard the name of this terrible chief\npronounced several times. Mexicans and Indians, trappers, hunters, and\nwarriors, all felt for him a respect mingled with terror.\n\n\"Sunbeam is Unicorn's wife,\" the Indian girl continued.\n\n\"Good!\" Valentine answered. \"My sister will tell me where to find the\nvillage of her tribe, and I will lead her back to the chief.\"\n\nThe young woman smiled.\n\n\"I have in my heart a small bird that sings at every instant of the\nday,\" she said in her gentle and melodious voice. \"The swallow cannot\nlive without its mate, and the chief is on the trail of Sunbeam.\"\n\n\"We will wait the chief here, then,\" Valentine said.\n\nThe hunter felt great pleasure in conversing with this simple child.\n\n\"How was my sister thus fastened to the trunk of tree, and thrown into\nthe current of the Gila, to perish there with her child? It is an\natrocious vengeance.\"\n\n\"Yes, it is the vengeance of an Apache dog,\" she answered. \"Aztatl (the\nHeron), daughter of Stanapat, the great chief of the Apaches, loved\nUnicorn--her heart bounded at the mere name of the great Comanche\nwarrior; but the chief of my nation has only one heart, and it belongs\nto Sunbeam. Two days ago the warriors of my tribe set out for a great\nbuffalo hunt, and the squaws alone remained in the village. While I\nslept in my hut four Apache thieves, taking advantage of my slumber,\nseized me and my child, and delivered us into the hands of Stanapat's\ndaughter. 'You love your husband,' she said with a grin: 'you doubtless\nsuffer at being separated from him. Be happy: I will send you to him by\nthe shortest road. He is hunting on the prairies down the river, and in\ntwo hours you will be in his arms, unless,' she added with a laugh, 'the\ncaymans stop you on the road.'--'The Comanche women despise death,' I\nanswered her. 'For a hair you pluck from me, Unicorn will take the\nscalps of your whole tribe; so act as you think proper;' and I turned my\nhead away, resolved to answer her no more. She herself fastened me to\nthe log, with my face turned to the sky, in order, as she said, that I\nmight see my road; and then she hurled me into the river, yelling:\n'Unicorn is a cowardly rabbit, whom the Apache women despise. This is\nhow I revenge myself.' I have told my brother, the pale hunter,\neverything as it happened.\"\n\n\"My sister is a brave woman,\" Valentine replied: \"she is worthy to be\nthe wife of a renowned chief.\"\n\nThe young mother smiled as she embraced her child, which she presented,\nwith a movement full of grace, to the hunter, who kissed it on the\nforehead. At this moment the song of the maukawis was heard at a short\ndistance off. The two hunters raised their heads in surprise, and looked\naround them.\n\n\"The quail sings very late, I fancy,\" Valentine muttered suspiciously.\n\nThe Indian girl smiled as she looked down, but gave no answer. Suddenly\na slight cracking of dry branches disturbed the silence. Valentine and\nCurumilla made a move, as if to spring up and seize their rifles that\nlay by their side.\n\n\"My brothers must not stir,\" the squaw said quickly: \"it is a friend.\"\n\nThe hunters remained motionless, and the girl then imitated with rare\nperfection the cry of the blue jay. The bushes parted, and an Indian\nwarrior, perfectly painted and armed for war, bounded like a jackal over\nthe grass and herbs that obstructed his passage, and stopped in face of\nthe hunters. This warrior was Unicorn. He saluted the two men with that\ngrace innate in the Indian race; then he crossed his arms on his breast\nand waited, without taking a glance at his squaw, or even appearing to\nhave seen her. On her side the Indian woman did not stir.\n\nDuring several moments a painful silence fell on the four persons whom\nchance had assembled in so strange a way. At length Valentine, seeing\nthe warrior insisted on being silent, decided he would be the first to\nspeak.\n\n\"Unicorn is welcome to our camp,\" he said. \"Let him take a seat by the\nfire of his brothers, and share with them the provisions they possess.\"\n\n\"I will take a seat by the fire of my paleface brother,\" he replied;\n\"but he must first answer me a question I wish to ask of him.\"\n\n\"My brother can speak: my ears are open.\"\n\n\"Good!\" the chief answered. \"How is it the hunters have with them\nUnicorn's wife?\"\n\n\"Sunbeam can answer that question best,\" Valentine said gravely.\n\nThe chief turned to his squaw.\n\n\"I am waiting,\" he remarked.\n\nThe Indian woman repeated, word for word, to her husband the story she\nhad told a few minutes before. Unicorn listened without evincing either\nsurprise or wrath: his face remained impassive, but his brows were\nimperceptibly contracted. When the woman had finished speaking, the\nComanche chief bowed his head on his chest, and remained for a moment\nplunged in serious thought. Presently he raised his head.\n\n\"Who saved Sunbeam from the river when she was about to perish?\" he\nasked her.\n\nThe young woman's face lit up with a charming smile.\n\n\"These hunters,\" she replied.\n\n\"Good!\" the chief said, laconically, as he bent on the two men glances\nfull of the most unspeakable gratitude.\n\n\"Could we leave her to perish?\" Valentine said.\n\n\"My brothers did well. Unicorn is one of the first sachems of his\nnation. His tongue is not forked: he gives his heart once, and takes it\nback no more. Unicorn's heart belongs to the hunters.\"\n\nThese simple words were uttered with the majesty and grandeur the\nIndians know so well how to assume when they think proper. The two men\nvowed their gratitude, and the chief continued:--\n\n\"Unicorn is returning to his village with his wife: his young men are\nawaiting him twenty paces from here. He would be happy if the hunters\nwould consent to accompany him there.\"\n\n\"Chief,\" Valentine answered, \"we came into the prairie to hunt the\nbuffalo.\"\n\n\"Well, what matter? My brothers will hunt with me and my young men; but\nif they wish to prove to me that they accept my friendship, they will\nfollow me to my village.\"\n\n\"The chief is mounted, while we are on foot.\"\n\n\"I have horses.\"\n\nAny further resistance would have been a breach of politeness, and the\nhunters accepted the invitation. Valentine, whom accident had brought on\nto the prairies of the Rio Gila and Del Norte, was in his heart not\nsorry to make friends there, and have allies on whose support he could\nreckon in case of need. The squaw had by this time risen: she timidly\napproached her husband, and held up the child, saying in a soft and\nfrightened voice,--\n\n\"Kiss this warrior.\"\n\nThe chief took the frail creature in his muscular arms, and kissed it\nrepeatedly with a display of extraordinary tenderness, and then returned\nit to the mother. The latter wrapped the babe in a small blanket, then\nplaced it on a plank shaped like a cradle, and covered with dry moss,\nfastened a hoop over the place where its head rested, to guard it from\nthe burning beams of the sun, and hung the whole on her back by means of\na woolen strap passing over her forehead.\n\n\"I am ready,\" she said.\n\n\"Let us go,\" the chief replied.\n\nThe hunters followed him, and they were soon on the prairie.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX.\n\nTHE ADOPTION.\n\n\nSome sixty Comanche warriors were lying in the grass awaiting their\nsachem, while the tethered horses were nibbling the tall prairie grasses\nand the tree shoots. It could be seen at the first glance that these men\nwere picked warriors, selected for a dangerous expedition. From the\nheels of all dangled five or six wolf tails--marks of honor which only\nrenowned warriors have the right to wear.\n\nOn seeing their chief, they hurriedly rose and leaped into their\nsaddles. All were aware that their sachem's wife had been carried off,\nand that the object of their expedition was to deliver her. Still, on\nnoticing her, they evidenced no surprise, but saluted her as if she had\nleft them only a few moments previously. The war party had with it\nseveral horses, which the chief ordered to be given to his squaw and his\nnew friends; then, at a signal from him, the whole party started at full\nspeed, for the Indians know no other pace than the gallop.\n\nAfter about two hours' ride they reached the vicinity of the village,\nwhich could be smelt some time before reaching, owing to the habit the\nComanches have of placing their dead on scaffoldings outside the\nvillages, where they moulder away: these scaffoldings, composed of four\nstakes planted in the ground, terminated in a fork, while from poles\nstuck up near them hung skins and other offerings made by the Indians to\nthe genius of good.\n\nAt the entrance of the village a number of horsemen were assembled,\nawaiting the return of the sachem. So soon as they perceived him they\nburst into a formidable yell, and rushed forward like a whirlwind,\nshouting, firing guns, and brandishing their weapons. Unicorn's band\nfollowed this example, and there was soon a most extraordinary\nconfusion.\n\nThe sachem made his entry into the village in the midst of shouts,\nbarking of dogs, and shots; in short, he was accompanied to the square\nby an indescribable row. On reaching it the warriors stopped. Unicorn\nbegged the hunters to dismount, and guided them to his cabin, which he\nmade them enter before him.\n\n\"Now,\" he said to them, \"brothers, you are at home: rest in peace, eat\nand drink. This evening I will come and talk with you, and make you a\nproposal which I sincerely hope you will not reject.\"\n\nThe two hunters, wearied by the long ride they had made, fell back with\nextreme satisfaction on the beds of dried leaves which awaited them.\n\n\"Well,\" Valentine asked Curumilla, \"penni, what do you say about what is\nhappening to us?\"\n\n\"It may be good.\"\n\n\"Can it not?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nOn which Curumilla fell asleep, and Valentine soon followed his example.\nAs he had promised, toward evening Unicorn entered the cabin.\n\n\"Have my brothers rested?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes,\" Valentine answered.\n\n\"Are they disposed to listen to me?\"\n\n\"Speak, chief; we are listening.\"\n\nThe Comanche sachem then squatted near the fire, and remained for\nseveral minutes, with his head bent forward and his eyes fixed on the\nground, in the position of a man who is reflecting. At length he raised\nhis head, stretched forth his arm as if to give greater authority to the\nwords he was about to utter, and began thus:--\n\n\"Brother, you and your friend are two brave warriors. The prairies\nrejoice at your arrival among us; the deer and the buffaloes fly at your\napproach; for your arm is strong, and your eye unerring. Unicorn is only\na poor Indian; but he is a great warrior among the Comanches, and a much\nfeared chief of his tribe. You have saved his wife, Sunbeam, whom the\nApache dogs threw into the Gila, and whom the hideous alligators were\npreparing to devour. Since his wife, the joy of his hearth, and his son,\nthe hope of his old days, have been restored to him, Unicorn has sought\nin his heart the means to prove to you his gratitude. He asked the Chief\nof Life what he could do to attach you to him. Unicorn is terrible in\ncombat; he has the heart of the grizzly bear for his enemies--he has the\nheart of the gazelle for those he loves.\"\n\n\"Chief,\" Valentine answered, \"the words you utter at this moment amply\nrepay us for what we have done. We are happy to have saved the wife and\nson of a celebrated warrior: our reward is in our hearts, and we wish\nfor no other.\"\n\nThe chief shook his head.\n\n\"No,\" he said; \"the two hunters are no longer strangers for the\nComanches; they are the brothers of our tribe. During their sleep\nUnicorn assembled round the council fire the chiefs of his nation, and\ntold them what has passed. The chiefs have ranged themselves on\nUnicorn's side, and have ordered him to make known to the hunters the\nresolution they have formed.\"\n\n\"Speak, then, chief,\" Valentine said, \"and believe that the wishes of\nthe council will be commands to us.\"\n\nA smile of joy played round the chief's lips.\n\n\"Good!\" he said. \"This is what was agreed on among the great chiefs. My\nbrothers the hunters will be adopted by the tribe, and be henceforth\nsons of the great Comanche nation. What say my brothers?\"\n\nA lively feeling of pleasure made Valentine quiver at this unexpected\nproposition. To be adopted by the Comanche tribe, was obtaining the\nright of hunting over the whole extent of the immense prairies which\nthat powerful nation holds through its indomitable courage and the\nnumber of its warriors. The hunter exchanged a glance with his silent\ncomrade and rose.\n\n\"I accept for myself and friend,\" he said as he held out his hand to the\nchief, \"the honor the Comanches do us in admitting us into the number of\nthe sons of their warlike nation. We shall prove ourselves worthy of\nthis marked favour.\"\n\nUnicorn smiled.\n\n\"Tomorrow,\" he said as he rose, \"my brothers will be adopted by the\nnation.\"\n\nAfter bowing gracefully to the hunters he took leave of them and\nwithdrew. The next daybreak the chiefs entered the cabin. Valentine and\nCurumilla were ready, and had long been acquainted with the trials they\nwould have to undergo. The neophytes were conducted into the great\nmedicine hut, where a copious meal was prepared. It consisted of dog\nmeat boiled in bear fat, tortillas, maize, and hautle cakes. The chiefs\nsquatted in a circle, while the squaws waited on them.\n\nWhen the meal was ended all rose. Unicorn placed himself between the\nhunters, laid his hands on their heads, and struck up the great war\nsong. This song was repeated in chorus by the company to the sound of\nthe war whistles, the drums and the _chikikouis._ The following is the\ntranslation of the song:--\n\n \"Master of Life, regard us with a favourable eye.\n We are receiving two brothers in arms who appear to have sense.\n They display vigour in their arms.\n They fear not to expose their bodies to the blows of their enemies.\"\n\nIt is impossible for anyone who has not been present at the ceremony to\nform even a distant idea of the frightful noise produced by their hoarse\nvoices mingled with the shrill and discordant instruments: it was enough\nto produce a deafness. When the song was ended each took his seat by the\ncouncil fire.\n\nThe hunters were seated on beaver skins, and the great war calumet was\npresented to them, from which each took several puffs, and it went the\nround. Unicorn then rose, and fastened round the neck of each a wampum\ncollar, and another made of the claws of the grizzly bear. The Indians,\nduring this time, had built near the medicine lodge a cabin for the\nsweating, and when it was finished the hunters took off their clothes\nand entered it. The chiefs then brought two large stones which had been\npreviously made red hot, and after closing the hut carefully, left the\nneophytes in it.\n\nThe latter threw water on the stones, and the steam which arose almost\nimmediately produced a profuse perspiration. When this was at its height\nthe hunters ran out of the hut, passed through the double row of\nwarriors, and leaped into the river, according to the usual fashion.\nThey were immediately drawn from the water, wrapped in blankets, and led\nto Unicorn's hut, in order to undergo the final trial, which is also the\nmost painful. The hunters were laid on their backs, then Unicorn traced\non their chests with a sharp stick dipped in water in which gunpowder\nhad been dissolved, the figure of the animal serving as _totem_\n(protector) to the tribe. Then with two spikes fastened to a small piece\nof wood, and dipped in vermillion, he proceeded to prick the design.\n\nWhenever Unicorn came to a place that was too hard he made an incision\nin the flesh with a gun-flint. The places that were not marked with\nvermillion were rubbed in with powder, so that the result was a red and\nblue tattooing. During the course of this operation the war songs and\nchikikouis were constantly heard, in order to drown the cries which the\natrocious pain might draw from the patients; but the latter endured it\nall without even a contraction of the eyebrows evidencing the pain they\nmust have felt.\n\nWhen the tattooing was over the wounds were cauterised with rotten wood\nto prevent suppuration; they were washed with cold water, in which had\nbeen infused a herb resembling box, a great deal of which the Indians\nmix with their tobacco to reduce the strength. The trial we have\ndescribed is so painful to endure, that nearly always it is only\naccomplished at intervals, and often lasts a week. This time the hunters\nendured it bravely during the six hours it lasted, not uttering a cry,\nor giving a sign of weakness. Hence the Indians, from this moment,\nregarded them with a species of respect; for with them courage is the\nfirst of qualities.\n\n\"My brothers are children of the tribe,\" the chief said, offering each a\nhorse. \"The prairie belongs to them. These coursers will bear them to\nthe most remote limits of the desert, chasing the wild beasts, or\npursuing the Apache dogs.\"\n\n\"Good!\" Valentine answered.\n\nAt one bound the two hunters were in their saddles, and made their\nhorses perform the most elegant and graceful curvets. This last and\nheroic deed, after all they had suffered during the course of the day,\nraised to their full height the joy and enthusiasm of the Comanches, who\napplauded with frenzied shouts and yells all they saw their new brothers\nexecute. After remaining nearly an hour on horseback they dismounted,\nand followed the chiefs into the medicine lodge; and when each had taken\nhis seat round the council fire, and the calumet had again been smoked,\nUnicorn rose.\n\n\"The Master of Life loves His Comanche sons, since He gives them for\nbrothers such warriors as Koutonepi and Curumilla. Who can equal their\ncourage! Who would dare to contend with them! On their approach the\ngrizzly bear hides at the extremity of its den; the jaguar bounds far\naway on seeing them; the eagle itself, which looks the sun in the face,\nflies from their unerring bullet. Brothers, we congratulate ourselves on\ncounting you among our warriors. Henceforth we shall be invincible.\nBrothers, give up the names you have up to this day borne, and assume\nthose we now give you. You, Koutonepi, are henceforth Quauhtli, and bear\nthe name of that eagle, whose courage and strength you possess. You,\nCurumilla, will be called Vexolotl, and the cock will be proud to see\nthat you have taken possession of its name.\"\n\nThe two hunters warmly thanked their new brothers, and were led back by\nthe chiefs to their cabin, who wished them a pleasant night after so\nrude a day. Such was the way in which Valentine and Curumilla, to whom\nwe shall continue to give their old names, formed the acquaintance of\nUnicorn, and the result of it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE MISSIONARY.\n\n\nWith time the relations existing between the hunters and the Indians\nwere drawn closer, and became more friendly. In the desert physical\nstrength is the quality most highly esteemed. Man, compelled to struggle\nincessantly against the dangers of every description that rise each\nmoment before him, is bound to look only to himself for the means to\nsurmount them. Hence the Indians profess a profound contempt, for sickly\npeople, and weak and timid nerves.\n\nValentine easily induced Unicorn to seize, during the hunt of the wild\nhorses, the Mexican magistrates, in order to make hostages of them if\nthe conspiracy were unsuccessful. What the hunter foresaw happened. Red\nCedar had opposed stratagem to stratagem; and, as we have seen, Don\nMiguel was arrested in the midst of his triumph, at the very moment when\nhe fancied himself master of the Paso del Norte.\n\nAfter Valentine, Curumilla, and Don Pablo had seen, from their hiding\nplace in the bushes, the mournful escort pass that was taking Don Miguel\nas a prisoner to Santa Fe, they held a council. Moments were precious;\nfor in Mexico conspirators have the sad privilege over every other\nprisoner of being tried quickly, and not left to pine. The prisoner must\nbe saved. Valentine, with that promptitude of decision which formed the\nsalient point of his character, soon arranged in his head one of those\nbold schemes which only he could discover.\n\n\"Courage!\" he said to Don Pablo. \"As long as the heart beats in the\nbreast there is hope, thank Heaven! The first hand is lost, I allow; but\nnow for the second game.\"\n\nDon Pablo had entire faith in Valentine: he had often been in the\nposition to try his friend. If these words did not completely reassure\nhim, they at least almost restored his hope, and gave him back that\ncourage so necessary to him at this supreme moment, and which had\nabandoned him.\n\n\"Speak, my friend,\" he said. \"What is to be done?\"\n\n\"Let us attend to the most important thing first, and save Father\nSeraphin, who devoted himself for us.\"\n\nThe three men started. The night was a gloomy one. The moon only\nappeared at intervals: incessantly veiled by thick clouds which passed\nover its disc, it seemed to shed its sickly rays regretfully on the\nearth. The wind whistled through the branches of the trees, which\nuttered mysterious murmurs as they came into collision. The coyotes\nhowled in the plain, and at times their sinister form shot athwart the\nskyline. After a march of about an hour the three men approached the\nspot where the missionary had fallen from the effect of Red Cedar's\nbullet; but he had disappeared. An alarm mingled with a frightful agony\ncontracted the hunter's hearts. Valentine took a despairing glance\naround; but the darkness was too dense for him possibly to distinguish\nanything.\n\n\"What is to be done?\" Don Pablo asked sadly.\n\n\"Seek,\" Valentine replied sharply: \"he cannot be far.\"\n\nCurumilla had already taken up the trail, and had disappeared in the\ngloom. The Araucano had never been a great speaker naturally: with age\nhe had grown almost dumb, and never uttered a word save when absolutely\nnecessary. But if the Indian did not talk, he acted; and in critical\nsituations his determination was often worth long harangues. Don Pablo,\nobedient to Valentine's orders, threw his rifle over his shoulder, and\nprepared to execute them.\n\n\"Where are you going?\" the hunter asked him, as he seized his arm.\n\n\"To look for Father Seraphin.\"\n\n\"Wait.\"\n\nThe two men stood motionless, listening to the mysterious sounds of the\ndesert, that nameless melody which plunges the soul into a soft reverie.\nNearly an hour passed thus, nothing revealing to the hunters that\nCurumilla's search had proved successful. Valentine, growing impatient\nat this long delay, was also preparing to go on, at once the weak,\nsnapping cry of the walkon rose in the air.\n\n\"What's that?\" Don Pablo asked in surprise.\n\n\"Silence!\" Valentine muttered.\n\nA second time the walkon sang, but this time stronger, and much nearer.\nValentine raised his fingers to his lips, and imitated the sharp, shrill\nyell of the ocelot twice, with such perfection that Don Pablo started\ninvoluntarily, and looked round for the wild beast, whose eyes he\nfancied he could see flashing behind a thicket. Almost immediately the\nnote of the walkon was heard a third time. Valentine rested the butt of\nhis rifle on the ground.\n\n\"Good!\" he said. \"Do not be alarmed, Don Pablo. Curumilla has found\nFather Seraphin.\"\n\nThe young man looked at him in amazement. The hunter smiled.\n\n\"They will both arrive directly,\" he said.\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"Child!\" Valentine interrupted him, \"In the desert the human voice is\nmore injurious than useful. The song of birds, the cry of wild beasts,\nserve us as a language.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the young man answered simply, \"that is true. I have often heard\nit stated; but I was not aware you could understand one another so\neasily.\"\n\n\"That is nothing,\" the hunter answered good-humouredly: \"you will see\nmuch more if you only pass a month in our company.\"\n\nIn a few moments the sound of footsteps became audible, at first faint,\nthen gradually coming nearer, and two shadows were dimly drawn on the\nnight.\n\n\"Halloa!\" Valentine shouted as he Raised and cocked his rifle, \"friend\nor foe?\"\n\n\"_Pennis_ (brothers),\" a voice answered.\n\n\"It is Curumilla,\" said Valentine. \"Let us go to meet him.\"\n\nDon Pablo followed him, and they soon reached the Indian, who walked\nslowly, obliged as he was to support, almost carry, the missionary.\n\nWhen Father Seraphin fell off his horse he almost immediately lost his\nsenses. He remained for a long time lying in the ditch, but by degrees\nthe night cold had brought him round again. At the first moment the poor\npriest, whose ideas were still confused, had cast anxious glances around\nhim, while asking himself how he came there. He tried to rise; but then\na poignant pain he felt in his shoulder reminded him of what had\noccurred. Still he did not despair. Alone, by night in the desert,\nexposed to a thousand unknown dangers, of which the least was being\ndevoured by wild beasts, without weapons to defend himself, too weak,\nindeed, to attempt it, even if he had them, he resolved not to remain in\nthis terrible position, but make the greatest efforts to rise, and drag\nhimself as well as he could to the Paso, which was three leagues distant\nat the most, where he was sure of finding that care his condition\ndemanded.\n\nFather Seraphin, like the majority of the missionaries who generously\ndevote themselves to the welfare of humanity, was a man who, under a\nWeak and almost feminine appearance, concealed an indomitable energy,\nand a resolution that would withstand all trials. So soon as he had\nformed his plan he began carrying it out. With extreme difficulty and\natrocious pain he succeeded in fastening his handkerchief round his\nshoulder, so as to check the hemorrhage. It took more than an hour\nbefore he could stand on his legs: often he felt himself fainting, a\ncold perspiration beaded at the root of his hair, he had a buzzing in\nhis ears, and everything seemed to be turning round him; but he wrestled\nwith the pain, clasped his hands with an effort, raised his tear laden\neyes to heaven, and murmured from the bottom of his heart,--\n\n\"O God! Deign to support thy servant, for he has set on thee all his\nhopes and confidence.\"\n\nPrayer, when made with faith, produces in a man an effect whose\nconsequences are immediate; it consoles him, gives him courage, and\nalmost restores him the strength that has deserted him. This was what\nhappened to Father Seraphin. After uttering these few words he set out\nboldly, supporting his tottering footsteps with a stick, which a\nprovidential chance had placed in his way. He walked thus for nearly\nhalf a league stopping at every instant to draw breath; but human\nendurance has limits beyond which it cannot go. In spite of the efforts\nhe made, the missionary at length felt his legs give way under, him; he\nunderstood that he could not go further; and he sank at the foot of a\ntree, certain that he had attempted impossibilities, and henceforth\nresigning to Providence the care of saving him.\n\nIt was at this moment Curumilla arrived near him. The Indian aided him\nto rise, and then warned his comrades of the success of his search.\nFather Seraphin, though the chief offered to carry him, refused, and\nwished to walk to join his friends; but his strength deserted him a\nsecond time, he lost his senses, and fell into the arms of the Indian,\nwho watched him attentively; for he noticed his increasing weakness, and\nforesaw his fall. Valentine and Curumilla hastily constructed a litter\nof tree branches, on which they laid the poor wounded man, and raising\nhim on their shoulders, went off rapidly. The night passed away, and the\nsun was already high on the horizon, and yet the hunters--were marching.\nAt length, at about eleven o'clock, they reached the cavern which served\nValentine as a shelter, and to which he had resolved to carry his\npatient, that he might himself nurse him.\n\nFather Seraphin was in a raging fever; his face was red, his eyes\nflashing. As nearly always happens with gunshot wounds, a suppurating\nfever had declared itself. The missionary was laid on a bed of furs, and\nValentine immediately prepared to probe the wound. By a singular chance\nthe ball had lodged in the shoulder without fracturing the blade bone.\nValentine drew it; and then helped by Curumilla, who had quietly pounded\noregano leaves, he formed a cataplasm, which he laid on the wound, after\nfirst carefully washing it. Scarcely had this been done ere the\nmissionary fell into a deep sleep, which lasted till nightfall.\n\nValentine's treatment had effected wonders. The fever had disappeared,\nthe priest's features were calmed, the flush that purpled his cheeks had\ngiven place to a pallor caused by the loss of blood; in short, he was as\nwell as could be expected. On opening his eyes he perceived the three\nhunters watching him anxiously. He smiled, and said in a weak voice,--\n\n\"Thanks, my brothers, thanks for the help you have afforded me. Heaven\nwill reward you. I feel much better.\"\n\n\"The Lord be praised!\" Valentine answered. \"You will escape, my father,\nmore cheaply than I had dared to hope.\"\n\n\"Can it be possible?\"\n\n\"Yes, your wound, though serious, is not dangerous, and in a few days\nyou can, if you think necessary, resume your avocations.\"\n\n\"I thank you for this new good, my dear Valentine. I no longer count the\ntimes I have owed my life to you. Heaven, in its infinite goodness, has\nplaced you near me to support me in my tribulations, and succour me in\ndays of danger.\"\n\nThe hunter blushed.\n\n\"Do not speak so, my father,\" he said; \"I have only performed a sacred\nduty. Do you feel strong enough to talk for a few minutes with me?\"\n\n\"Yes. Speak, my friend.\"\n\n\"I wished to ask your advice.\"\n\n\"My talents are very slight: still you know how I love you, Valentine.\nTell me what vexes you, and perhaps I may be able to be useful to you.\"\n\n\"I believe it, my father.\"\n\n\"Speak, then, in Heaven's name, my friend; for, if you have recourse to\nme, the affair must be very serious.\"\n\n\"It cannot be more so.\"\n\n\"Go on: I am listening.\"\n\nAnd the missionary settled himself on his bed to hear as comfortably as\nhe could the confession the hunter wished to make to him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE INTERVIEW.\n\n\nAt daybreak the next morning Curumilla started for Unicorn's village. At\nsunset he returned to the cavern, accompanied by the Comanche chief. The\nsachem entertained the most profound respect for Father Seraphin, whose\nnoble character he could appreciate, and felt pained at the state in\nwhich he found him.\n\n\"Father,\" he said to him as he kissed his hand. \"Who are the villains\nwho thus wounded you, to whom the Master of Life has imparted the secret\nto make us happy? Whoever they may be, these men shall die.\"\n\n\"My son,\" the priest answered gently, \"I will not pronounce before you\nthe name of the unhappy man who, in a moment of madness, raised his hand\nagainst me. My God is a God of peace; He is merciful, and recommends His\ncreatures to forget injuries, and requite good for evil.\"\n\nThe Indian looked at him in amazement. He did not understand the soft\nand touching sublimity of these precepts of love. Educated in the\nsanguinary principles of his race--persuaded, like all redskins, that a\nwarrior's first duty is revenge--he only admitted that atrocious law of\nthe prairies which commands, \"Eye for eye, tooth for tooth\"--a terrible\nlaw, which we do not venture, however, utterly to condemn in these\ncountries, where ambushes are permanent, and implacable death stands at\nevery corner of the road.\n\n\"My son,\" Father Seraphin continued, \"you are a great warrior. Many a\ntime you have braved the atrocious tortures of the stake of blood, a\nthousand fold more terrible than death itself. Often have you, with a\npleasure I excuse (for it is in your nature), thrown down your enemy,\nand planted your knee on his chest. Have you never pardoned anybody in\nfight?\"\n\n\"Never!\" the Indian answered, his eye sparkling with satisfied pride.\n\"Unicorn has sent many Apache dogs to the happy hunting grounds: their\nscalps are drying at the door of his cabin.\"\n\n\"Well,\" the missionary said gently, \"try clemency once, only once, and\nyou will know one of the greatest pleasures God has granted to man on\nearth--that of pardoning.\"\n\nThe chief shook his head.\n\n\"No,\" he said; \"a dead enemy is no longer to be feared. Better to kill\nthan leave him means to avenge himself at a later date.\"\n\n\"My son, you love me, I believe?\"\n\n\"Yes. My father is good; he has behaved well to the Comanches, and they\nare grateful. Let my father command, and his son will obey.\"\n\n\"I have no right to give you an order, my son. I can only ask a favour of\nyou.\"\n\n\"Good! My father can explain himself. Unicorn will do what he desires.\"\n\n\"Well, then,\" said the missionary with a lively feeling of joy, \"promise\nme to pardon the first unhappy man, whoever he may be, who falls into;\nyour hands, and you will render me happy.\"\n\nThe chief frowned, and an expression of dissatisfaction appeared on his\nfeatures. Father Seraphin anxiously followed on the Comanche's\nintelligent countenance the different shadows reflected on it as in a\nmirror. At length the Indian regained his stoicism, and his face grew\nserene again.\n\n\"Does my father demand it?\" he asked in a gentle voice.\n\n\"I desire it.\"\n\n\"Be it so: my father shall be satisfied. I promise him to pardon the\nfirst enemy whom the Manitou causes to fall beneath the point of my\nlance.\"\n\n\"Thanks, chief,\" the missionary exclaimed joyfully, \"thanks! Heaven will\nreward you for this good idea.\"\n\nThe Indian bowed silently and turned to Valentine, who had been\nlistening to the conversation.\n\n\"My brother called me, and I came. What does he want of Unicorn?\"\n\n\"My brother will take his seat at the council fire, and smoke the\ncalumet with his friend. Chiefs do not speak without reflecting on the\nwords they are about to utter.\"\n\n\"My brother speaks well, and I will take my seat at his fire.\"\n\nCurumilla had lighted a large fire in the first grotto of the cavern.\nThe four men left Father Seraphin to take a few moments' rest, and\nseated themselves round the fire, when the calumet passed from hand to\nhand. The Indians never undertake anything important, or commence a\ndiscussion, without first smoking the calumet in council, whatever may\nbe the circumstances in which they are placed. When the calumet had gone\nthe round Valentine rose.\n\n\"Every day,\" he said, bowing to the chief, \"I appreciate more and more\nthe honor the Comanches did me in adopting me as a son. My brother's\nnation is powerful; its hunting grounds cover the whole surface of the\nearth. The Apaches fly before the Comanche warriors like cowardly\ncoyotes before courageous men. My brother has already several times done\nme a service with that greatness of soul which distinguishes him, and\ncan only belong to a warrior so celebrated as he is. Today I have again\na service to ask of my brother, and will he do it me? I presume so; for\nI know his heart, and that the Great Spirit of the Master of Life dwells\nin him.\"\n\n\"Let my brother explain,\" Unicorn answered. \"He is speaking to a chief;\nhe must remove the skin from his heart and let his blood flow red and\nbright before a friend. The great white hunter is a portion of myself. I\nshould have to be prevented by an arrant impossibility if I refused any\nrequest emanating from him.\"\n\n\"Thanks, brother,\" Valentine said with emotion. \"Your words have passed\nfrom your lips into my breast, which they have rejoiced. I am not\nmistaken. I see that I can ever count on your well-tried friendship and\nhonest aid. Acumapicthzin de Zarate, the descendant of the Mexican\nkings, the friend of the redskins, whom he has ever protected, is a\nprisoner to the gachupinos. They have carried him to Santa Fe in order\nto put him to death, and deprive the Indians of the last friend left\nthem.\"\n\n\"And what does my brother want?\"\n\n\"I wish to save my friend.\"\n\n\"Good!\" the chief answered. \"My brother claims my help to succeed in\nthat project, I suppose?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Good! The descendant of the Tlatoanis shall be saved. My brother can\nfeel reassured.\"\n\n\"I can count, then, on my brother's aid?\" Valentine asked quickly.\n\nThe chief smiled.\n\n\"Unicorn holds in his hands Spaniards who will answer for the life of\nthe prisoner.\"\n\n\"That is true!\" Valentine exclaimed as he struck his forehead. \"Your\nidea is a good one, chief.\"\n\n\"My brother will leave me to act. I answer for success on my head.\"\n\n\"_Caramba!_ Act as you please, chief. Still, were it only form's sake, I\nshould not be sorry to know what you intend doing.\"\n\n\"My brother has a white skin, but his heart is Indian. Let him trust to\nthe prudence of a chief; Unicorn knows how to treat with the\ngachupinos.\"\n\n\"Doubtless.\"\n\n\"Unicorn will go to Santa Fe to speak with the chief of the white men.\"\n\nValentine looked at him in amazement. The chief smiled.\n\n\"Have I not hostages?\" he said.\n\n\"That is true,\" Valentine remarked.\n\nThe chief went on:--\n\n\"The Spaniards are like chattering old women, prodigal of seductive\nwords, but Unicorn knows them. How many times already has he trodden the\nwarpath on their territory at the head of his warriors! They will not\ndare to deceive him. Ere the sun has twice accomplished its revolution\nround the tortoise whose immense shell supports the world, the chief of\nthe Comanches will carry the bloody arrows to the whites, and propose to\nthem peace or war. Is my brother satisfied?\"\n\n\"I am. My heart is full of gratitude toward my red brother.\"\n\n\"Good! What is that to Unicorn? Less than nothing. Has my brother\nanything else to ask of me?\"\n\n\"One thing more.\"\n\n\"Let my brother explain himself as quickly as possible, that no cloud\nmay remain between him and his red brother.\"\n\n\"I will do so. Men without fear of the Great Spirit, urged by some mad\ndesire, have carried off Dona Clara, the daughter of the white chief\nwhom my brother pledged to save.\"\n\n\"Who are these? Does my brother know them?\"\n\n\"Yes, I know them only too well. They are bandits, at the head of whom\nis a monster with a human face, called Red Cedar.\"\n\nAt this name the Indian started slightly, his eye flashed fire, and a\ndeep wrinkle hollowed his forehead.\n\n\"Red Cedar is a ferocious jaguar,\" he said with concentrated passion.\n\"He has made himself the scourge of the Indians, whose scalps he\ndesires. This man has no pity either for women or children, but he\npossesses no courage: he only attacks his enemies in the dark, twenty\nagainst one, and when he is sure of meeting with no resistance.\"\n\n\"My brother knows this man, I see.\"\n\n\"And this man has carried off the white gazelle?'\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Good! My brother wishes to know what Red Cedar has done with his\nprisoner?\"\n\n\"I do wish it.\"\n\nThe Indian rose.\n\n\"Time is slipping away,\" he said. \"Unicorn will return to his friends.\nMy brother the hunter need not feel alarmed: a chief is watching.\"\n\nAfter uttering these few words the chief went down into the cavern,\nmounted his horse, and disappeared in direction of the desert. Valentine\nhad every reason to be satisfied with his interview with the Comanche\nchief; but Father Seraphin was less pleased than the hunter. The worthy\npriest, both through his nature and his vocation, was not disposed to\nemploy violent measures, which were repugnant to him: he would have\nliked, were it possible, to settle everything by gentleness, and without\nrunning the risk of bloodshed.\n\nThree weeks elapsed, however, ere Unicorn appeared to be effectually\ncarrying out the plan he had explained to Valentine, who only learnt\nindirectly that a strong party of Comanche warriors had invaded the\nMexican frontiers. Father Seraphin, though not yet completely cured, had\ninsisted on proceeding to Santa Fe to take some steps to save Don\nMiguel, whose trial had gone on rapidly, who was on the point of being\nexecuted. For his part Don Pablo, half mad with uneasiness, also\ninsisted, in spite of Valentine's entreaties and remarks, on entering\nSanta Fe furtively, and trying to see his father.\n\nThe night on which we found Valentine in the clearing Unicorn visited\nhim for the first time in a month: he came to inform him of the success\nof the measures he had taken. Valentine, used to Indian habits,\nunderstood half a word: hence he had not hesitated to announce to Don\nPablo as a positive fact that his father would soon be free.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nTHE PRISON.\n\n\nDon Miguel had been transferred to the prison of Santa Fe. Europeans,\naccustomed to philanthropic manners, and regarding human life as of some\nvalue, cannot imagine what atrocities the word \"prison\" contains in\nMexico. In countries beyond sea the penitentiary system is not even in\nits infancy; for it is completely ignored, and has not even been\nsuggested yet. With the exception of the United States, prisons are in\nAmerica what they were at the period of the Spanish dominion; that is to\nsay, filthy dens, where the wretched prisoners suffer a thousand\ntortures.\n\nAmong ourselves, so long as a man is not proved guilty, he is assumed to\nbe innocent; but over there, so soon as a man is arrested, he is\nconsidered guilty, and consequently every consideration and all pity\nvanish, to make room for brutal and barbarous treatment. Thrown on a\nlittle straw in fetid holes, often inhabited by serpents and other\nunclean animals, the prisoners have more than once been found dead at\nthe expiration of twenty-four hours, and half devoured. We have\nwitnessed scores of times atrocious tortures inflicted by coarse and\ncruel soldiers on poor fellows whose crimes, in our country, would have\nmerited a slight chastisement at the most. Still, in the great centres\nof populations, the prisons are better managed than in the towns and\nvillages; and in this land, where money is the most powerful lever, a\nrich man easily succeeds in obtaining all he wishes, and rendering his\nposition at any rate tolerable.\n\nDon Miguel and General Ibanez had managed to be confined together by the\nexpenditure of many entreaties and a heavy sum of gold. They inhabited\ntwo wretched rooms, the entire furniture of which consisted in a halting\ntable, a few leather covered butacas, and two benches which served them\nas beds. These two men, so powerful by nature, had endured without\ncomplaint all the humiliation and insults inflicted on them during their\ntrial, resolved to die as they had lived, with head erect and firm\nheart, without giving the judges who had condemned them the satisfaction\nof seeing them turn weak at the last moment.\n\nIt was toward evening of the same day on which we saw Valentine in the\nclearing. Darkness fell rapidly, and the only window, a species of\nnarrow slit that served to light the prison, allowed but a weak and\ndubious light to penetrate. Don Miguel was walking with long strides up\nand down his prison, while the general, carelessly reclining on one of\nthe benches, quietly smoking his cigarette, watching with childish\npleasure the light clouds of bluish smoke which rose in a spiral to the\nceiling, and which he constantly blew asunder.\n\n\"Well,\" Don Miguel said all at once, \"it seems it is not for today\neither.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the general said, \"unless (though I do not believe it) they wish\nto do us the honor of a torchlight execution.\"\n\n\"Can you at all account for this delay?\"\n\n\"On my honor, no. I have ransacked my brains in vain to guess the reason\nthat prevents them shooting us, and I have given it up as a bad job.\"\n\n\"Same with me. At first I fancied they were trying to frighten us by the\ncontinued apprehension of death constantly suspended over our heads like\nanother sword of Damocles; but this idea seemed to me too absurd.\"\n\n\"I am entirely of your opinion: still something extraordinary must be\noccurring.\"\n\n\"What makes you suppose that?\"\n\n\"Why, for the last two days our worthy jailer, Tio Quesada, has become,\nnot polite to us--for that is impossible--but less brutal. I noticed\nthat he has drawn in his claws, and attempted a grin. It is true that\nhis face is so little accustomed to assume that expression, that the\nonly result he obtains is to make a wretched grimace.\"\n\n\"And you conclude from that?\"\n\n\"Nothing positive,\" the general said. \"Still I ask myself whence comes\nthis incomprehensible change. It would be as absurd to attribute it to\nthe pity he feels for our position as to suppose the governor will come\nto ask our pardon for having tried and condemned us.\"\n\n\"Eh?\" Don Miguel said with a toss of his head. \"All is not over--we are\nnot dead yet.\"\n\n\"That is true; but keep your mind at rest--we shall be so soon.\"\n\n\"Our life is in God's hands. He will dispose of it at His pleasure.\"\n\n\"Amen!\" the general said with a laugh, as he rolled a fresh cigarette.\n\n\"Do you not consider it extraordinary that, during the whole month we\nhave been here, our friends have not given a sign of life?\"\n\nThe general shrugged his shoulders carelessly.\n\n\"Hum!\" he said, \"a prisoner is very sick, and our friends doubtless\nfeared to make us worse by the sight of their grief: that is why they\nhave deprived themselves of the pleasure of visiting us.\"\n\n\"Do not jest, general. You accuse them wrongfully, I feel convinced.\"\n\n\"May Heaven grant it! For my part, I heartily forgive them their\nindifference, and the oblivion in which; they have left us.\"\n\n\"I cannot believe that Don Valentine, that true-hearted and noble-minded\nman, for whom I ever felt so deep a friendship, has not tried to see\nme.\"\n\n\"Bah! How, Don Miguel, can you, so near death as you are, still believe\nin honourable feelings in any man?\"\n\nAt this moment there was a great clash of iron outside, and the door of\nthe room was opened sufficiently to afford passage to the jailer, who\npreceded another person. The almost complete obscurity that prevailed in\nthe prison prevented the condemned men from recognising the visitor, who\nwore a long black gown.\n\n\"Eh, eh!\" the general muttered in his comrade's ear, \"I believe that\nGeneral Ventura, our amiable governor, has at length made up his mind.\"\n\n\"Why so?\" Don Miguel asked in a low voice.\n\n\"_Canarios!_ he has sent us a priest, which means that we shall be\nexecuted tomorrow.\"\n\n\"On my word, all the better,\" Don Miguel could not refrain from saying.\n\nIn the meanwhile the jailer, a short, thick-set man, with a ferret face\nand cunning eye, had turned to the priest, whom he invited to enter,\nsaying in a hoarse voice,--\n\n\"Here it is, senor padre: these are the condemned persons.\"\n\n\"Will you leave us alone, my friend?\" the stranger said.\n\n\"Will you have my lantern? It is getting dark, and when people are\ntalking they like to see one another.\"\n\n\"Thanks; you can do so. You will open when I call you by tapping at the\ndoor.\"\n\n\"All right--I will do so;\" and he turned to the condemned, to whom he\nsaid savagely, \"Well, senores, here is a priest. Take advantage of his\nservices now you have got him. In your position there is no knowing what\nmay happen from one moment to the other.\"\n\nThe prisoners shrugged their shoulder's contemptuously, but made no\nreply. The jailer went out. When the sound of his footsteps had died\naway in the distance, the priest, who had till this moment stood with\nhis body bent forward and his ear on the watch, drew himself up, and\nwalked straight to Don Miguel. This manoeuvre on the part of the\nstranger surprised the two gentlemen, who anxiously awaited what was\nabout to happen. The lantern left by the jailer only spread a faint and\nflickering light, scarcely sufficient to distinguish objects.\n\n\"My father,\" the hacendero said in a firm voice, \"I thank the person\nwho sent you to prepare me for death, for I anxiously wished to fulfil\nmy duties as a Christian before being executed. If you will proceed with\nme into the adjoining room I will confess my sins to you: they are those\nwhich an honest man ordinarily commits; for my heart is pure, and I have\nnothing to reproach myself with.\"\n\nThe priest took off his hat, seized the lantern, and placed it near his\npale face, whose noble and gentle features were suddenly displayed in\nthe light.\n\n\"Father Seraphin!\" the prisoners exclaimed with a surprise mingled with\njoy.\n\n\"Silence!\" the priest ordered quickly. \"Do not pronounce my name so\nloudly, brothers: everyone is ignorant of my being here except the\njailer, who is my confidant.\"\n\n\"He!\" Don Miguel said with a stupor; \"the man who has been insulting and\nhumiliating us during a month!\"\n\n\"That man is henceforth ours. Lose no time, come. I have secure means to\nget you out of prison, and to leave the town ere your evasion can be\neven suspected: the horses are prepared--an escort is awaiting you.\nCome, gentlemen, for the moments are precious.\"\n\nThe two prisoners interchanged a glance of sublime eloquence; then\nGeneral Ibanez quietly seated himself on a butaca, while Don Miguel\nreplied,--\n\n\"Thanks, my father. You have undertaken the noble task of soothing all\nsorrow, and you do not wish to fail in your duty. Thanks for the offer\nyou make us, which we cannot, however, accept. Men like us must not give\nour enemies right by flying like criminals. We fought for a sacred\nprinciple, and succumbed. We owe it to our countrymen and to ourselves\nto endure death bravely. When we conspired we were perfectly well aware\nof what awaited us if we were conquered. Once again, thanks; but we will\nonly quit this prison as free men, or to walk to punishment.\"\n\n\"I have not the courage, gentlemen, to blame your heroic resolution: in\na similar case I should act as you are doing. You have a very slight\nhope still left, so wait. Perchance, within a few hours, unforeseen\nevents will occur to change the face of matters.\"\n\n\"We hope for nothing more, my father.\"\n\n\"That word is a blasphemy in your mouth, Don Miguel. God can do all He\nwills. Hope, I tell you.\"\n\n\"I am wrong, father: forgive me.\"\n\n\"Now I am ready to hear your confession.\"\n\nThe prisoners bowed. Father Seraphin shrived them in turn, and gave them\nabsolution.\n\n\"Hola!\" the jailer shouted through the door. \"Make haste; it is getting\nlate. It will soon be impossible to leave the city.\"\n\n\"Open the door,\" the missionary said in a firm voice.\n\nThe jailer appeared.\n\n\"Well?\" he asked.\n\n\"Light me and lead me out of the prison. These caballeros refuse to\nprofit by the chance of safety I came to offer them.\"\n\nThe jailer shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.\n\n\"They are mad,\" he said.\n\nAnd he went out, followed by the priest, who turned on the threshold and\npointed to heaven. The prisoners remained alone.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nTHE EMBASSY.\n\n\nOn the selfsame day that Father Seraphin went to the prison to propose\nan escape to the condemned, a very strange circumstance had aroused the\nentire population of Santa Fe. At about midday, at the moment when the\ninhabitants were enjoying their siesta, and the streets, calcined by the\nbeams of a tropical sun, were completely deserted, a formidable whoop,\nthe terrible war yell of the Comanche Indians, burst forth at the\nentrance of the town.\n\nThere was a general alarm, and everybody barricaded himself in his\nhouse, believing in a sudden assault of the savages. Presently an\nimmense clamour, and cries of distress and despair uttered by a\nterrified population, could be heard throughout the town. Several times\nalready the Comanches, in their periodical incursions, had come near\nSanta Fe, but never so closely as this time; and the remembrance of the\ncruelties they had practised on the hapless Spaniards who fell into\ntheir hands was still present to every mind.\n\nIn the meanwhile a few inhabitants, bolder than the rest, or having\nnothing to lose, proceeded with the greatest precautions toward the spot\nwhence the shouts were heard; and a singular spectacle presented itself.\nA detachment of dismounted Comanche warriors, about two hundred strong,\nwas marching in close column, flanked on either wing by two troops, each\nof fifty horses. About twenty paces in front caracoled Unicorn.\n\nAll these men had a martial aspect which was really remarkable: all were\nstrangely painted, well adorned, and in their full war costume. The\nhorsemen were loaded with all sorts of arms and ornaments: they had a\nbow and quiver on their backs, their guns slung and decorated with their\nmedicine bags, and their lances in their hands. They were crowned with\nmagnificent black and white eagle feathers, with a falling tuft. The\nupper part of the body, otherwise naked, was covered by a coyote skin\nrolled up and worn across the shoulder; their bucklers were ornamented\nwith feathers, cloth of different colours, and human scalps. They were\nseated on handsome saddlecloth of panthers' skins, lined with red, which\nalmost covered the horses' backs. According to the prairie fashion, they\nhad no stirrups.\n\nUnicorn brandished in his right hand the long medicine lance, the\ndistinctive mark of the powerful \"dance of the prairie dogs.\" It was a\nstaff in the shape of a crook, covered with an otter skin, and decorated\nthrough its entire length with owl feathers. This talisman, which he had\ninherited, possessed the power of bringing under his orders all the\nwarriors of his nation scattered over the prairies: hence on all grand\noccasions he never failed to carry it. He wore a shirt made of the skin\nof the bighorn, embroidered on the sleeves with blue flowers, and\nadorned on the right arm with long stripes of rolled ermine and red\nfeathers, and on the left arm with long tresses of black hair cut from\nthe scalps he had raised. Over his shoulders he had thrown a cloak of\ngazelle skin, having at each end an enormous tuft of ermine. On his\nforehead the chief had fastened two buffalo horns, which with the blue,\nred, and green paint plastered on his face, gave him a terrible aspect.\nHis magnificent horse, a mustang full of fire, which he managed with\ninimitable grace and skill, was painted red in different fashions: on\nits legs were stripes like a zebra, and on either side the backbone were\ndesigned arrowhead, lances, beavers, tortoises, &c. The same was the\ncase with the face and the haunches.\n\nThere was something at once imposing and striking in the appearance\npresented by this band of ferocious warriors as they advanced though the\ndeserted streets of the city, brandishing their tremendous weapons, and\nuttering at intervals their sinister war cry, which they accompanied by\nthe shrill sound of long whistles made of human thigh bones, which they\nwore suspended by strips of wild beast hide.\n\nBy this time the Comanches had penetrated to the heart of the city,\ndriving before them, though without violence, the few inhabitants who\nhad ventured to get in their way. They marched in good order, not\nturning to the right or left to plunder, and doing no reprehensive\naction.\n\nThe Spaniards, more and more surprised at the haughty and bold attitude\nof the Indians, and their exemplary conduct, asked themselves with\nterror what these men wanted, and what reason had led them to invade\ntheir frontiers in so sudden and secret a way, that the scouts the\nMexican Government pays to watch them had no knowledge of their march.\nAs usually happens in such cases, terror gradually gave way to\ncuriosity. In the first place the leperos and adventurers dared to\napproach the Indians; then the inhabitants, if not completely\ntranquilised, still reassured by their peaceful attitude, mingled with\nthe groups; so that when the Comanche war party arrived on the Plaza\nMayor; it was followed by a crowd of Spaniards, who regarded them with\nthe restless and stupid curiosity only to be found among the masses.\n\nThe Comanches did not appear to notice the excitement they created. As\nsoon as they were on the Plaza Mayor they halted, and remained\nmotionless, as if their feet had suddenly grown to the ground. Unicorn\nmade a sign with his talisman; a warrior quitted the ranks, and rode up\nto the sentry standing in front of the governor's palace, who regarded\nthe singular scene with a dazed air.\n\n\"Wah!\" the Indian said sarcastically, as he lightly touched the soldier\nwith the end of his lance. \"Is my brother asleep, that he does not hear\na warrior addressing him?\"\n\n\"I am not asleep,\" the soldier answered, as he fell back a pace. \"What\ndo you want?\"\n\n\"The great sachem of the Comanches, the cacique whom the red children\ncall Haboutzelze, has come to speak to his great white father, the chief\nof the frontier palefaces.\"\n\n\"What does he want with him?\" the soldier asked, not knowing what he\nsaid, so much had the unexpected sight of the redskin disturbed him.\n\n\"Is my brother a chief?\" the Indian asked cunningly.\n\n\"No,\" the soldier answered, greatly confused by this lesson.\n\n\"Well, then, let him close his ears as regards those the Great Spirit\nhas set above him, and deliver the message I give him in the sachem's\nname.\"\n\nWhile the Comanche was exchanging these few words with the sentry,\nseveral persons, drawn out of the palace by the unusual disturbance they\nheard, mingled with the crowd. Among them were several officers, one of\nwhom advanced to the Indian horseman.\n\n\"What does my brother want?\" he asked him.\n\nThe warrior saw at the first glance that this time he had to do with a\nchief. He bowed courteously, and answered.\n\n\"A deputation of the great Comanche nation desires to be introduced to\nmy great white father.\"\n\n\"Good! But all the warriors cannot enter the palace,\" the officer said.\n\n\"My brother is right. Their chiefs alone will go in: their young men\nwill await them here.\"\n\n\"Let my brother be patient. I will go and deliver his message in all\nhaste.\"\n\n\"Good! My brother is a chief. The Spider will await him.\"\n\nThe officer disappeared in the interior, while the Spider planted the\nend of his long lance in the ground, and remained with his eye fixed on\nthe gate of the palace, not evincing the slightest impatience.\n\nThe new governor of Santa Fe was a general of the name of Don Benito\nVentura. He was ignorant as a fish, stupid and haughty as a heathcock.\nLike the majority of his colleagues in this eccentric country, he had\ngained his general's epaulettes by repeated pronunciamentos, managing\nto gain a step by every revolution, while never having seen more fire\nthan that of the thin husk _pajillo_ he constantly had in his mouth. To\nsum him up, he was very rich, a wonderful coward, and more afraid of\nblows than aught else in the world. Such he was morally: physically he\nwas a plump little man, round as a barrel, with a rubicund face, lighted\nup by two small grey eyes.\n\nThis worthy officer perspired water and blood when the duties of his\nstation obliged him to put on the uniform, every seam of which was\noverlaid with gold lace: his chest literally disappeared under the\ninfinity of crosses of every description with which each president had\nhonoured him on attaining power. In a word, General Ventura was a worthy\nman, as fit to be a soldier as he was to be a cardinal; and he had only\none object, that of being President of the Republic in his turn; but\nthis object he ever pursued without Once swerving from his path.\n\nIf he accepted the governorship of New Mexico, it was for the simple\nreason that, as Santa Fe was a long distance from Mexico, he had\ncalculated that it would be easy for him to make a _pronunciamento_ in\nhis own favour, and become, _ipso facto_, president. He was not aware, on\ncoming to Santa Fe, that the province he was about to govern was\nincessantly menaced by Indian forays. Had he known it, however\nadvantageous the post of governor might, be for his schemes, he would\nhave refused point blank so perilous an honour.\n\nHe had learned with the utmost terror the entrance of the Comanches into\nthe town, and when the officer intrusted with the Spider's message\npresented himself before him he had literally lost his head. It took all\npossible trouble to make him comprehend that the Indians came as\nfriends, that they merely wished to have a palaver with him, and that\nsince their coming their conduct had been most honourable and exemplary.\nFortunately for the Spanish honour, other officers entered the apartment\nin which was the governor, attracted to the palace by the news, which\nhad spread with the speed of a train of powder through Santa Fe, of the\nappearance of an Indian detachment.\n\nWhen the general saw himself surrounded and supported by the officers of\nhis staff his terror was slightly toned down, he regained his presence\nof mind and it was with a calm and almost dignified demeanor that he\ndiscussed the question whether it was proper to receive the Indian\ndeputation, and in what manner it should be done. The other officers,\nwho, in the course of their professional career, had had many a skirmish\nwith the redskins, felt no inclination to anger them. They produced in\nsupport of their opinions such peremptory reasons, that General Ventura,\nconvinced by their arguments gave the officer who brought the message\norders to bring the three principal Indian chiefs into the palace.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nTHE PRESENTATION.\n\n\nIt needed the thorough knowledge the Comanches possessed of the terror\nthey inspired the Mexicans with to have dared to enter in so small a\nbody a town like Santa Fe, where they might expect to find a\nconsiderable garrison.\n\nThe general officer sent by General Ventura had performed his duty.\nUnicorn and two other chiefs dismounted, and followed him into the\npalace; while the Indian warriors, in spite of the heat of the sunbeams\nthat played on their heads, remained motionless on the spot where their\ncaciques bade them wait.\n\nThe general desired, by a certain display of strength, to impose on the\nredskin deputies; but unfortunately, as is always the case in Mexico,\nthe garrison, which on paper represented eight hundred men, was in\nreality only composed of sixty at the most--a very small number for a\nfrontier town, especially under the present circumstances. But if\nsoldiers were lacking, to make up for it there was no paucity of\nofficers; for about thirty were assembled at the palace, which allowed\none officer to every two privates. This detail, which might appear\nexaggerated, is, however, strictly correct, and shows in what a state of\nanarchy this hapless country is plunged. The thirty officers, attired in\ntheir splendid uniforms, that glistened with gold and decorations, were\narranged round the general, while three posts of ten men each held the\ndoors of the halls of reception.\n\nWhen the preparations were completed the ambassadors were introduced.\nThe Indian chiefs, accustomed for a long period to Spanish luxury,\nentered without testifying the slightest surprise. They bowed with\ndignity to the assembly, and, crossing their arms on their chests,\nwaited till they were addressed. The general regarded them with an\nastonishment pardonable enough, for this was the first time he had found\nhimself in the presence of these untamable redskins, whose terrible\nrenown had so often made him shudder.\n\n\"What reason can have been so powerful as to oblige my sons to come and\nsee me?\" he asked in a gracious and conciliating tone. \"Let them make\ntheir request, and, if I can do so, I shall be most ready to satisfy\nit.\"\n\nThis opening, which the governor fancied to be very politic, was, on the\ncontrary, most awkward, as it offended the pride of those he addressed,\nand whom he had the greatest interest in humouring. Unicorn took a step\nforward. A sarcastic smile played on his lips, and he replied in a voice\nslightly tinged with irony,--\n\n\"I have heard a parrot speak. Are the words addressed to me?\"\n\nThe general blushed up to the eyes at this insult, which he did not dare\nretaliate.\n\n\"The chief has not understood my words,\" he said. \"My intentions are\ngood, and I only wish to be agreeable to him.\"\n\n\"The Comanches do not come here to ask a favour,\" Unicorn answered,\nhaughtily. \"They know how to avenge themselves when insulted.\"\n\n\"What do my sons want then?\"\n\n\"To treat with my father for the ransom of the white chiefs who are in\ntheir power. Five palefaces inhabit the cabin of the Comanches. The\nyoung men of the tribe demand their punishment, for the blood of the\npalefaces is agreeable to the Master of Life. Tomorrow the prisoners\nwill have ceased to live if my father does not buy them off today.\"\n\nAfter these words, uttered in a firm and peremptory tone, there was a\nmoment of supreme silence. The Mexican officers reflected sadly on the\nfearful fate that threatened their friends. Unicorn continued:--\n\n\"What does my father say? Shall we fasten our prisoners to the stake of\nblood, or restore them to liberty?\"\n\n\"What ransom do you ask?\" the general said.\n\n\"Listen, all you chiefs of the palefaces here present, and judge of the\nclemency and generosity of the Comanches. We only, wish, for the life of\nthese five men, the life of two men.\"\n\n\"That is little, I allow,\" the general remarked; \"and who are the two\nmen whose lives you ask?\"\n\n\"The palefaces call them, the first, Don Miguel Zarate; the second,\nGeneral Ibanez.\"\n\nThe general started.\n\n\"These two men cannot be delivered to you,\" he answered; \"they are\ncondemned to death, and will die tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Good! My prisoners will be tortured this night,\" the chief replied\nstoically.\n\n\"Confound it!\" the general sharply exclaimed, \"Is there no other\narrangement possible? Let my brothers ask me a thing I can grant them,\nand--\"\n\n\"I want those two men,\" the chief quickly interrupted. \"If not, my\nwarriors will themselves deliver them; and in that case the Comanche\nchiefs cannot prevent the injury their warriors may commit in the town.\"\n\nOne of the officers present at this interview was aroused by the tone\nUnicorn had affected since the beginning of the audience. He was a brave\nold soldier, and the cowardice of his comrades shamed him. He rose at\nthis point.\n\n\"Chief,\" he said in a firm voice, \"your words are very haughty and\nfoolish for the mouth of an ambassador. You are here, at the head of\nscarce two hundred warriors, in the heart of a town peopled by brave\nmen. Despite all my desire to be agreeable to you, if you do not pay\ngreater respect to your audience, prompt and severe justice shall be\ninflicted on your insolence.\"\n\nThe Indian chief turned toward the new speaker, whose remarks had\naroused a sympathetic murmur.\n\n\"My words are those of a man who fears nothing, and holds in his hands\nthe life of five men.\"\n\n\"Well,\" the officer retorted sharply, \"what do we care for them? If they\nwere such fools as to let you capture them, they must suffer the\nconsequences of their madness; we cannot pay for them. Besides, as you\nhave already been told, those you claim must die.\"\n\n\"Good! We will retire,\" Unicorn said haughtily. \"Longer discourse is\nneedless; our deeds shall speak for us.\"\n\n\"A moment!\" the general exclaimed. \"All may yet be arranged. An affair\nlike the present cannot be settled all in a hurry; we must reflect on\nthe propositions made to us. My son is a chief, and will grant us\nreasonable time to offer him a reply.\"\n\nUnicorn bent a suspicious glance on the governor.\n\n\"My father has spoken wisely,\" he presently made answer. \"Tomorrow at\nthe twelfth hour, I will come for the final answer of the palefaces. But\nmy father will promise me not to order the punishment of the prisoners\ntill he has told me the decision he has come to.\"\n\n\"Be it so,\" the general answered. \"But what will the Comanches do till,\nthen?\"\n\n\"They will leave the town as they entered it, and bivouac on the plain.\"\n\n\"Agreed on.\"\n\n\"The Master of Life has heard my father's promise. If he break his word\nand possess a forked tongue, the blood shed will fall on his head.\"\n\nThe Comanche uttered these words in a significant tone that made the\ngeneral tremble inwardly; then he bowed to the assembly, and left the\nhall with his companions. On reaching the square the chiefs remounted\ntheir horses and placed themselves at the head of their warriors. An\nhour later the Comanches had left the town, and camped within two\ngunshots of the walls, on the banks of the river. It was after this\ninterview that Unicorn had the conversation with Valentine which we\nrecently described.\n\nStill, when the Mexican officers were alone with the general, their\ncourage returned all at once, and they reproached him for the little\ndignity he had displayed before the Indians, and specially for the\npromise he had made them. The general listened to them calmly, with a\nsmile on his lips, and contented himself with answering them, in a tone,\nof indescribable meaning,--\n\n\"The promise you allude to pledges me to nothing. Between this and\ntomorrow certain things will happen to free us from the Comanches, and\nlet us dispense with surrendering the prisoners they demand so\ninsolently.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nPSYCHOLOGICAL.\n\n\nAbout half a league to the west of Santa Fe three men and a woman were\nseated behind a dense clump of trees, which sheltered while rendering\nthem unseen, over a _bois-de-vache_ fire, supping with good appetite,\nand chatting together. The three men were Red Cedar's sons; the female\nwas Ellen. The maiden was pale and sad: her dreamy eye wandered around\nwith a distraught expression. She listened hardly to what her brothers\nsaid, and would certainly have been greatly embarrassed to describe the\nconversation, for her mind was elsewhere.\n\n\"Hum!\" Sutter said, \"what the deuce can keep the old one so long? He\ntold us he should be back by four o'clock at the latest; but the sun is\njust disappearing on the horizon, and he has not come yet.\"\n\n\"Pshaw!\" Nathan said with a shrug of the shoulders. \"Are you afraid that\nsomething has happened to him? The old chap has beak and nails to defend\nhimself; and since his last turn up with Don Miguel, the fellow who is\nto be shot tomorrow at Santa Fe, he has kept on his guard.\"\n\n\"I care very little,\" Sutter replied brusquely, \"whether father is here\nor not; but I believe we should do well not to wait longer, but return\nto the camp, where our presence is doubtless necessary.\"\n\n\"Nonsense! Our comrades can do without us,\" Shaw observed. \"We are all\nright here, so suppose we stop the night. Tomorrow it will be day. Well,\nif father has not returned by sunrise, we will go back to camp. Harry\nand Dick can keep good order till our return.\"\n\n\"In truth, Shaw is right,\" Nathan said. \"Father is at times so strange,\nthat he might be angry with us for not having waited for him; for he\nnever does anything lightly. If he told us to stay here, he probably had\nhis reasons.\"\n\n\"Let us stay, then,\" Sutter remarked carelessly. \"I ask for nothing\nbetter. We shall only have to keep the fire up, and so one of us will\nwatch while the others sleep.\"\n\n\"Agreed on,\" Nathan replied. \"In that way, if the old man comes during\nour sleep, he will see that we waited for him.\"\n\nThe three brothers rose. Sutter and Nathan collected a pile of dry wood\nto maintain the fire, while Shaw intertwined a few branches to make his\nsister a sufficient shelter for the night. The two elder brothers thrust\ntheir feet toward the fire, wrapped themselves in their blankets, and\nwent to sleep, after advising Shaw to keep a bright lookout, not only\nagainst wild beasts, but to announce the old squatter's approach. Shaw,\nafter stirring up the fire, threw himself at the foot of a larch tree,\nand letting his head sink on his chest, plunged into deep and painful\nmeditation.\n\nThis poor boy, hardly twenty years of age, was a strange composite of\ngood and evil qualities. Reared in the desert, he had grown up like one\nof its native trees, thrusting out here and there branches full of\npowerful sap. Nothing had ever thwarted his instincts, no matter what\ntheir nature might be. Possessing no cognizance of justice and\ninjustice, he had never been able to appreciate the squatter's conduct,\nor see the injury he did society by the life he led. Habituated to\nregard as belonging to himself all that he wished for, allowing himself\nto be guided by his impressions and caprices, never having felt any\nother fetter than his father's despotic will, this young man had at once\na nature expansive and reserved, generous and avaricious, gentle and\ncruel: in a word, he possessed all the qualities of his vices; but he\nwas, before all, a man of sensations. Endowed with a vast intellect,\nextreme audacity, and lively comprehensions, he would have been\nindubitably a remarkable man, had he been born in a different position.\n\nHis sister Ellen was the only member of his family for whom he\nexperienced sympathy; and yet it was only with extreme reserve that he\nintrusted his boyish secrets to her--secrets which, during the last few\ndays, had acquired an importance he did not himself suspect, but which\nhis sister, with the innate intelligence of woman, had already divined.\n\nShaw, as we have said, was thinking. The young savage's indomitable\nnature revolted against an unknown force which had suddenly sprung up in\nhis heart--mastered and subdued him in spite of all his efforts. He was\nin love! He loved, ignorant even of the meaning of the word love, which\ncomprises in this nether world all earthly joy and suffering. Vainly he\nsought to explain his feelings; but no light flashed across his mind, or\nillumined the darkness of his heart. He loved without desire and without\nhope, involuntarily obeying that divine law which compels even the\nroughest man to seek a mate. He was dreaming of Dona Clara. He loved\nher, as he was capable of loving, with that passionate impetuosity, that\nviolence of feeling, to which his uncultivated mind adapted him. The\nsight of the maiden caused him a strange trouble, which he did not\nattempt to account for. He did not try to analyse his feelings, for that\nwould have been impossible; and yet at times he was a prey to cold and\nterrible fury, when thinking that the haughty maiden, who was even\nunconscious of his existence, would probably only spurn and despise him\nif she knew it. He was yielding to these crushing thoughts, when he\nsuddenly felt a hand laid on his shoulder. On turning, Ellen stood\nbefore him, upright and motionless, like the white apparitions of the\nGerman legends. He raised his head, and bent an inquiring glance on his\nsister.\n\n\"You are not asleep, Ellen?\"\n\n\"No,\" she answered in a voice soft as a bird's song. \"Brother, my heart\nis sad.\"\n\n\"What is the matter, Ellen? Why not enjoy a few hours of that repose so\nnecessary for you?\"\n\n\"My heart is sad, I tell you, brother,\" she went on. \"In vain do I seek\nsleep--it flies far from me.\"\n\n\"Sister, tell me the cause of your sufferings, and perhaps I can appease\nthe grief that devours you.\"\n\n\"Can you not guess it?\"\n\n\"I do not understand you.\"\n\nShe looked at him so sternly that he could not let his eyes fall.\n\n\"On the contrary, you understand me too well, Shaw,\" she said with a\nsigh. \"Your heart rejoices at this moment at the misfortune of the woman\nyou should defend.\"\n\nThe young man blushed.\n\n\"What can I do?\" he murmured faintly.\n\n\"Everything, if you have the firm will,\" she exclaimed energetically.\n\n\"No,\" Shaw went on, shaking his head with discouragement; \"the person of\nwhom you speak is the old man's prisoner. I cannot contend against my\nfather.\"\n\nEllen smiled contemptuously.\n\n\"You seek in vain to hide your thoughts from me,\" she said harshly. \"I\nread your heart as an open book: your sorrow is feigned, and you really\nrejoice at the thought that in future you will constantly be by Dona\nClara's side.\"\n\n\"I!\" he exclaimed with an angry start.\n\n\"Yes, you only see in her captivity a means to approach her. Your\nselfish heart is secretly gladdened by that hope.\"\n\n\"You are harsh to me, sister. Heaven is my witness that, were it\npossible, I would at once restore her the liberty torn from her.\"\n\n\"You can if you like.\"\n\n\"No, it is impossible. My father watches too closely over his prisoner.\"\n\n\"He will not distrust you, but allow you to approach her freely.\"\n\n\"What you ask of me is impossible.\"\n\n\"Because you will not, Shaw. Remember that women only love men in\nproportion to the sacrifices they make for them: they despise cowards.\"\n\n\"But how to save her?\"\n\n\"That is your affair, Shaw.\"\n\n\"At least give me some advice which will help me to escape from the\ndifficult position in which I find myself.\"\n\n\"In such serious circumstances your heart must guide you, and you must\nonly ask counsel of it.\"\n\n\"But the old one?\" Shaw said hesitatingly.\n\n\"Our father will not know your movements. I take on myself to prevent\nhim noticing them.\"\n\n\"Good!\" the young man remarked, half convinced; \"but I do not know where\nthe maiden is hidden.\"\n\n\"I will tell you, if you swear to do all in your power to save her.\"\n\nThere was a moment of silence.\n\n\"I swear to obey you, Ellen. If I do not succeed in carrying the girl\noff, I will at any rate employ all my intellect to obtain that result.\nSpeak, then, without fear.\"\n\n\"Dona Clara is confined at the Rancho del Coyote: she was intrusted to\nAndres Garote.\"\n\n\"Ah, ah!\" the young man said, as if speaking to himself, \"I did not\nfancy her so near us.\"\n\n\"You will save her?\"\n\n\"At all events I will try to free her from the hands of the man who\nguards her.\"\n\n\"Good!\" the maiden remarked; \"I now recognise you. Lose no time: my\nfather's absence alarms me. Perhaps at this moment he is preparing a\nsafer hiding place for his prisoner.\"\n\n\"Your idea is excellent, sister. Who knows whether it is not too late\nnow to tear from the old man the prey he covets?\"\n\n\"When do you intend to start?\"\n\n\"At once: I have not a moment to lose. If the old man returned I should\nbe compelled to remain here. But who will keep watch while my brothers\nsleep?\"\n\n\"I will,\" the maiden answered resolutely.\n\n\"Whence arises the interest you feel in this woman, sister, as you do\nnot know her?\" the young man asked in surprise.\n\n\"She is a woman, and unhappy. Are not those reasons sufficient?\"\n\n\"Perhaps so,\" Shaw remarked doubtfully.\n\n\"Child!\" Ellen muttered, \"Can you not read in your own heart, the motive\nof my conduct toward this stranger?\"\n\nThe young savage started at this remark.\n\n\"It is true!\" He exclaimed passionately. \"Pardon me, sister! I am mad;\nbut I love you, and you know me better than I do myself.\"\n\nAnd rising hurriedly, he kissed his sister, threw his rifle over his\nshoulder, and ran off in the direction of Santa Fe.\n\nWhen he had disappeared in the gloom, and the sound of his footsteps had\ndied out in the distance, the girl fell on the ground, muttering in a\nlow, sad voice:\n\n\"Will he succeed?\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nDIAMOND CUT DIAMOND.\n\n\nRed Cedar did not remain long under the effect of the startling insult\nhe had received. Pride, wrath, and, before all, the desire to avenge\nhimself restored his strength, and a few minutes after Don Pablo\nZarate's departure the squatter had regained all his coolness and\naudacity.\n\n\"You see, senor padre,\" he said, addressing the monk, \"that our little\nplans are known to our enemies; we must, therefore, make haste if we do\nnot wish to see persons break in here, from whom it is of the utmost\nimportance to conceal ourselves. Tomorrow night at the latest, perhaps\nbefore, we shall start. Do not stir from here till my return. Your face\nis too well known at Santa Fe for you to venture to show it in the\nstreets without imprudence.\"\n\n\"Hum!\" the monk muttered, \"That demon, whom I fancied dead, is a rude\nadversary. Fortunately we shall soon have nothing more to fear from his\nfather, for I hardly know how we should get out of it.\"\n\n\"If the son has escaped us,\" Red Cedar said with an ugly smile, \"that is\nfortunately not the case with the father. Don't be alarmed; Don Miguel\nwill cause us no further embarrassment.\"\n\n\"I wish it most earnestly, _canarios!_ for he is a determined man; but I\nconfess to you that I shall not be entirely at my ease till I have seen\nhim fall beneath the bullets of the soldiers.\"\n\n\"You will not have long to wait. General Ventura has ordered me to go\nand meet the regiment of dragoons he expects, in order to hurry them on,\nand bring them into the town this very night, if possible. So soon as\nthe governor has an imposing force at his disposal he will no longer\nfear a revolt on the part of the troops, and give the order for\nexecution without delay.\"\n\n\"May Heaven grant it! But,\" he added with a sigh of regret, \"what a pity\nthat most of our scamps deserted us! We should have almost arrived at\nthe placer by this time, and been safe from the vengeance of our\nenemies.\"\n\n\"Patience, senor padre; all is for the best, perhaps, trust to me.\nAndres, my horse.\"\n\n\"You will start at once, then?\"\n\n\"Yes. I recommend you to watch carefully over our prisoner.\"\n\nThe monk shrugged his shoulders.\n\n\"Our affairs are tolerably well embarrassed already; then why burden\nourselves with a woman?\"\n\nThe squatter frowned.\n\n\"That is my business,\" he exclaimed in a peremptory tone. \"Keep all\nstupid observations to yourself. A thousand devils! I know what I am\nabout. That woman will possibly prove our safeguard at a later date.\"\n\nAnd mounting his horse, Red Cedar galloped out of Santa Fe.\n\n\"Hum!\" Andres Garote said as he watched him depart, \"what a diabolical\neye! Though I have known him several years, I never saw him like that\nbefore. How will all this end?\"\n\nWithout further remarks he arranged matters in the rancho, repairing as\nwell as he could the disorder caused by the previous struggle; then he\ntook a look round him. The monk, with his elbows on the table and a\ncigarette in his mouth, was drinking the fluid left in the bottle,\ndoubtless to console himself for the _navajada_ with which Don Pablo had\nfavoured him.\n\n\"Why, senor padre,\" the ranchero said in an insinuating voice, \"do you\nknow that it is hardly five o'clock?\"\n\n\"Do you think so?\" the other answered for the sake of saying something.\n\n\"Does not the time seem to you to go very slowly?\"\n\n\"Extraordinarily so.\"\n\n\"If you liked we could easily shorten it.\"\n\n\"In what way?\"\n\n\"Oh, for instance, with these.\"\n\nAnd Andres drew from his boot a pack of greasy cards, which he\ncomplacently spread out on the table.\n\n\"Ah! That is a good idea,\" the monk exclaimed with sparkling eyes. \"Let\nus have a game of monte.\"\n\n\"At your orders.\"\n\n\"Don Andres, you are a most worthy gentlemen. What shall we play for?\"\n\n\"Ah, hang it! That is true; we must play for something,\" the ranchero\nsaid, scratching his head.\n\n\"The merest trifle, simply to render the game interesting.\"\n\n\"Yes, but to do that man must possess the trifle.\"\n\n\"Do not let that trouble you. If you permit me I will make you a\nproposal.\"\n\n\"Do so, senor. You are a remarkable clever man, and can have none but\nbright ideas.\"\n\nThe monk bowed to his flattering insinuation.\n\n\"This is it: we will play, if you like for the share of the gold we\nshall receive when we reach the placer.\"\n\n\"Done!\" the ranchero shouted enthusiastically.\n\n\"Well,\" the monk said, drawing from his pocket a pack of cards no less\ndirty than the others, \"we can at any rate kill time.\"\n\n\"What! You have cards too?\" the ranchero remarked.\n\n\"Yes, and quite new, as you see.\" Andres bowed with an air of\nconviction.\n\nThe game began at once, and soon the two men were completely absorbed in\nthe combinations of the _seis de copas,_ the _as de bastos_, the _dos de\noro_, and the _cuatro d'espadas_. The monk, who had no necessity to\nfeign at this moment, as he was in the company of a man thoroughly\nacquainted with him, yielded frenziedly to his ruling passion. In\nMexico, and throughout Spanish America, the _angelus_ rings at sunset.\nIn those countries, where there is no twilight, night arrives without\ntransition, so that ere the bell has done tinkling the gloom is dense.\nAt the last stroke of the angelus the game ceased, as if by common\nagreement between the two men, and they threw their cards on the table.\n\nAlthough Garote was a passed master in trickery, and had displayed all\nhis science, he found in the monk so skilful an adversary that, after\nmore than three hours of an obstinate struggle, they both found\nthemselves as little advanced as at the outset. The monk, however, on\ncoming to the rancho, had an object which Red Cedar was far from\nsuspecting.\n\nFray Ambrosio rested his arms on the table, bent his body slightly\nforward, and while carelessly playing with the cards, which he amused\nhimself by sorting, he said to the ranchero, as he fixed a scrutinising\nglance upon him,--\n\n\"Shall we talk a little, Don Andres?\"\n\n\"Willingly,\" the latter replied, who had partly risen, but now fell back\non his chair.\n\nBy a secret foreboding Andres Garote had guessed that the monk wished to\nmake some important proposal to him. Hence, thanks to that instinctive\nintuition which rogues possess for certain things, the two men read each\nother's thoughts. Fray Ambrosio bit his lips, for the gambusino's\nintelligence startled him. Still the latter bent upon him a glance so\nfull of stupid meaning, that he continued to make a confidant of him, as\nit were involuntarily.\n\n\"Senor Don Andres,\" he said in a soft and insinuating voice, \"what a\nhappiness that your poor brother, on dying, revealed to me the secret of\nthe rich placer, which he concealed even from yourself!\"\n\n\"It is true,\" Andres answered, turning slightly pale; \"it was very\nfortunate, senor padre. For my part, I congratulate myself on it daily.\"\n\n\"Is it not so? For without it the immense fortune would have been lost\nto you and all else.\"\n\n\"It is terrible to think of.\"\n\n\"Well, at this moment I have a horrible fear.\"\n\n\"What is it, senor padre?\"\n\n\"That we have deferred our departure too long, and that some of those\nEuropean vagabonds we were speaking of just now may have discovered our\nplacer. Those scoundrels have a peculiar scent for finding gold.\"\n\n\"_Caray_, senor padre!\" Andres said, striking the table with a feigned\ngrief (for he knew very well what the monk was saying was only a clever\nway of attaining his real point), \"that would drive me mad--an affair so\nwell managed hitherto.\"\n\n\"That is true,\" Fray Ambrosio said in corroboration. \"I could never\nconsole myself.\"\n\n\"_Demonios_! I have as great an interest in it as yourself, senor\npadre,\" the gambusino replied with superb coolness. \"You know that an\nuninterrupted succession of unfortunate speculations robbed me of my\nfortune, and I hoped thus to regain it at a stroke.\"\n\nAt these words Fray Ambrosio had incredible difficulty in repressing a\nsmile; for it was a matter of public notoriety that senor Don Andres\nGarote was a lepero, who, as regarded fortune, had never possessed a\nfarthing of patrimony; that throughout his life he had never been aught\nbut an adventurer; and that the unlucky speculations of which he\ncomplained were simply an ill luck at monte, which had recently stripped\nhim of 20,000 piastres, acquired Heaven alone knew how. But senor Don\nAndres Garote was a man of unequalled bravery, gifted with a fertile and\nready mind, whom the accidents of life had compelled to live for a\nlengthened period on the _llanos_ (prairies), whose paths he knew as\nthoroughly as he did the tricks of those who dwelt on them. Hence, and\nfor many other reasons, Andres Garote was an invaluable comrade for Fray\nAmbrosio, who had also a bitter revenge to take on the monte table,\nbecause he pretended to place the most sincere faith in what it pleased\nhis honourable mate to say touching his lost fortune.\n\n\"However,\" he said, after an instant's reflection, \"supposing that the\nplacer is intact, and that no one has discovered it, we shall have a\nlong journey to reach it.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the gambusino remarked, significantly; \"the road is difficult and\nbroadcast with perils innumerable.\"\n\n\"We must march with our chins on our shoulders, and finger on the rifle\ntrigger--\"\n\n\"Fight nearly constantly with wild beasts or Indians--\"\n\n\"In a word, do you not believe that the woman Red Cedar has carried off\nwill prove a horrid bore?\"\n\n\"Dreadfully so,\" Andres made answer, with an intelligent glance.\n\n\"What is to be done?\"\n\n\"Hang it! That is difficult to say.\"\n\n\"Still we cannot run the risk, on account of a wretched woman, of having\nour hair raised by the Indians.\"\n\n\"That's true enough.\"\n\n\"Is she here?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the gambusino said, pointing to a door; \"in that room.\"\n\n\"Hum!\"\n\n\"You remarked--\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\n\"Could we not--\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"It is perhaps difficult,\" Andres continued, with feigned hesitation.\n\n\"Explain yourself.\"\n\nThe gambusino seemed to make up his mind.\n\n\"Suppose we restore her to her family?\" he said.\n\n\"I have thought of that already.\"\n\n\"That is strange.\"\n\n\"It must be all managed very cleverly.\"\n\n\"And the relations pay a proper ransom.\"\n\n\"That is what I meant to say.\".\n\nThere was a silence.\n\nDecidedly these two honourable persons were made to understand one\nanother.\n\n\"But who is to undertake this delicate mission?\" asked the monk.\n\n\"I, _con mil demonios!_\" the gambusino exclaimed, his eyes sparkling\nwith greed at the thought of the rich ransom he would demand.\n\n\"But if Red Cedar were to find out,\" the monk remarked, \"that we\nsurrendered his prisoner?\"\n\n\"Who will tell him?\"\n\n\"I am sure I shan't.\"\n\n\"Nor I.\"\n\n\"It is very easy; the girl will have escaped.\"\n\n\"Quite true.\"\n\n\"Do not let us lose time, then. You have a horse?\"\n\n\"I have two.\"\n\n\"Bravo! You will place Dona Clara on one, and mount the other yourself.\"\n\n\"And go straight to the Hacienda de la Noria.\"\n\n\"That is it. Don Pablo will be delighted to recover his sister, whom he\nexpected never to see again, and will not haggle over the price he pays\nfor her deliverance.\"\n\n\"Famous! In that way we run no risk of not reaching the placer, as our\nparty will only consist of men.\"\n\n\"Excellently reasoned!\"\n\nAndres Garote rose with a smile which would have caused the monk to\nreflect, had he seen it; but at the same moment the latter was rubbing\nhis hands, saying in a low voice, and with a most satisfied air,--\n\n\"Now, my scamp, I've got you.\"\n\nWhat secret thought possessed these two men, who were carrying on a\nmutual deceit, none save themselves could have said. The gambusino\napproached the door of the room where Dona Clara was confined, and put\nthe key in the lock. At this moment two vigorous blows were dealt on the\ndoor of the rancho, which had been carefully bolted after Red Cedar's\ndeparture. The two accomplices started.\n\n\"Must I open?\" Andres asked.\n\n\"Yes,\" the monk answered; \"hesitation or refusal might create alarm. In\nour position we must foresee everything.\"\n\nThe ranchero went to open the door, which the newcomer threatened to\nbreak in. A man walked in, who took a careful glance around, then doffed\nhis hat and bowed. The confederates exchanged a glance of vexation on\nrecognising him, for he was no other than Shaw, Red Cedar's youngest\nson.\n\n\"I am afraid I disturb you, gentlemen,\" the young man said, with an\nironical smile.\n\n\"Not at all,\" Andres made answer; \"on the contrary, we are delighted to\nsee you.\"\n\n\"Thanks!\"\n\nAnd the young man fell back into a butaca.\n\n\"You are very late at Santa Fe,\" the monk remarked.\n\n\"It is true,\" the American said, with some embarrassment; \"I am looking\nfor my father, and fancied I should find him here.\"\n\n\"He was so a few hours back, but he was obliged to leave us.\"\n\n\"Ah!\"\n\nThis exclamation was rather drawn from the young man by the necessity he\nfelt of replying, than through any interest he took in the information\nafforded him. He was evidently preoccupied; but Fray Ambrosio did not\nappear to notice it, as he continued,--\n\n\"Yes: it appears that his Excellency the Governor ordered your father to\ngo and meet a regiment of dragoons intended to reinforce the garrison,\nand hasten its march.\"\n\n\"That is true; I forgot it.\"\n\nThe monk and the miner did not at all understand the American's conduct,\nand lost themselves in conjectures as to the reasons that brought him to\nthe rancho. They guessed instinctively that what he said about his\nfather was only a pretext or means of introduction; and that a powerful\nmotive, he would not or dared not avow, had brought him. For his part,\nthe young man, in coming to the Rancho del Coyote, where he knew that\nDona Clara was imprisoned, expected to find Andres alone, with whom he\nhoped to come to an understanding in some way or another. The presence\nof the monk disturbed all his plans. Still, time was slipping away he\nmust make up his mind, and, before all, profit by Red Cedar's\nprovidential absence, which offered him an opportunity he could hardly\ndare to hope again.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nA STORMY DISCUSSION.\n\n\nShaw was not timid, as we have said--he ought rather be accused of the\nopposite excess; he was not the man, once his resolution was formed, to\nlet anything soever turn him from it. His hesitation was not long; he\nsuddenly rose, and violently stamping his rifle butt on the ground,\nlooked at the two men, while saying in a firm voice,--\n\n\"Be frank, my presence here at this hour astonishes you, and you ask\nyourselves what cause can have brought me.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" the monk said, with a certain degree of hesitation rendered\nhighly natural by the young man's tone.\n\n\"Pardon me,\" Shaw exclaimed, interrupting him, \"the cause you will seek\nin vain. I will tell you: I have come to deliver Dona Clara.\"\n\n\"Can it be possible?\" the two men exclaimed with stupefaction.\n\n\"It is so; whether you like it or not, I care little. I am the man to\nhold my own against both of you, and no one can prevent me restoring the\nmaiden to her father, as I have resolved on doing.\"\n\n\"What do I hear?\" said Fray Ambrosio.\n\n\"Hum!\" the young man continued quickly, \"Believe me, do not attempt any\nuseless resistance, for I have resolved, if needs must, to pass over\nyour bodies to success.\"\n\n\"But we have not the slightest wish--\"\n\n\"Take care,\" he interrupted him in a voice full of menace and frowning,\n\"I will only leave this house accompanied by her I wish to save.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" the monk remarked, in an authoritative voice which momentarily\nquelled the young savage, \"two words of explanation.\"\n\n\"Make haste!\" he answered, \"For I warn you that my patience is\nexhausted.\"\n\n\"I do not insist on your listening any length of time. You have come\nhere, you say, with the intention of delivering Dona Clara?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he answered impatiently, \"and if you attempt to oppose it--\"\n\n\"Pardon me,\" the monk interrupted, \"such a determination on your part\nnaturally surprises us.\"\n\n\"Why so?\" the young man said, raising his head haughtily.\n\n\"Because,\" Fray Ambrosio answered tranquilly, \"You are the son of Red\nCedar, and it is at least I strange that--\"\n\n\"Enough talking,\" Shaw exclaimed violently; \"will you or not give me up\nher I have come to seek?\"\n\n\"I must know, in the first place, what you intend doing with her.\n\n\"How does that concern you?\"\n\n\"More than you imagine. Since that girl has been a prisoner I\nconstituted myself--if not her guardian, for the dress I wear forbids\nthat--her defender; in that quality I have the right of knowing for what\nreason you, the son of the man who tore her from her family, have come\nso audaciously to demand her surrender to you, and what your object is\nin acting thus?\"\n\nThe young man had listened to those remarks with an impatience that\nbecame momentarily more visible; it could be seen that he made\nsuperhuman efforts to restrain himself. When the monk stopped, he looked\nat him for a moment with a strange expression, then walked up so close\nas almost to touch him, drew a pair of pistols from his girdle and\npointed them at the monk.\n\n\"Surrender Dona Clara to me,\" he said, in a low and menacing voice.\n\nFray Ambrosio had attentively followed all the American's movements, and\nwhen the latter put the pistol muzzles to his chest, the monk, with an\naction rapid as lightning, also drew two pistols from his girdle, and\nplaced them, on his adversary's chest. There was a moment of supreme\nexpectation, of indescribable agony; the two men were motionless, face\nto face panting, each with his fingers on a trigger, pale, and their\nbrows dank with cold perspiration. Andres Garote, his lips curled by an\nironical smile, and his arms crossed, carelessly leaned against a table,\nwatching this scene which had for him all the attractions of a play.\n\nAll at once the door of the rancho, which had not been fastened again\nafter the squatter's entry was violently thrown back and a man appeared.\nIt was Father Seraphin. At a glance he judged the position and boldly\nthrew himself between the foemen, hurling them back, but not uttering a\nword. The two men recoiled, and lowered their weapons, but continued to\nmenace each other with their glances.\n\n\"What!\" the missionary said in a deep voice, \"Have I arrived just in\ntime to prevent a double murder, gentlemen? In Heaven's name, hide those\nhomicidal weapons; do not stand opposite each other like wild beasts\npreparing for a leap.\"\n\n\"Withdraw, father; you have nothing to do here. Let me treat this man as\nhe deserves,\" the squatter answered, casting at the missionary a\nferocious glance--\"his life belongs to me.\"\n\n\"Young man,\" the priest replied, \"the life of a fellow being belongs\nonly to God, who has the right to deprive, him of it; lower your\nweapons\"--and turning to Fray Ambrosio, he said to him in a cutting\nvoice, \"and you who dishonour the frock you wear, throw away those\npistols which sully your hands--a minister of the altar should not\nemploy other weapons than the Gospel.\"\n\nThe monk bowed, and caused his pistols to disappear, saying in a soft\nand cautious voice, \"My father, I was compelled to defend my life which\nthat maniac assailed. Heaven is my witness that I reprove these violent\nmeasures, too frequently employed in this unhappy country; but this man\ncame into the house with threats on his lips; he insisted on our\ndelivering a wretched girl whom this caballero,\" he said, pointing to\nthe gambusino, \"and myself did not think proper to surrender.\"\n\nAndres corroborated the monk's words by a nod of the head.\n\n\"I wish to save that young girl from your hands,\" Shaw said, \"and\nrestore her to her father.\"\n\n\"Of whom are you speaking, my friend?\" the missionary asked with a\nsecret beating of his heart.\n\n\"Of whom should I speak, save Dona Clara de Zarate, whom these villains\nretain here by force?\"\n\n\"Can it be possible?\" Father Seraphin exclaimed in amazement. \"Dona\nClara here?\"\n\n\"Ask those men,\" Shaw answered, roughly, as he angrily struck the butt\nof his rifle against the ground.\n\n\"Is it true?\" the priest inquired.\n\n\"It is,\" the gambusino answered.\n\nFather Seraphin frowned, and his pale forehead was covered with febrile\nruddiness.\n\n\"Sir,\" he said, in a voice choking with indignation. \"I summon you, in\nthe name of that God whom you serve, and whose minister you lay claim to\nbeing, to restore at once to liberty the hapless girl whom you have so\nunworthily imprisoned, in defiance of all laws, human and divine. I\nengage to deliver her into the hands of those who bewail her loss.\"\n\nFray Ambrosio bowed; he let his eyes fall, and said in a hypocritical\nvoice--\n\n\"Father, you are mistaken as regards myself. I had nothing to do with\nthe carrying off of that poor child, which on the contrary, I opposed to\nthe utmost of my power; and that is so true, father,\" he added, \"that at\nthe moment when this young madman arrived, the worthy gambusino and\nmyself had resolved, at all risks, on restoring Dona Clara to her\nfamily.\"\n\n\"I should wish to believe you, sir; if I am mistaken, as you say, you\nwill forgive me, for appearances were against you; it only depends on\nyourself to produce a perfect justification by carrying out my wishes.\"\n\n\"You shall be satisfied, father,\" the monk replied. At a signal from him\nGarote left the room. During the few words interchanged between the two\nmen, Shaw remained motionless, hesitating, not knowing what he ought to\ndo; but he suddenly made up his mind, threw his rifle over his shoulder,\nand turned to the missionary.\n\n\"Father,\" he said respectfully, \"my presence is now needless here.\nFarewell; my departure will prove to you the purity of my intentions.\"\n\nAnd turning suddenly on his heel, he hurried out of the rancho. A few\nmoments after his departure the gambusino returned, Dona Clara following\nhim.\n\nDona Clara no longer wore the dress of the whites, for Red Cedar, in\norder to render her unrecognizable, had compelled her to don the Indian\ngarb, which the maiden wore with an innate grace which heightened its\nstrange elegance. Like all Indian squaws, she was attired in two white\nchemises of striped calico--the one fastened around the neck, fell to\nthe hips; while the other, drawn in at the waist, descended to her\nankles. Her neck was adorned with collars of fine pearls, mingled with\nthose small shells called wampum, and employed by the Indians as money.\nHer arms and ankles were surrounded by wide circles of gold, and a small\ndiadem of the same metal relieved the pale tint of her forehead.\nMoccasins of deer hide, embroidered with wool and beads of every colour\nimprisoned her small and high-arched feet.\n\nAs she entered the room, a shadow of melancholy and sadness spread over\nher face, adding, were that possible, a further charm to her person. On\nseeing the missionary, Dona Clara uttered a cry of joy, and rushed\ntoward him, fell into his arms, and murmured in a heart-rending voice:--\n\n\"Father! save me! save me!\"\n\n\"Be calm, my daughter!\" the priest said to her, gently. \"You have\nnothing more to fear now that I am near you.\"\n\n\"Come!\" she exclaimed, wildly, \"Let us fly from this accursed house, in\nwhich I have suffered so greatly.\"\n\n\"Yes, my daughter, we will go; set your mind at rest.\"\n\n\"You see, father,\" Fray Ambrosio said, hypocritically, \"that I did not\ndeceive you.\"\n\nThe missionary cast at the monk a glance of undefinable meaning.\n\n\"I trust that you spoke truly,\" he replied; \"the God who gauges hearts\nwill judge you according to works. I will rescue this maiden at once.\"\n\n\"Do so, father; I am happy to know her under your protection.\"\n\nAnd picking up the cloak which Don Pablo left after blinding Red Cedar,\nhe placed it delicately on the shuddering shoulders of Dona Clara, in\norder to conceal her Indian garb. Father Seraphin drew her arm through\nhis own, and led her from the rancho. Ere long they disappeared in the\ndarkness. Fray Ambrosio looked after them as long as he could see them,\nand then re-entered the room, carefully bolting the door after him.\n\n\"Well,\" Andres Garote asked him, \"what do you think, senor Padre, of all\nthat has happened?\"\n\n\"Perhaps things are better as they are.\"\n\n\"And Red Cedar?\"\n\n\"I undertake to render ourselves as white in his sight as the snows of\nthe Caffre de Perote.\"\n\n\"Hum! it will be difficult.\"\n\n\"Perhaps so.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nTHE MYSTERY.\n\n\nOn leaving the Rancho del Coyote, Red Cedar dug his spurs into his\nhorse's flanks, and galloped in a south-western direction. So soon as he\nwas out of the town he turned to the left, took a narrow path that ran\nround the walls, pulled up his horse, and advanced with the utmost\ncaution. Throwing suspicious glances on either side, he went on thus for\nabout three-quarters of an hour, when he reached a house, in one of the\nwindows of which burned three wax tapers.\n\nThe lights thus arranged were evidently a signal for the squatter, for\nso soon as he came to the house he stopped and dismounted, attached his\nhorse to a larch-tree, and prudently concealing himself behind a\nthicket, imitated thrice at equal intervals the hu-hu of an owl. The\nlights burning in the window were extinguished, as if by enchantment.\n\nThe night was gloomy, only a few stars studded the vault of heaven; a\nleaden silence brooded over the plain, which appeared quite solitary. At\nthis moment a voice could be heard from the house which Red Cedar was\nwatching so carefully. The squatter listened; the speaker leaned for a\nsecond out of the window looked cautiously round, and disappeared\nmuttering loud enough for the American to overhear--\n\n\"All is quiet in the neighbourhood.\"\n\n\"Still,\" the squatter said, without showing himself, \"the coyotes prowl\nabout the plain.\"\n\n\"Are you coming or going?\" the man at the window continued.\n\n\"Both,\" the squatter answered, still hidden behind his bush.\n\n\"You can come on, for you are expected.\"\n\n\"I know it; hence here I am.\"\n\nWhile making this answer, the squatter left his hiding place, and placed\nhimself before the door with folded arms, like a man who has nothing to\nfear.\n\nThe door was cautiously opened; a man emerged, carefully wrapped up in,\na wide cloak, which only allowed eyes to be seen, that flashed in the\ngloom like a jackal's. This person walked straight up to Red Cedar.\n\n\"Well,\" he asked, in a low voice, \"have you reflected?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And what is the result of your reflections?\"\n\n\"I refuse.\"\n\n\"Still?\"\n\n\"More than ever.\"\n\n\"Take care.\"\n\n\"I do not care, Don Melchior, for I am not afraid of you.\"\n\n\"No names!\" the stranger exclaimed, impatiently.\n\n\"We are alone.\"\n\n\"No one is ever alone in the desert.\"\n\n\"That is true,\" Red Cedar muttered. \"Let us return to our business.\"\n\n\"It is simple--give and give.\"\n\n\"Hum! You get to work very fast; unfortunately it cannot be so.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Why, because I am growing tired of constantly taking in my nets game by\nwhich others profit, and which I ought to keep as a safeguard.\"\n\n\"You call that girl a guarantee?\"\n\n\"By Heaven! what else do you mean to make of her?\"\n\n\"Do not compare me with you, scoundrel!\"\n\n\"Where is the difference between us? I am a scoundrel, I grant; but, by\nheaven, you are another, my master, however powerful you may be.\"\n\n\"Listen, caballero!\" the stranger answered, in a cutting voice. \"I will\nlose no more of my time in discoursing with you. I want that girl, and\nwill have her, whatever you may do to prevent me.\"\n\n\"Good; in that case you declare war against me?\" the squatter said, with\na certain tinge of alarm, which he tried in vain to conceal.\n\nThe stranger shrugged his shoulders.\n\n\"We have known one another long enough to be perfectly well acquainted;\nwe can only be friends or foes. Is not that your opinion?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well, then, hand Dona Clara over to me, and I will give you the papers\nwhich--\"\n\n\"Enough!\" the squatter said, sharply. \"Have you those papers about you?\"\n\nThe stranger burst into a laugh.\n\n\"Do you take me for such a fool?\" he said.\n\n\"I do not understand you.\"\n\n\"I will not insult you by believing you. No, I have not those papers\nabout me. I am not such an ass as to risk assassination at your hands.\"\n\n\"What would your death profit me?\"\n\n\"Hang it all! If it were only my scalp you would be sure to receive at\nleast fifty dollars for it.\"\n\nAt this mournful jest the squatter began laughing.\n\n\"I did not think of that,\" he said,\n\n\"Listen to me, Red Cedar, and print the words on your memory.\"\n\n\"Speak.\"\n\n\"In a month from today, hour for hour, day for day, wherever you may be,\nI shall present myself to you.\"\n\n\"For what purpose?' the squatter asked impudently.\n\n\"To repeat my demand with reference to the prisoner.\"\n\n\"Then, as now, I shall reply No, my master.\"\n\n\"Perhaps so. Live and learn. Now good-bye, and may the devil, your\npatron saint, preserve you in good health until our next meeting. You\nknow that I have you tight; so consider yourself warned.\"\n\n\"Good, good! Threats do not frighten me. _Demonios_, since I have been\ntraversing the desert, I have found myself opposed to enemies quite as\ndangerous as you, and yet I managed to get quit of them.\"\n\n\"That is possible, Red Cedar; but believe me, meditate carefully on my\nwords.\"\n\n\"I repeat that your threats do not frighten me.\"\n\n\"I do not threaten, I warn you.\"\n\n\"Hum! Well, then, listen in your turn. In the desert, every man armed\nwith a good rifle has nothing to fear from whomsoever.\"\n\n\"What next?\" the stranger interrupted him, in a sarcastic voice.\n\n\"Well, my rifle is excellent, I have a sure aim, and I say no more.\"\n\n\"Nonsense, you are mad! I defy you to kill me!\"\n\n\"Hang it, though, what can be your motive for wishing to have this girl\nin your power?\"\n\n\"That is no affair of yours. I have no explanations due to you. Enough\nfor you to know that I want her.\"\n\n\"You shall not have her.\"\n\n\"We shall see. Good-bye, Red Cedar.\"\n\n\"Good-bye, Don Melchior, or whatever be the name you please to bear.\"\n\nThe stranger made no reply, but turned his head with a gesture of\ncontempt, and whistled. A man emerged from the house, holding a horse by\nthe bridle; at one bound the stranger reached the saddle, and ordered\nthe servant to withdraw.\n\n\"Farewell, _Compadre_, remember our appointment.\"\n\nAnd loosing his reins, the stranger started at a gallop, not\ncondescending even to turn his head. Red Cedar looked after him with an\nindescribable expression of rage.\n\n\"Oh,\" he muttered in a low voice, \"demon! Shall I never free myself from\nyour clutches?\"\n\nAnd with a motion rapid as thought he shouldered his rifle, and aimed at\nthe departing man. All at once the latter turned his horse, and stood\nright opposite Red Cedar.\n\n\"Mind not to miss me!\" he cried, with a burst of laughter that caused a\ncold perspiration to bead on the bandit's forehead.\n\nThe latter let his rifle fall, saying in a hollow voice: \"He is right,\nand I am mad! If I only had the papers!\"\n\nThe stranger waited for a moment calm and motionless; then he started\nagain and soon disappeared in the darkness. Red Cedar stood with his\nbody bowed forward, and his ears on the watch, so long as the horse's\nhoofs could be heard; then he returned to his own steed, and bounded\ninto the saddle.\n\n\"Now to go and warn the dragoons,\" he said, and pushed on.\n\nThe squatter had scarce departed ere several men appeared from either\nside; they were Valentine, Curumilla, and Don Pablo on the right;\nUnicorn and Eagle-wing on the left. Valentine and his friends were\nastonished at meeting the Comanche chief, whom they believed gone back\nto his camp; but the sachem explained to them, in a few words, how, at\nthe moment he was crossing the spot where they now were, he had heard\nRed Cedar's voice, and concealed himself in the shrubs in order to\noverhear the squatter's colloquy with his strange friend. Valentine had\ndone the same; but, unfortunately, the party had been greatly\ndisappointed, for the squatter's conversation remained to them an\nenigma, of which they sought the key in vain.\n\n\"'Tis strange,\" Valentine remarked, as he passed his hand several times\nacross his forehead. \"I do not know where I have seen the man just now\ntalking here with Red Cedar, but I have a vague reminiscence of having\nmet him before, where and under what circumstance I try, though in vain,\nto recall.\"\n\n\"What shall we do?\" Don Pablo asked.\n\n\"Hang it, what we agreed on;\" and turning to the chief, he said, \"Good\nluck, brother, I believe we shall save our friend.\"\n\n\"I am sure of it,\" the Indian replied, laconically.\n\n\"May heaven hear you, brother,\" Valentine continued. \"Act! While, on\nyour side, you watch the town for fear of treason. We then will ambush\nourselves on the road the gambusinos must take, in order to know\npositively the direction in which they are proceeding. Till tomorrow,\nchief!\"\n\n\"Stop!\" a panting voice exclaimed, and a man suddenly appeared in the\nmidst of them.\n\n\"Father Seraphin!\" Valentine said in a surprise. \"What chance brings you\nthis way?\"\n\n\"I was looking for you.\"\n\n\"What do you want with me?\"\n\n\"To give you some good news.\"\n\n\"Speak! Speak quickly, father! Has Don Miguel left his prison?\"\n\n\"Alas! Not yet; but his daughter is free!\"\n\n\"Dona Clara free!\" Valentine shouted joyously. \"Heaven be blessed! Where\nis she?\"\n\n\"She is temporarily in safety, be assured of that; but let me give you a\nwarning, which may perhaps prove useful to you.\"\n\n\"Speak! Speak!\"\n\n\"By order of the governor, Red Cedar has gone to meet the regiment of\ndragoons, coming up to reinforce the Santa Fe garrison.\"\n\n\"_Caramba_,\" Valentine said, \"are you sure of your statement, father?\"\n\n\"I am: in my presence, the men who carried off Dona Clara spoke about\nit.\"\n\n\"All is lost if these soldiers arrive.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the missionary said; \"but, how to prevent it?\"\n\nCurumilla lightly touched the leader's arm.\n\n\"What do you want, chief!\"\n\n\"The Comanches are warriors,\" Curumilla answered, curtly.\n\n\"Ah!\" Valentine exclaimed, and tapping his forehead with delight, \"that\nis true, chief; you save us.\"\n\nCurumilla smiled with pleasure.\n\n\"While you go in pursuit of the soldiers,\" said Don Pablo, \"as I can be\nof no service to you, I will accompany Father Seraphin to my poor\nsister, whom I have not seen so long, and am eager to embrace.\"\n\n\"Do so,\" Valentine answered. \"At daybreak you will bring Dona Clara to\nthe camp, that I may myself deliver her to her father.\"\n\n\"That is agreed.\"\n\nValentine, Curumilla, and Unicorn rushed out in the plain, while Father\nSeraphin and Don Pablo returned to the town. The two gentlemen, anxious\nto join the girl, did not perceive that they were closely watched by an\nindividual, who followed their every movement, while careful not to be\nseen by them. It was Nathan, Red Cedar's eldest son.\n\nHow was that man there?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIX.\n\nTHE AMBUSCADE.\n\n\nThe nigh breeze had swept the clouds away; the sky, of a deep azure, was\nstudded with an infinity of stars; the night was limpid, the atmosphere\nso transparent as to allow the slightest varieties of the landscape to\nbe distinguished. About four leagues from Santa Fe, a numerous band of\nhorsemen was following a path scarce traced in the tall grass, which\napproached the town with countless turns and windings. These horsemen,\nwho marched in rather decent order, were nearly 600 in number, and\nformed the regiment of dragoons so anxiously expected by General\nVentura.\n\nAbout ten paces ahead rode four or five officers gaily chatting\ntogether, among whom was the colonel. The regiment continued its march\nslowly, advancing cautiously, through fear of losing its way in a\nperfectly strange country. The colonel and his officers who had always\nfought in the States bordering the Atlantic, found themselves now for\nthe first time in these savage countries.\n\n\"Caballeros,\" the colonel suddenly remarked, \"I confess to you that I am\ncompletely ignorant as to our whereabouts. Can any one of you throw a\nlight on the subject? This road is fearful, it seems to lead nowhere,\nand I am afraid we have lost our way.\"\n\n\"We are all as ignorant as yourself on that head, colonel,\" an officer\nanswered, \"not one of us could say where we are.\"\n\n\"On my word!\" the colonel went on, taking a glance of satisfaction\naround, \"We are not in a hurry to reach Santa Fe. I suppose it makes\nlittle difference whether we get there today or tomorrow. I believe that\nthe best thing for us to do is to bivouac here for the rest of the\nnight; at sunrise we will start again.\"\n\n\"You are right, colonel,\" the officer said, whom he seemed to address\nmost particularly, \"a few hours' delay is of no consequence, and we run\nthe risk of going out of our course.\"\n\n\"Give the order to halt.\"\n\nThe officer immediately obeyed; the soldiers, wearied with a long\nnight's march, greeted with shouts of joy the order to stop. They\ndismounted. The horses were unsaddled and picketed, campfires were\nlighted, in less than an hour the bivouac was arranged.\n\nThe colonel, in desiring to camp for the night, had a more serious fear\nthan that of losing his way; it was that of falling in with a party of\n_Indios bravos._\n\nThe colonel was brave, and had proved it on many occasions; grown gray\nin harness, he was an old soldier who feared nothing in the world\nparticularly; but accustomed to warfare in the interior of the Republic,\nhad never seen opposed to him any but civilised foes, he professed for\nthe Indians that instinctive fear which all the Mexicans entertain, and\nhe would not risk a fight with an Apache or Comanche war party in the\nmiddle of the night, in a country whose resources he did not know, and\nrun the risk of having his regiment cut to pieces by such Protean\nenemies. On the other hand, he was unaware that the governor of Santa Fe\nhad such pressing need of his presence, and this authorised him in\nacting with the utmost precaution. Still, as soon as the bivouac was\nestablished, and the sentries posted, the colonel sent off a dozen\nresolute men under an Alferez, to trot up the country and try to procure\na guide.\n\nWe will observe, in passing, that in Spanish America, so soon as you\nleave the capitals, such as Lima, or Mexico, roads, such as we\nunderstand them in Europe, no longer exist; you only find paths traced,\nin nine cases out of ten, by the footprints of wild beasts, and which\nare so entangled one with the other, that, unless you have been long\naccustomed to them, it is almost impossible to find your way. The\nSpaniards, we grant, laid out wide and firm roads, but since the War of\nIndependence, they had been cut up, deteriorated and so abandoned by the\nneglect of the ephemeral governments that have followed each other in\nMexico, that with the exception of the great highways of communication\nin the interior of the country, the rest had disappeared under the\nherbage.\n\nThe little squad of troopers sent out to beat up the country had started\nat a gallop, but it soon reduced its pace, and the soldiers and sergeant\nbegan laughing and talking, caring little for the important mission with\nwhich they were intrusted. The moon rose on the horizon, shedding her\nfantastic rays over the ground. As we have said, it was one of those\nlovely nights of the American desert full of strange odours. A majestic\nsilence hovered over the plain, only disturbed at intervals by those\nsounds, without any known cause, which are heard on the savannahs, and\nwhich seem to be the respiration of the sleeping world. Suddenly the\nmockingbird sung twice, and its plaintive and soft song resounded\nmelodiously through the air.\n\n\"Hallo,\" one of the dragoons said, addressing his comrade, \"that's a\nbird that sings very late.\"\n\n\"An evil omen,\" the other said with a shake of his head.\n\n\"_Canarios_! What omen are you talking about, comrade?\"\n\n\"I have always heard say,\" the second, speaker remarked sententiously,\n\"that when you hear a bird sing on your left at night it predicts\nmisfortune.\"\n\n\"The deuce confound you and your prognostics.\"\n\nAt this moment the song, which appeared previously some distance off,\ncould be heard much more close, and seemed to come from some trees on\nthe side of the path the dragoons were following. The Alferez raised his\nhead and stopped, as if mechanically trying to explain the sound that\nsmote his ears; but all became silent again, so he shook his head and\ncontinued his conversation. The detachment had been out more than an\nhour. During this long stroll, the soldiers had discovered nothing\nsuspicious; as for the guide they sought, it is needless to say that\nthey had not found him, for they had not met a living soul. The Alferez\nwas about to give orders to return to camp, when one of the troopers\npointed out to him some heavy, black forms, apparently prowling about\nunsuspiciously.\n\n\"What on earth can that be?\" the officer asked, after carefully\nexamining what was pointed out to him.\n\n\"_Caspita_,\" one of the dragoons exclaimed, \"that is easy to see; they\nare browsing deer!\"\n\n\"Deer!\" said the Alferez, in whom the hunter's instinct was suddenly\naroused, \"there are at least thirty; suppose we try to catch some.\"\n\n\"It is difficult.\"\n\n\"Pshaw!\" another soldier shouted, \"It is light enough for each of us to\nsend them a bullet.\"\n\n\"You must by no means use your carbines,\" the Alferez interposed\nsharply; \"if our shots, re-echoed through the mountains, caught the ears\nof the Indians, who are probably ambushed in the thickets, we should be\nruined.\"\n\n\"What is to be done, then?\"\n\n\"Lasso them, _caspita_, as you wish to try and catch them.\"\n\n\"That is true; I did not think of that.\"\n\nThe dragoons, delighted at the opportunity of indulging in their\nfavourite sport, dismounted, fastened their horses to the roadside trees\nand seized their lassos. They then advanced cautiously toward the deer,\nwhich continued grazing tranquilly, without appearing to suspect that\nenemies were so near them. On arriving at a short distance from the\ngame, the dragoons separated in order to have room for whirling their\nlassos, and making a covering of each tree, they managed to approach\nwithin fifteen paces of the animals. Then they stopped, exchanged\nglances, carefully calculated the distance, and, at a signal from their\nleader, sent their lassos whizzing through the air.\n\nA strange thing happened at this moment, however. All the deer hides\nfell simultaneously to the ground, displaying Valentine, Curumilla, and\na dozen Comanche warriors, who, profiting by the stupor of the troopers\nat their extraordinary metamorphosis, hunted the hunters by throwing\nlassos over their shoulders and hurled them to the ground. The ten\ndragoons and their leader were prisoners.\n\n\"Well, my friends,\" Valentine said with a grin, \"how do you like that\nsort of fun?\"\n\nThe startled dragoons made no reply, but allowed themselves to be bound;\none alone muttered between his teeth:--\n\n\"I was quite sure that villain of a mockingbird would bring us ill luck;\nit sang on our left. That never deceives, _Canarios!_\"\n\nValentine smiled at this sally. He then placed two fingers in his mouth\nand imitated the cry of the mockingbird with such perfection, that the\nsoldier looked up at the trees. He had scarce ended, when a rustling was\nheard among the bushes, and a man leaped between the hunters and their\nprisoners. It was Eagle-wing, the sachem of the Coras.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\nA FRIENDLY DISCUSSION.\n\n\nAfter leaving his enemy (for the mysterious man with whom he had so\nstormy a discussion could be nothing else), Red Cedar set out to join\nthe regiment, and hasten its arrival according to the orders he had\nreceived. In spite of himself, the squatter was suffering from\nextraordinary nervousness, and involuntarily he went over the various\npoints of the conversation with the person who took such precautions in\ncommunicating with him. The threats he had proffered recurred to his\nmind. It appeared as if the bandit, who feared nothing in the world, had\ngood reason, however, for trembling in the presence of the man who, for\nmore than an hour, had crushed him with his irony. What reason could be\nso powerful as to produce so startling a change in this indomitable\nbeing? No one could have said; for the squatter was master of his\nsecret, and would have mercilessly killed anybody he suspected of having\nread even a portion of it.\n\nThe reason was, at any rate, very powerful; for after a few minutes of\ndeep thought, his hand let go the reins and his head fell on his breast:\nthe horse, no longer feeling the curb, stopped and began nibbling the\nyoung tree shoots. The squatter did not notice this halt; he was\nthinking, and hoarse exclamations now and then came from his chest, like\nthe growling of a wild beast. At length he raised his head.\n\n\"No,\" he shouted, as he directed a savage glance at the starlit sky,\n\"any struggle with that demon is impossible. I must fly, so soon as\npossible, to the prairies of the far west. I will leave this implacable\nfoe; I will fly from him, as the lion does, carrying off my prey in my\nclaws. I have not a moment to lose. What do I care for the Spaniards and\ntheir paltry disputes? General Ventura will seek another emissary, for\nmore important matters claim my attention. I must go to the Rancho del\nCoyote, for there alone I shall find my revenge. Fray Ambrosio and his\nprisoner can supply me with the weapons I need for the terrible contest\nI am compelled to wage against that demon who comes straight from hell,\nand whom I will send back there.\"\n\nAfter having uttered these words in a low voice, in the fashion of men\nwont to live in solitude, Red Cedar appeared to regain all his boldness\nand energy. He looked savagely around, and, burying his spurs in his\nhorse's flanks, he started with the speed of an arrow in the direction\nof the rancho, which he had left but a few hours previously, and where\nhis two accomplices still remained.\n\nThe monk and the gambusino, delighted at the unforeseen termination of\nthe scene we recently narrated, delighted above all at having got rid of\nDona Clara without being immediately mixed up in her escape, tranquilly\nresumed their game of _monte_, and played with that mental satisfaction\nproduced by the certainty of having nothing to reproach themselves with,\ndisputing with the utmost obstinacy for the few reals they still\nhappened to have in their pockets. In the midst of a most interesting\ngame, they heard the furious gallop of a horse up the paved street.\nInstinctively they stopped and listened; a secret foreboding seemed to\nwarn them that this horse was coming to the rancho, and that its rider\nwanted them.\n\nIn truth, neither Fray Ambrosio nor Andres Garote had a quiet\nconscience, even supposing, which was very doubtful, that either had a\nconscience at all, for they felt they were responsible to Red Cedar for\nDona Clara. Now that the maiden had escaped like, a bird flying from its\ncage, their position with their terrible ally appeared to them in all\nits desperate gravity. They did not conceal from themselves that the\nsquatter would demand a severe account of their conduct, and despite\ntheir cunning and roguishness, they knew not how they should get out of\nit. The sharp gallop of the approaching horse heightened their\nperplexity. They dared not communicate their fears to each other, but\nthey sat with heads bent forward, foreseeing that they would soon have\nto sustain a very firm attack.\n\nThe horse stopped short before the rancho; a man dismounted, and the\ndoor shook beneath the tremendous blows of his fists.\n\n\"Hum!\" the gambusino whispered, as he blew out the solitary candle that\nillumined the room. \"Who the deuce can come at this advanced hour of the\nnight! I have a great mind not to open.\"\n\nStrange to say, Fray Ambrosio had apparently regained all his serenity.\nWith a smiling face, crossed arms, and back leaned against the wall, he\nseemed to be a perfect stranger to what perplexed his mate so furiously.\nAt Garote's remark an ironical smile played round his pale lips for a\nsecond, and he replied with the most perfect indifference--\n\n\"You are at liberty to act as you please, gossip; still I think it my\nduty to warn you of one thing?\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"That, if you do not open your door, the man, whoever he may be, now\nbattering it, is very capable of breaking it in, which would be a\ndecided nuisance for you.\"\n\n\"You speak very much at your ease, senor Padre,\" the gambusino answered,\nill-temperedly. \"Suppose it be Red Cedar?\"\n\n\"The greater reason to open the door. If you hesitate, he will begin to\nsuspect you; and then take care, for he is a man capable of killing you\nlike a dog.\"\n\n\"That is possible; but do you think that, in such a case, you will\nescape with clean hands?\"\n\nFray Ambrosio looked at him, shrugged his shoulders, but made no further\nanswer.\n\n\"Will you open, _demonios_?\" a rough voice shouted.\n\n\"Red Cedar!\" both men whispered.\n\n\"I am coming,\" Andres replied, in a voice which terror caused to\ntremble.\n\nHe rose unwillingly, and walked slowly towards the door, which the\nsquatter threatened to tear from its hinges.\n\n\"A little patience, caballero,\" the gambusino said, in that honeyed\nvoice peculiar to Mexicans when they meditate some roguery. \"Coming,\ncoming.\"\n\nAnd he began unbarring the door.\n\n\"Make haste!\" the squatter howled, \"For I am in a hurry.\"\n\n\"Hum! It is surely he!\" the gambusino thought. \"Who are you?\" he asked.\n\n\"What! Who am I?\" Red Cedar exclaimed, bounding with wrath. \"Did you not\nrecognise me, or are you having a game with me?\"\n\n\"I never have a game with anyone,\" Andres replied, imperturbably: \"but I\nwarn you that, although I fancy I recognise your voice, I shall not open\ntill you mention your name. The night is too far advanced for me to risk\nreceiving a suspicious person into my house.\"\n\n\"I will break the door down.\"\n\n\"Try it,\" the gambusino shouted boldly, \"and by our Lady of Pilar I will\nsend a bullet through your head.\"\n\nAt this threat the squatter rushed against the door in incredible fury,\nwith the evident intention of breaking it in; but, contrary to his\nexpectations, though it creaked and groaned on its hinges, it did not\ngive way. Andres Garote had indulged in a line of reasoning which was\nfar from being illogical, and revealed a profound knowledge of the human\nheart. He had said to himself, that, as he must face Red Cedar's anger,\nit would be better to let it reach its paroxysm at once so as to have\nonly the decreasing period to endure. He smiled at the American's\nsterile attempts, then, and repeated his request.\n\n\"Well, then,\" the other said, furiously, \"I am Red Cedar. Do you\nrecognise me now, you devil's own Gachupino?\"\n\n\"Of course; I see that I can open without danger to your Excellency.\"\n\nAnd the gambusino hurriedly drew back the bolts.\n\nRed Cedar rushed into the room with a yell of fury, but Andres had put\nout the light. The squatter stopped, surprised by the gloom which\nprevented him distinguishing any object.\n\n\"Hallo!\" he said. \"What is the meaning of this darkness? I can see\nnothing.\"\n\n\"_Caspita_!\" Andres replied, impudently, \"Do you think I amuse myself o'\nnights by watching the moon? I was asleep, compadre, when you came to\narouse me with your infernal hammerings.\"\n\n\"That is possible,\" the squatter remarked; \"but that was no reason for\nkeeping me so long at your door.\"\n\n\"Prudence is the mother of security. We must not let every comer enter\nthe rancho.\"\n\n\"Certainly not; I approve of that. Still, you must have recognised my\nvoice.\"\n\n\"True. Still I might be mistaken; it is difficult to know anyone through\nthe thickness of a door; that is why I wished you to give your name.\"\n\n\"Very good, then,\" Red Cedar said, as if tired of combating arguments\nwhich did not convince him. \"And where is Fray Ambrosio?\"\n\n\"Here, I suppose.\"\n\n\"He has not left the rancho?\"\n\n\"No; unless he took advantage of your arrival to do so.\"\n\n\"Why should he do that?\"\n\n\"I don't know; you question, and I answer; that's all.\"\n\n\"Why does he not speak, if he is here?\"\n\n\"He is possibly asleep.\"\n\n\"After the row I made, that is highly improbable.\"\n\n\"Hang it, he may be a hard sleeper.\"\n\n\"Hum!\" the squatter snorted, suspiciously; \"Light the candle.\"\n\nAndres struck a match, and Red Cedar looked eagerly round the room Fray\nAmbrosio had disappeared.\n\n\"Where is the monk?\" the American asked.\n\n\"I do not know: probably gone.\"\n\nThe squatter shook his head.\n\n\"All this is not clear,\" he muttered; \"there is treachery behind it.\"\n\n\"That is possible,\" the gambusino answered, calmly.\n\nRed Cedar bent on Andres eyes that flashed with fury, and roughly seized\nhim by the throat.\n\n\"Answer, scoundrel?\" he shouted. \"What has become of Dona Clara?\"\n\nThe gambusino struggled, though in vain, to escape from the clutch of\nthe squatter, whose fingers entered his flesh, and pressed him as in a\nvice.\n\n\"Let me loose,\" he panted, \"you are choking me!\"\n\n\"Where is Dona Clara?\"\n\n\"I do not know.\"\n\nThe squatter squeezed more tightly.\n\n\"You do not know!\" he yelled.\n\n\"Aie!\" Andres whined, \"I tell you I do not know.\"\n\n\"Malediction!\" Red Cedar went on. \"I will kill you, _picaro_, if you are\nobstinate.\"\n\n\"Let that man go, and I will tell you all you wish to know,\" was said in\na firm voice by a hunter, who at this moment appeared on the threshold.\n\nThe two men turned in amazement.\n\n\"Nathan!\" Red Cedar shouted on recognising his son. \"What are you doing\nhere?\"\n\n\"I will tell you, father,\" the young man said, as he entered the room.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLI.\n\nNATHAN.\n\n\nNathan was not asleep, as Ellen supposed, when she urged on Shaw to\ndevote himself to liberate Dona Clara, and he had listened attentively\nto the conversation. Nathan was a man of about thirty years of age, who,\nboth physically and morally, bore a marked resemblance to his father.\nHence the old squatter had concentrated in him all the affection which\nhis uncultivated savage nature was capable of feeling. Since the fatal\nnight, when the chief of the Coras had avenged himself for the burning\nof his village and the murder of its inhabitants, Nathan's character had\ngrown still more gloomy; a dull and deep hatred boiled in his heart\nagainst the whole human race; he only dreamed of assassination: he had\nsworn in his heart to revenge on all those who fell into his hands the\ninjury one man had inflicted on him; in a word, Nathan loved none and\nhated everything.\n\nWhen Shaw had disappeared among the bushes, and Ellen, after taking a\nfinal glance around to convince herself that all was in order,\nre-entered the hut that served her as a shelter, Nathan rose cautiously,\nthrew his rifle over his shoulder, and rushed after his brother. Another\nreason urged him to foil Shaw and Ellen's plans; he had a double grudge\nagainst Don Miguel--the first for the stab the Mexican gentlemen had\ngiven his father; the second because Don Miguel had compelled him to\nleave the forest in which his family had so daringly installed itself.\n\nConvinced of the importance of the affair, and knowing the value the\nsquatter attached to carrying off the maiden, who was a most precious\nhostage for him, Nathan did not lose a moment, but reached Santa Fe by\nthe most direct route, bounding with the agility of a tiger cat over the\nobstacles that beset his path. Presently he reached an isolated house,\nnot far from which several men were conversing together in a low voice.\nNathan stopped and listened; but he was too far off, and could\ndistinguish nothing. The squatter's son, reared in the desert, was\nthoroughly versed in all its stratagems; with the piercing eye of a man\naccustomed to night journeys in the prairie, he recognised well-known\npersons, and his mind was at once made up.\n\nHe laid himself on the ground, and following the shadow cast by the\nmoon, lest he might be perceived by the speakers, he advanced, inch by\ninch, crawling like a serpent, stopping at intervals lest the waving of\nthe grass might reveal his presence, in short, employing all the\nprecautions usual under such circumstances. At length he reached a clump\nof Peru trees only a few yards distant from the spot where the men he\nwished to overhear were standing. He then got up, leaned against the\nlargest tree, and prepared to listen. His expectations were not\ndeceived; though a few words escaped him here and there, he was near\nenough perfectly to catch the sense of the conference. This conversation\nwas, in truth, most interesting to him; a sinister smile lit up his\nface, and he eagerly clenched the barrel of his rifle.\n\nPresently the party broke into two. Valentine, Curumilla, and Unicorn,\ntook the road leading to the open country, while Don Pablo and Father\nSeraphin returned toward the town. Valentine and his two friends almost\ntouched the young man as they passed, and he instinctively carried his\nhands to his pistols; they even stopped for a moment and cast suspicious\nglances at the clump that concealed their foe. While conversing in\nwhispers, Unicorn drew a few branches aside and peered in; for some\nseconds Nathan felt an indescribable agony; a cold perspiration stood at\nthe root of his hair and the blood coursed to his heart; in a word, he\nwas afraid. He knew that if these men, his mortal enemies, discovered\nhim, they would be pitiless to him and kill him like a dog. But this\napprehension did not last longer than a lightning flash. Unicorn\ncarelessly let the leafy curtain fall again, saying only one word to his\ncomrades:--\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\nThe latter resumed their march.\n\n\"I do not know why,\" said Valentine, \"but I fancy there is someone\nhidden there.\"\n\n\"No,\" the chief answered, \"there is nobody.\"\n\n\"Well, be it so,\" the hunter muttered, with a toss of his head.\n\nSo soon, as he was alone, Nathan drew two or three deep breaths, and\nstarted in pursuit of Don Pablo and the missionary, whom he soon caught\nup. As they did not suppose they were followed, they were conversing\nfreely together.\n\nIn Spanish America, where the days are so warm and the nights so fresh,\nthe inhabitants, shut up at home so long as the sun calcines the ground,\ngo out at nightfall to breathe a little pure air; the streets, deserted\nin consequence of the heat, are gradually peopled; benches are placed\nbefore the doors, on which persons recline to smoke and gossip, drink\norangeade, strum the guitar, and sing. Frequently the entire night is\npassed in these innocent amusements, and folks do not return home till\ndawn, in order to indulge in the sleep so grateful after this long\nwatch. Hence the Hispano-American towns must be especially visited by\nnight, if you wish to judge truthfully the nature of this people--a\nstrange composite of the most discordant contrasts, who only live for\nenjoyment, and only accept from existence the most intoxicating\npleasures. Still, on the night to which we refer, the town of Santa Fe,\nusually so laughing and chattering, was plunged into a gloomy sadness,\nthe streets were deserted, the doors closed; no light filtered through\nthe hermetically closed windows; all slept or at least feigned to sleep.\nThe fact was, that Santa Fe was at this moment in a state of mortal\nagitation, caused by the condemnation of Don Miguel Zarate, the richest\nland owner in the province--a man who was loved and revered by the whole\npopulation. The agitation took its origin in the unexpected apparition\nof the Comanche war detachment--those ferocious enemies whose cruelties\nhave become proverbial on the Mexican frontier, and whose presence\npresaged nothing good.\n\nDon Pablo and his companion walked quickly, like persons anxious to\nreach a place where they knew they are expected, exchanging but a few\nwords at intervals, whose meaning, however, caught up by the man who\nfollowed them, urged them still more not to let them out of sight. They\nthus traversed the greater part of the town, and on reaching the Calle\nde la Merced, they stopped at their destination--a house of handsome\naspect.\n\nA weak light burned at the window of a ground floor room. By an\ninstinctive movement, the two gentlemen turned round at the moment of\nentering the house but Nathan had slipped into a doorway, and they did\nnot perceive him. Father Seraphin tapped gently; the door was at once\nopened, and they went in. Nathan stationed himself in the middle of the\nstreet, with his eye ardently fixed on the only window of the house lit\nup. Ere long, shadows crossed the curtains.\n\n\"Good!\" the young man muttered; \"But how to warn the old one that the\ndove is in her nest?\"\n\nAll at once, a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder, and Nathan turned,\nfiercely clutching a bowie knife. A man was before him, gloomy, silent\nand wrapped in the thick folds of his cloak. The American started.\n\n\"Go your way,\" he said in a menacing voice.\n\n\"What are you doing here?\" the stranger asked.\n\n\"How does that concern you? The street is free to all.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nThis word was pronounced with a sharp accent. Nathan tried in vain to\nscan the features of the man with whom he had to deal.\n\n\"Give way,\" he said, \"or blood will surely be shed between us.\"\n\nAs sole reply, the stranger took a pistol in his right hand, a knife in\nhis left.\n\n\"Ah!\" Nathan said, mockingly, \"You mean fighting.\"\n\n\"For the last time, withdraw.\"\n\n\"Nonsense, you are mad, senor Caballero; the road belongs to all, I tell\nyou. This place suits me, and I shall remain.\"\n\n\"I wish to be alone here.\"\n\n\"You mean to kill me, then?\"\n\n\"If I must, yes, without hesitation.\"\n\nThe two speakers had exchanged these words in a low and hurried voice,\nin less time than we have employed to write them. They stood but a few\npaces apart with flashing eyes, ready to rush on each other. Nathan\nreturned his pistol to his belt.\n\n\"No noise,\" he said; \"the knife will do; besides, we are in a country\nwhere that is the only weapon in use.\"\n\n\"Be it so,\" the stranger replied; \"then, you will not give way to me?\"\n\n\"You would laugh at me if I did,\" the American said with a grin.\n\n\"Then your blood will be on your own head.\"\n\n\"Or on yours.\"\n\nThe two foemen each fell back a pace, and stood on guard, with their\ncloaks rolled round their left arms. The moon, veiled by clouds, shed no\nlight; the darkness was perfect; midnight struck from the cathedral; the\nvoice of the _serenos_ chanting the hour could be heard in the distance,\nannouncing that all was quiet. There was a moment's hesitation, which\nthe enemies employed in scrutinising each other. Suddenly Nathan uttered\na hoarse yell rushed on his enemy, and threw his cloak in his face, to\nput him on his guard. The stranger parried the stroke dealt him, and\nreplied by another, guarded off with equal dexterity. The two men then\nseized each other round the waist, and wrestled for some minutes,\nwithout uttering a word; at length the stranger rolled on the ground\nwith a heavy sigh; Nathan's knife was buried in his chest. The American\nrose with a yell of triumph--his enemy was motionless.\n\n\"Can I have killed him?\" Nathan muttered.\n\nHe returned his knife to his vaquera boot, and bent over the wounded\nman. All at once he started back, for he had recognised his brother\nShaw.\n\n\"What is to be done now?\" he said; but then added carelessly, \"Pshaw!\nall the worse for him. Why did he come across my path?\"\n\nAnd, leaving there the body of the young man, who gave no sign of life--\n\n\"Well, Heaven knows, I ought not, and could not have hesitated,\" he\nsaid.\n\nShaw lay to all appearance dead, with pale and drawn cheeks, in the\ncentre of the street.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLII.\n\nTHE WOUNDED MAN.\n\n\nNathan proceeded straight to the Rancho del Coyote, where his unexpected\narrival was a blessing for Andres Garote, whom the old squatter was\ntreating very roughly. On hearing his son's words, Red Cedar let go of\nthe gambusino, who tottered back against the wall.\n\n\"Well,\" he asked, \"where is Dona Clara?\"\n\n\"Come with me, father,\" the young man answered; \"I will lead you to\nher.\"\n\n\"You know her hiding place, then?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And so do I,\" Fray Ambrosio shouted, as he rushed into the room with\ndiscomfited features; \"I felt sure I should discover her.\"\n\nRed Cedar looked at him in amazement, but the monk did not wince.\n\n\"What has happened to her?\" the squatter said presently, as he looked\nsuspiciously from the monk to the gambusino.\n\n\"A very simple matter,\" Fray Ambrosio answered, with an inimitably\ntruthful accent; \"about two hours back your son Shaw came here.\"\n\n\"Shaw!\" the squatter exclaimed.\n\n\"Yes, the youngest of your sons; he is called so, I think?\"\n\n\"Yes; go on.\"\n\n\"Very good. He presented himself to us as coming from you to remove our\nprisoner.\"\n\n\"And what did you do?\" the squatter asked, impatiently.\n\n\"What could we do?\"\n\n\"Why, oppose the girl's departure.\"\n\n\"_Caspita_! Do you fancy we let her go so?\" the monk asked,\nimperturbably.\n\nThe squatter looked at him in surprise--he no longer understood\nanything. Like all men of action, discussion was to him almost a matter\nof impossibility; especially with an adversary so crafty as the one he\nhad before him. Deceived by the monk's coolness and the apparent\nfrankness of his answers, he wished to make an end of it.\n\n\"Come,\" he said, \"how did all this finish?\"\n\n\"Thanks to an ally who came to your son's help, and to whom we were\nobliged to bow--\"\n\n\"An ally! What man can be so bold as to dare--\"\n\n\"Eh!\" the monk sharply interrupted Red Cedar, \"that man is a priest, to\nwhom you have already bowed many a time.\"\n\n\"You are jesting, senor Padre,\" the squatter exclaimed, savagely.\n\n\"Not the least in the world. Had it been anyone else, I should have\nresisted; but I, too, belong to the Church; and, as Father Seraphin is\nmy superior, I was forced to obey him.\"\n\n\"What!\" the squatter said, with a groan, \"Is he not dead?\"\n\n\"It appears,\" the monk remarked, ironically, \"as if those you kill are\nall in good state of health, Red Cedar.\"\n\nAt this allusion to Don Pablo's death, the squatter stifled a cry of\nanger, and clenched his fists.\n\n\"Good!\" he said; \"If I do not always kill, I know how to take my\nrevenge. Where is Dona Clara, at this moment?\"\n\n\"In a house no great distance from here,\" Nathan answered.\n\n\"Have you seen her?\" the squatter asked.\n\n\"No; but I followed Don Pablo and the missionary to that house, which\nthey entered, and as they were ignorant that I was close to them, their\nconversation left me no doubt as to the whereabouts of the girl.\"\n\nAn ill-omened smile momentarily lit up the old bandit's features.\n\n\"Good!\" he said; \"as the dove is in her nest, we shall be able to find\nher. What o'clock is it?\"\n\n\"Three in the morning,\" Andres interjected. \"Day will soon break.\"\n\n\"We must make haste, then. Follow me, all of you.\" Then he added, \"But\nwhat has become of Shaw? Does anyone of you know?\"\n\n\"You will probably find him at the door of Dona Clara's house,\" Nathan\nsaid, in a hollow voice.\n\n\"How so? Has my son entered into a compact with my enemies?\"\n\n\"Yes; as he arranged with them to carry off your prisoner.\"\n\n\"Oh! I will kill him if he prove a traitor!\" the squatter shouted with\nan accent that made the blood run cold in the veins of his hearers.\n\nNathan fell back two steps, drew his knife from his boot, and showed it\nto his father.\n\n\"That is done,\" he said, harshly. \"Shaw tried to stab me, so I killed\nhim.\"\n\nAfter these mournful words, there was a moment of silence in the rancho.\nAll these men, though their hearts were steeled by crime, shuddered\ninvoluntarily. Without, the night was gloomy; the wind whistled sadly;\nthe flickering light of the candle threw a weird light over the scene,\nwhich contained a certain degree of terrible poetry. The squatter passed\nhis hard hand over his dank brow. A sigh, like a howl, painfully forced\nits way from his oppressed chest.\n\n\"He was my last born,\" he said, in a voice broken by an emotion he could\nnot control. \"He deserved death, but he ought not to have received it at\nhis brother's hands.\"\n\n\"Father!\" Nathan muttered.\n\n\"Silence!\" Red Cedar shouted, in a hollow voice, as he stamped his foot\npassionately on the ground; \"What is done cannot be undone; but woe to\nmy enemies' family! Oh! I feel now that I can take such vengeance on\nthem as will make all shudder who hear it spoken of!\"\n\nAfter uttering these words, which were listened to in silence, the\nsquatter walked a few steps up the rancho. He approached a table, seized\na bottle half full of mezcal that stood on it, and emptied it at a\ndraught. When he had finished drinking, he threw down the bottle, which\nbroke with a crash, and said to his mates in a hollow voice--\n\n\"Let us be off! We have wasted too much time here already!\"\n\nAnd he rushed out of the rancho, the others following close at his\nheels.\n\nIn the meanwhile, Don Pablo and Father Seraphin were in the house. The\npriest had taken the maiden to the house of an honest family which owed\nhim great obligations, and was too happy to receive the poor sufferer.\nThe missionary did not intend, however, to let her be long a burthen to\nthese worthy people. At daybreak he intended to deliver her to certain\nrelations of her father, who inhabited a hacienda a few leagues from\nSanta Fe.\n\nDona Clara had been placed in a comfortable room by her hosts. Their\nfirst care had been to make her doff the Indian robes for others more\nsuitable to her birth and position. The maiden worn out by poignant\nemotions of the scene she had witnessed, was on the point of retiring to\nbed, when Father Seraphin and Don Pablo tapped at the door of her room.\nShe hastily opened it, and the sight of her brother, whom she had not\nhoped to see so speedily, overwhelmed her with joy.\n\nAn hour soon slipped away in pleasant chat. Don Pablo was careful not to\ntell his sister of the misfortune that had befallen her father; for he\ndid not wish to dull by that confession the joy the poor girl promised\nherself for the morrow. Then, as the night was advancing, the two men\nwithdrew, so as to allow her to enjoy that rest so needed to strengthen\nher for the long journey to the hacienda, promising to come and fetch\nher in a few hours. Father Seraphin generously offered Don Pablo to pass\nthe night with him by sharing the small lodging he had not far from the\nPlaza de la Merced, and the young man eagerly accepted. It was too late\nto seek a lodging at a locanda, and in this way he would be all the\nsooner with his sister next morning. After a lengthened leave-taking,\nthey, therefore, left the house, and, so soon as they were gone, Dona\nClara threw herself, ready dressed, into a hammock hanging at one end of\nthe room, when she speedily fell asleep.\n\nOn reaching the street, Don Pablo saw a body lying motionless in front\nof the house.\n\n\"What's this?\" he asked, in surprise.\n\n\"A poor wretch whom the ladrones killed in order to plunder him,\" the\nmissionary answered.\n\n\"That is possible.\"\n\n\"Perhaps he is not quite dead,\" the missionary went on; \"it is our duty\nto succour him.\"\n\n\"For what good?\" Don Pablo said, with an air of indifference; \"if a\nsereno were to pass he might accuse us of having killed the man.\"\n\n\"Nay, sir,\" the missionary observed, \"the ways of the Lord are\nimpenetrable. If He allowed us to come across this unhappy man, it was\nbecause He judged in His wisdom that we might prove of use to him.\"\n\n\"Be it so,\" the young man said; \"let us look at him, as you wish it. But\nyou know that in this country good actions of such a nature generally\nentail annoyance.\"\n\n\"That is true, my son. Well, we will run the risk,\" said the missionary,\nwho had already bent over the wounded man.\n\n\"As you please,\" Don Pablo said, as he followed him.\n\nShaw, for it was he, gave no signs of life. The missionary examined him,\nthen rose hastily, seized Don Pablo's arm, and drew him to him, as he\nwhispered--\n\n\"Look!\"\n\n\"Shaw!\" the Mexican exclaimed, in surprise; \"What could that man be\ndoing here?\"\n\n\"Help me, and we shall learn. The poor fellow has only fainted; and the\nloss of blood has produced this semblance to death.\"\n\nDon Pablo, greatly perplexed by this singular meeting, obeyed the\nmissionary without further remark. The two men raised the wounded lad,\nand carried him gently to Father Seraphin's lodging, where they proposed\nto give him all the help his condition required.\n\nThey had scarce turned the corner of the street, when several men\nappeared at the other extremity. They were Red Cedar and his\nconfederates. On arriving in front of the house they stopped: all the\nwindows were in the deepest obscurity.\n\n\"Which is the girl's room?\" the squatter asked in a whisper.\n\n\"This one,\" Nathan said, as he pointed to it.\n\nRed Cedar crawled up to the house, drove his dagger into the wall,\nraised himself to the window, and placed his face against a pane.\n\n\"All is well! She sleeps!\" he said, when he came down. \"You, Fray\nAmbrosio, to one corner of the street; you, Garote, to the other, and do\nnot let me be surprised.\"\n\nThe monk and the gambusino went to their allotted posts. When Red Cedar\nwas alone with his son he bent and whispered in his ear--\n\n\"What did you do with your brother after stabbing him?\"\n\n\"I left him on the spot where he fell.\"\n\n\"Where was that?\"\n\n\"Just where we now stand.\"\n\nThe squatter stooped down to the ground, and walked a few steps,\ncarefully examining the bloody traces left on the pebbles.\n\n\"He has been carried off,\" he said, when he rose again. \"Perhaps he is\nnot dead.\"\n\n\"Perhaps so,\" the young man observed, with a shake of his head.\n\nHis father gave him a most significant look.\n\n\"To work,\" he said coldly.\n\nAnd they prepared to escalade the window.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIII.\n\nINDIAN DIPLOMACY.\n\n\nWe will return, for the present, to Valentine and his comrades.\n\nThe sudden apparition of the sachem of the Coras had produced a certain\ndegree of emotion among the hunters and the Comanches. Valentine, the\nfirst to recover from his surprise, addressed Eagle-wing.\n\n\"My brother is welcome,\" he said, as he held out his hand, which the\nIndian warmly pressed, \"What news does the chief bring us?\"\n\n\"Good,\" the Coras answered laconically.\n\n\"All the better,\" the hunter said gaily; \"for some time past all we have\nreceived has been so bad that my brother's will create a diversion.\"\n\nThe Indian smiled at this sally, but made no remark.\n\n\"My brother can speak,\" Valentine continued; \"he is surrounded by none\nbut friends.\"\n\n\"I know it,\" the chief answered, as he bowed gracefully to the company.\n\"Since I left my brother two months have passed away: I have worn out\nmany moccasins amid the thorns and brambles of the desert; I have been\nbeyond the Great Lakes to the villages of my nation.\"\n\n\"Good; my brother is a chief; he was doubtless well received by the\nsachems of the Coras of the Great Lakes.\"\n\n\"Mookapec is a renowned warrior among his people,\" the Indian answered\nproudly; \"his place by the council fire of the nation is pointed out.\nThe chiefs saw him with joy: on his road he had taken the scalps of\nseven gachupinos: they are now drying before the great medicine lodge.\"\n\n\"It was your right to do so, chief, and I cannot blame you. The\nSpaniards have done you harm enough for you to requite them.\"\n\n\"My brother speaks well; his skin is white, but his heart is red.\"\n\n\"Hum,\" observed Valentine; \"I am a friend to justice; vengeance is\npermissible against treachery. Go on, chief.\"\n\nThe hunter's comrades had drawn nearer, and now formed a circle round\nthe two speakers. Curumilla was occupied silently, as was his wont, in\ncompletely stripping each Spanish prisoner, whom he then bound in such a\nway that the slightest movement was impossible.\n\nValentine, although time pressed, knew too well the Redskin character to\ntry and hurry Eagle-wing on. He felt certain that the chief had\nimportant news to communicate to him; but it would have been no use\ntrying to draw it from him; hence he allowed him to act as he pleased.\nUnicorn, leaning on his rifle, listened attentively, without evincing\nthe slightest impatience.\n\n\"Did my brother remain long with his tribe,\" Valentine continued.\n\n\"Two suns. Eagle-wing had left behind him friends to whom his heart drew\nhim.\"\n\n\"Thanks, chief, for the pleasant recollections of us.\"\n\n\"The chiefs assembled in council to hear the words of Eagle-wing,\" the\nCoras continued. \"They shuddered with fury on hearing of the massacre of\ntheir children; but Mookapec had formed his plan, and two hundred\nwarriors are assembled beneath his _totem_.\"\n\n\"Good!\" said Valentine, \"the chief will avenge himself.\"\n\nThe Indian smiled.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"my young men have their orders, they know what I mean\nto do.\"\n\n\"Very good; in that case they are near here?\"\n\n\"No,\" the chief replied, with a shake of his head. \"Eagle-wing does not\nmarch with them; he has hidden himself under the skin of an Apache dog.\"\n\n\"What does my brother say?\" Valentine asked with amazement.\n\n\"My white brother is quick,\" Unicorn said, sententiously; \"he will let\nMookapec speak. He is a great sachem, and wisdom dwells in him.\"\n\nValentine shook his head, however, and said--\n\n\"Hum! Answering one act of treachery by another, that is not the way in\nwhich the warriors of my nation behave.\"\n\n\"The nation of my brother is great, and strong as the grizzly bear,\"\nUnicorn said; \"it does not need to march along hidden paths. The poor\nIndians are weak as the beaver, but like him they are very cunning.\"\n\n\"That is true,\" Valentine replied, \"cunning must be allowed you in\ndealing with the implacable enemies who surround you. I was wrong; so go\non, chief; tell us what deviltry you have invented, and if it is\ningenious. Well, I will be the first to applaud it.\"\n\n\"Wah, my brother shall judge. Red Cedar is about to enter the desert, as\nmy brother doubtless knows?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Does my brother know the _Gringo_ has asked the Apaches for a guide?\"\n\n\"No, I did not.\"\n\n\"Good. Stanapat, the great chief of the Apaches, sent a Navajo warrior\nto act as guide to Red Cedar.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"The Navajo was scalped by Eagle-wing.\"\n\n\"Ah, ah! Then Red Cedar cannot set out?\"\n\n\"Yes, he can do so when he likes.\"\n\n\"How so?\"\n\n\"Because Eagle-wing takes the place of the guide.\"\n\nUnicorn smiled.\n\n\"My brother has a deal of wisdom,\" he said.\n\n\"Hum!\" Valentine remarked, with some show of ill-humour. \"It is\npossible, but you play for a heavy stake, chief. That old villain is as\ncrafty as ten monkeys and ten opossums united. I warn you that he will\nrecognise you.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"I wish it; for if he does, you are a lost man.\"\n\n\"Good, my brother can be easy. Eagle-wing is a warrior; he will see the\nwhite hunter again in the desert.\"\n\n\"I wish so, chief; but I doubt. However, act as you please. When will\nyou join Red Cedar?\"\n\n\"This night.\"\n\n\"You are going to leave us?\"\n\n\"At once. Eagle-wing has nothing more to confide to his brother.\"\n\nAnd, after bowing courteously to the company, the Coras chief glided\ninto the thicket, in which he disappeared almost instantaneously.\nValentine looked after him for some time.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said at last, with a thoughtful air, \"his project is a daring\none, such as might be expected from so great a warrior. May heaven\nprotect him, and allow him to succeed! Well, we shall see; perhaps all\nis for the best so.\"\n\nAnd he turned to Curumilla.\n\n\"The clothes?\" he said.\n\n\"Here they are,\" the Aucas answered, laconically, as he pointed to an\nenormous heap of clothing.\n\n\"What does my brother mean to do with them?\" Unicorn asked.\n\n\"My brother will see,\" Valentine said, with a smile, \"each of us is\ngoing to put on one of those uniforms.\"\n\nThe Comanche drew himself up hastily.\n\n\"No,\" he said, \"Unicorn does not put off the dress of his people. What\nneed have we of this disguise?\"\n\n\"In order to enter the camp of the Spaniards without being discovered.\"\n\n\"Wah! For what good? Unicorn will summon his young men to cut a passage\nthrough the corpses of the gachupinos.\"\n\nBut Valentine shook his head mournfully.\n\n\"It is true,\" he remarked, \"we could do so. But why shed blood\nneedlessly? No; let my brother put confidence in me.\"\n\n\"The hunter will act rightly. Unicorn knows it, and he leaves him free;\nbut Unicorn is a chief, he cannot put on the clothes of the palefaces.\"\n\nValentine no longer insisted, as it would have been unavailing; so he\nagreed to modify his plan. He made each of his comrades put on a dragoon\nuniform, and himself donned the clothes stripped from the Alferez. When\nall this metamorphosis was as complete as possible, he turned to\nUnicorn.\n\n\"The chief will remain here,\" he said, \"to guard the prisoners.\"\n\n\"Good,\" the Comanche answered. \"Is Unicorn, then, a chattering old\nwoman, that warriors place him on one side?\"\n\n\"My brother does not understand me. I do not wish to insult him, but he\ncannot enter the camp with us.\"\n\nThe chief shrugged his shoulders disdainfully.\n\n\"The Comanche warriors can crawl as well as serpents. Unicorn will\nenter.\"\n\n\"Let my brother come, then, since he wishes it.\"\n\n\"Good; my brother is vexed; a cloud has passed over his face. He is\nwrong; his friend loves him.\"\n\n\"I know it, chief, I know it. I am not vexed, but my heart is sad to see\na warrior thus run the risk of being killed without any necessity.\"\n\n\"Unicorn is a sachem; he must give an example to his young men on the\nwarpath.\"\n\nValentine gave a nod of assent.\n\n\"Here are the horses of the palefaces,\" Curumilla said; \"my brother will\nneed them.\"\n\n\"That is true,\" the hunter answered, with a smile; \"my brother is a\ngreat chief--he thinks of everything.\"\n\nEveryone mounted, Unicorn alone remaining a-foot. Valentine placed the\nAlferez by his side.\n\n\"Caballero,\" he said to him, \"you will act as our guide to the camp. We\ndo not wish to take the lives of your countrymen; our intention is\nsimply to prevent them following us at present. Pay attention to my\nwords: if you attempt to deceive us, I blow out your brains. You are\nwarned.\"\n\nThe Spaniard bowed, but made no reply. As for the prisoners, they had\nbeen so conscientiously tied by Curumilla that there was no chance of\ntheir escaping. The little band then set out, Unicorn disappearing among\nthe trees. When they came a short distance from the bivouac, a sentry\nchallenged, \"Who goes there?\"\n\n\"Answer,\" Valentine whispered the Alferez.\n\nHe did so. They passed, and the sentry, suddenly seized by Curumilla,\nwas bound and gagged in the twinkling of an eye, all the other sentinels\nsharing the same fate. The Mexicans keep up a very bad watch in the\nfield, even in the presence of an enemy; the greater reason, then, for\nthem to neglect all precaution when they fancy themselves in safety.\nEverybody was asleep, and Valentine and his friends were masters of the\ncamp. The regiment of dragoons had been surprised without striking a\nblow.\n\nValentine's comrades dismounted; they knew exactly how to act, and did\nnot deviate from the instructions given by their leader. They proceeded\nfrom picket to picket, removing the horses, which were led out of camp.\nWithin twenty minutes all had been carried off. Valentine had anxiously\nfollowed the movements of his men. When they had finished, he raised the\ncurtain of the colonel's tent, and found himself face to face with\nUnicorn, from whose waist-belt hung a reeking scalp. Valentine could not\nrepress a movement of horror.\n\n\"What have you done, chief?\" he asked, reproachfully.\n\n\"Unicorn has killed his enemy,\" the Comanche replied, peremptorily.\n\"When the leader of the antelopes is killed, his flock disperses; the\ngachupinos will do the same.\"\n\nValentine drew near the colonel. The unhappy man, fearfully mutilated,\nwith his brain laid bare, and his heart pierced by the knife of the\nimplacable Indian, lay stark dead, in a pool of blood, in the middle of\nthe tent. The hunter vented a sigh at this sorry sight.\n\n\"Poor devil!\" he said, with an air of compassion.\n\nAfter this short funeral oration, he took away his sabre and epaulettes,\nleft the tent, followed by the Indian chief, and rejoined his comrades.\nThe horses were led to the Comanche camp, after which Valentine and his\nparty wrapped themselves in their blankets, and slept calmly till\ndaybreak. The dragoons were no longer to be feared.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIV.\n\nTHE STRANGER.\n\n\nFather Seraphin and Don Pablo we left bearing the wounded man to the\nmissionary's lodging. Although the house to which they were proceeding\nwas but a short distance off, yet the two gentlemen, compelled to take\nevery precaution, employed considerable time on the journey. Nearly\nevery step they were compelled to halt, so as not to fatigue too greatly\nthe wounded man, whose inert limbs swayed in every direction.\n\n\"The man is dead,\" Don Pablo remarked, during a halt they made on the\nPlaza de la Merced.\n\n\"I fear so,\" the missionary answered, sadly; \"still, as we are not\ncertain of it, our conscience bids us to bestow our care on him, until\nwe acquire the painful conviction that it avails him nought.\"\n\n\"Father, the love of one's neighbour often carries you too far; better\nwere it, perhaps, if this wretch did not come back to life.\"\n\n\"You are severe, my friend. This man is still young--almost a boy.\nTrained amid a family of bandits, never having aught but evil examples\nbefore him, he has hitherto only done evil, in a spirit of imitation.\nWho knows whether this fearful wound may not offer him the means to\nenter the society of honest people, which he has till now been ignorant\nof? I repeat to you, my friend, the ways of the Lord are inscrutable.\"\n\n\"I will do what you wish, father. You have entire power over me. Still,\nI fear that all our care will be thrown away.\"\n\n\"God, whose humble instruments we are, will prove you wrong, I hope.\nCome, a little courage, a few paces further, and we shall have arrived.\"\n\n\"Come on then,\" Don Pablo said with resignation.\n\nFather Seraphin lodged at a house of modest appearance, built of adobes\nand reeds, in a small room he hired from a poor widow, for the small sum\nof nine reals a month. This room, very small, and which only received\nair from a window opening on an inner yard, was a perfect conventual\ncell, as far as furniture was concerned, for the latter consisted of a\nwooden frame, over which a bull hide was stretched, and served as the\nmissionary's bed; a butaca and a prie-dieu, above which a copper\ncrucifix was fastened to the whitewashed wall. But, like all cells, this\nroom was marvellously clean. From a few nails hung the well-worn clothes\nof the poor priest, and a shelf supported vials and flasks which\ndoubtless contained medicaments; for, like all the missionaries, Father\nSeraphin had a rudimentary knowledge of medicine, and took in charge\nboth the souls and bodies of his neophytes.\n\nThe father lit a candle of yellow tallow standing in an iron\ncandlestick, and, aided by Don Pablo, laid the wounded man on his own\nbed; after which the young man fell back into the butaca to regain his\nbreath. Father Seraphin, on whom, spite of his fragile appearance, the\nfatigue had produced no apparent effect, then went downstairs to lock\nthe street door, which he had left open. As he pushed it to, he felt an\nopposition outside, and a man soon entered the yard.\n\n\"Pardon, my reverend father,\" the stranger said; \"but be kind enough not\nto leave me outside.\"\n\n\"Do you live in this house?\"\n\n\"No,\" the stranger coolly replied, \"I do not live in Santa Fe, where I\nam quite unknown.\"\n\n\"Do you ask hospitality of me, then?\" Father Seraphin continued, much\nsurprised at this answer.\n\n\"Not at all, reverend father.\"\n\n\"Then what do you want?\" the missionary said, still more surprised.\n\n\"I wish to follow you to the room where you have laid the wounded man,\nto whose aid you came so generously a short time back.\"\n\n\"This request, sir--\" the priest said, hesitating.\n\n\"Has nothing that need surprise you. I have the greatest interest in\nseeing with my own eyes in what state that man is, for certain reasons\nwhich in no way concern you.\"\n\n\"Do you know who he is?\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"Are you a relation or friend of his?\"'\n\n\"Neither one nor the other. Still, I repeat to you, very weighty reasons\ncompel me to see him and speak with him, if that be possible.\"\n\nFather Seraphin took a searching glance at the speaker.\n\nHe was a man of great height, apparently in the fullest vigour of life.\nHis features, so far as it was possible to distinguish them by the pale\nand tremulous moonbeams, were handsome, though an expression of\nunbending will was the marked thing about them. He wore the dress of\nrich Mexican hacenderos, and had in his right hand a magnificently\ninlaid American rifle. Still the missionary hesitated.\n\n\"Well,\" the stranger continued, \"have you made up your mind, father?\"\n\n\"Sir,\" Father Seraphin answered with firmness, \"do not take in ill part\nwhat I am going to say to you.\"\n\nThe stranger bowed.\n\n\"I do not know who you are; you present yourself to me in the depths of\nthe night, under singular circumstances. You insist, with strange\ntenacity, on seeing the poor man whom Christian charity compelled me to\npick up. Prudence demands that I should refuse to let you see him.\"\n\nA certain annoyance was depicted on the stranger's features.\n\n\"You are right, father,\" he answered; \"appearances are against me.\nUnfortunately, the explanation you demand from me justly would make us\nlose too much precious time, hence I cannot give them to you at this\nmoment. All I can do is to swear, in the face of Heaven, on that\ncrucifix you wear round your neck, and which is the symbol of our\nredemption, that I only wish well to the man you have housed, and that I\nam this moment seeking to punish a great criminal.\"\n\nThe stranger uttered these words with such frankness, and such an air of\nconviction, his face glistened with so much honesty, that the missionary\nfelt convinced: he took up the crucifix and offered it to this\nextraordinary man.\n\n\"Swear,\" he said.\n\n\"I swear it,\" he replied in a firm voice.\n\n\"Good,\" the priest went on, \"now you can enter, sir; you are one of\nourselves; I will not even insult you by asking your name.\"\n\n\"My name would teach you nothing, father,\" the stranger said sadly.\n\n\"Follow me, sir.\"\n\nThe missionary locked the gate and led the stranger to his room, on\nentering which the newcomer took off his hat reverently, took up a post\nin a corner of the room, and did not stir.\n\n\"Do not trouble yourself about me, father,\" he said in a whisper, \"and\nput implicit faith in the oath I took.\"\n\nThe missionary only replied by a nod, and as the wounded man gave no\nsign of life, but still lay much in the position he was first placed in,\nFather Seraphin walked up to him. For a long time, however, the\nattention he lavished on him proved sterile, and seemed to produce no\neffect on the squatter's son. Still, the father did not despair,\nalthough Don Pablo shook his head. An hour thus passed, and no\nostensible change had taken place in the young man's condition; the\nmissionary had exhausted all his stock of knowledge, and began to fear\nthe worst. At this moment the stranger walked up to him.\n\n\"My father,\" he said, touching him gently on the arm, \"you have done all\nthat was humanly possible, but have not succeeded.\"\n\n\"Alas! No!\" the missionary said sadly.\n\n\"Will you permit me to try in my turn?\"\n\n\"Do you fancy you will prove, more successful than I?\" the priest asked\nin surprise.\n\n\"I hope so,\" the stranger said softly.\n\n\"Still, you see I have tried everything that the medical art prescribes\nin such a case.\"\n\n\"That is true, father; but the Indians possess certain secrets known\nonly to themselves, and which are of great efficacy.\"\n\n\"I have heard so. But do you know those secrets?\"\n\n\"Some of them have been revealed to me; if you will permit me, I will\ntry their effects on this young man, who, as far as I can judge, is in a\ndesperate condition.\"\n\n\"I fear he is, poor fellow.\"\n\n\"We shall, therefore, run no risk in trying the efficacy of my superior\nremedy upon him.\"\n\n\"Certainly not.\"\n\nThe stranger bent over the young man, and regarded him for a moment with\nfixed attention; then he drew from his pocket a flask of carved crystal,\nfilled with a fluid as green as emerald. With the point of his dagger he\nslightly opened the wounded man's closed teeth, and poured into his\nmouth four or five drops of the fluid contained in the flask. A strange\nthing then occurred; the young man gave vent to a deep sigh, opened his\neyes several times, and suddenly, as if moved by supernatural force, he\nsat up and looked around him with amazement. Don Pablo and the\nmissionary were almost inclined to believe in a miracle so extraordinary\ndid the fact appear to them. The stranger returned to his dark corner.\nSuddenly the young man passed his hand over his dank forehead, and\nmuttered in a hollow voice:--\n\n\"Ellen, my sister, it is too late. I cannot save her. See, see, they are\ncarrying her off; she is lost!\"\n\nAnd he fell back on the bed, as the three men rushed towards him.\n\n\"He sleeps!\" the missionary said in amazement.\n\n\"He is saved?\" the stranger answered.\n\n\"What did he want to say, though?\" Don Pablo inquired anxiously.\n\n\"Did you not understand it?\" the stranger asked of him.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Well, then, I will tell you.\"\n\n\"You!\"\n\n\"Yes, I; listen! That lad wished to deliver your sister!\"\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"Is it true?\"\n\n\"It is; go on.\"\n\n\"He was stabbed at the door of the house when she sought shelter.\"\n\n\"What next?\"\n\n\"Those who stabbed him wished to get him out of the way, in order to\ncarry her off a second time.\"\n\n\"Oh, that is impossible!\"\n\n\"It is the fact.\"\n\n\"How do you know it?\"\n\n\"I do not know it, but I can read it plainly.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" Don Pablo exclaimed in despair, \"my father--let us fly to my\nsister's aid!\"\n\nThe two gentlemen rushed from the house with a presentiment of\nmisfortune. When the stranger found himself alone with the wounded man,\nhe walked up to him, wrapped him in his cloak, threw him over his\nshoulders as easy as if he were only a child, and went out in his turn.\nOn reaching the street, he carefully closed the door, and went off at a\ngreat rate, soon disappearing in the darkness. At the same instant the\nmelancholy voice of the sereno could be heard chanting--\n\n_\"Ave Maria purisima! Los cuatro han dado! Viva Mejico! Todo es\nquieto!_\"[1]\n\nWhat irony on the part of accident was this cry after the terrible\nevents of the night!\n\n\n[1] Hail, most pure Mary! It has struck four. Long live Mexico! All is\nquiet.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLV.\n\nGENERAL VENTURA.\n\n\nIt was about six in the morning. A dazzling sun poured down its\ntransparent rays on the streets of the Presidio of Santa Fe, which were\nalready full of noise and movement at that early hour of the morning.\nGeneral Ventura was still plunged in a deep sleep, probably lulled by\nagreeable dreams, judging from the air of beatitude spread over his\nfeatures. The general, reassured by the speedy arrival of the dragoons\npromised him, fancied he had nothing more to fear from mutineers who had\nhitherto inspired him with lively apprehensions. He thought, too, that\nby the aid of the reinforcements, he could easily get rid of the\nComanche, who, on the previous day, had so audaciously bearded him in\nthe very heart of his palace.\n\nHe slept, then, that pleasant morning sleep, in which the body, entirely\nrested from its fatigue, leaves the mind the entire liberty of its\nfaculties. Suddenly the door of the sleeping room in which the worthy\ngovernor reposed, was torn violently open, and an officer entered.\nGeneral Ventura, aroused with a start, sat up in his bed, fixing on the\nimportunate visitor a glance, at first stern, but which at once became\nuneasy on seeing the alarm depicted on the officer's features.\n\n\"What is the matter, senor Captain Don Lopez?\" he asked, trying in vain\nto give firmness to his voice, which trembled involuntarily from a\nforeboding of evil.\n\nCaptain Lopez was a soldier of fortune, who had grown grey in harness,\nand contracted a species of rough frankness, that prevented him toning\nthe truth down under any circumstances, which fact made him appear, in\nthe General's eyes, a bird of very evil omen. The captain's arrival,\ntherefore, doubly disquieted the governor. In the first place, through\nhis alarmed face; and secondly, the reputation he enjoyed. To the\ngeneral's query the captain only replied the following three storm laden\nwords--\n\n\"Nothing that's good.\"\n\n\"What do you mean? Have the people rebelled??\"\n\n\"On my word, no! I do not fancy they even dream of such a thing.\"\n\n\"Very well, then,\" the general went on, quite cheered by the good news,\n\"what the deuce have you to tell me, captain?\"\n\n\"I have not come to tell you anything,\" the other said, roughly. \"There\nis a soldier outside who has just come from I don't know where, and who\ninsists on speaking with you. Shall I bring him, or send him about his\nbusiness.\"\n\n\"One moment,\" exclaimed the general, whose features had suddenly become\ngloomy; \"who is the soldier?\"\n\n\"A dragoon, I fancy.\"\n\n\"A dragoon! Let him come in at once. May heaven bless you, with all your\ncircumlocution! The man, doubtless, brings me news of the arrival of the\nregiment I am expecting, and which should have been here before.\"\n\nThe captain shrugged his shoulders with an air of doubt.\n\n\"What is it now?\" the general said, whom this expressive pantomime\neminently alarmed; \"What are you going to say?\"\n\n\"Nothing, except that the soldier looks very sad to be the bearer of\nsuch good news.\"\n\n\"We shall soon know what we have to depend on. Let him come in.\"\n\n\"That is true,\" said the captain, as he went off.\n\nDuring this conversation the general had leaped from his bed, and\ndressed himself with the promptness peculiar to soldiers. He now\nanxiously awaited the appearance of the trooper whom Don Lopez had\nannounced to him. In vain he tried to persuade himself that the captain\nwas mistaken, and that the soldier had been sent to tell him of the\narrival of the regiment. In spite of himself, he felt in his heart a\nspecies of alarm which he could not account for, and yet nothing could\ndissipate.\n\nA few minutes were thus passed in febrile restlessness. All at once a\ngreat noise was heard in the Plaza Major. The general went to a window,\npulled aside a curtain, and looked out. A tumultuous and dense crowd was\nthronging every street leading to the square and uttering sharp cries.\nThis crowd, momentarily increasing, seemed urged on by something\nterrible, which the general could not perceive.\n\n\"What is this?\" the general exclaimed; \"And what can be the meaning of\nthis disturbance?\"\n\nAt this moment the shouts grew louder, and the detachment of Comanche\nwarriors appeared debouching by the Calle de la Merced, and marching in\ngood order, and at quick step, upon the palace. On seeing them the\ngeneral could not restrain a start of surprise.\n\n\"The Indians again!\" he said; \"How can they dare to present themselves\nhere? They must be ignorant of the arrival of the dragoons. Such\nboldness is incomprehensible.\"\n\nHe let the curtain fall, and turned away. The soldier whom the captain\nhad announced to him stood before him, waiting the general's pleasure to\nquestion him. The general started on perceiving him. He was pale; his\nuniform was torn and stained with mud, as if he had made a long journey\non foot through brambles. The general wished to clear up his doubts;\nbut, just as he was opening his mouth to ask the man a question, the\ndoor flew back, and several officers, among whom was Captain Don Lopez,\nentered the room.\n\n\"General,\" the captain said, \"make haste! You are expected in the\ncouncil hall. The Indians have come for the answer you promised to give\nthem this morning.\"\n\n\"Well! Why this startled look, gentlemen?\" the general said, severely.\n\"I fancy the town has not yet been set on fire. I am not at the orders\nof those savages, so tell them that I have no time to grant them an\naudience.\"\n\nThe officers gazed at the general with a surprise they did not attempt\nto conceal, on hearing these strange and incomprehensible words.\n\n\"Good, good,\" Captain Lopez said, roughly, \"the town is not yet fired,\n'tis true; but it might be so, erelong, if you went on in this way.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" the general asked, as he turned pale. \"Are matters\nso serious?\"\n\n\"They are most serious. We have not a moment to lose, if we wish to\navoid heavy disasters.\"\n\nThe general started.\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" he then said, in an ill-assured voice, \"it is our duty to\nwatch over the safety of the population. I follow you.\"\n\nAnd taking no further heed of the soldier he had ordered to be sent in,\nhe proceeded towards the council hall.\n\nThe disorder that prevailed without had at length gained the interior of\nthe palace. Nothing was to be heard but shrieks or exclamations of anger\nand terror. The Mexican officers assembled in the hall were tumultuously\ndiscussing the measures to be adopted in order to save a contest and the\ntown. The entrance of the governor produced a healthy effect upon them,\nin so far that the discussion, which was degenerating into personalities\nand reproaches, dictated by individual fear, suddenly ceased, and\ncalmness was restored.\n\nGeneral Ventura regretted in his heart having counted on imaginary help,\nand not having listened to the sensible advice of some of his officers,\nwho urged him the previous day to satisfy the Indians by giving them\nwhat they asked. In spite of the terror he felt, however, his pride\nrevolted at being compelled to treat on equal terms with barbarians, and\naccept harsh conditions which they would doubtless impose on him, in the\nconsciousness of having the upper hand.\n\nThe governor, in entering the hall, looked around the assembly\nanxiously. All had taken their places, and, externally at least, had\nassumed that grace and stern appearance belonging to men who are\npenetrated with the grandeur of the duties they have to perform, and are\nresolved to carry them out at all hazards. But this appearance was very\ndeceptive. If the faces were impassive the hearts were timorous. All\nthese men, habituated to a slothful and effeminate life, did not feel\ncapable of waging a contest with the rude enemies who menaced them so\naudaciously, even at the doors of the governor's palace.\n\nUnder present circumstances, however, resistance was impossible. The\nIndians, by the fact of their presence on the square, were masters of\nthe town. There were no troops to oppose to them; hence, the only hope\nwas to make the easiest terms possible with the Comanches. Still, as all\nthese men wished to save appearances at any rate, the discussion began\nanew. When everyone had given his opinion, the governor rose, and said\nin a trembling voice--\n\n\"Caballeros, all of us here present: are men of courage, and have\ndisplayed that quality in many difficult circumstances. Certainly, if\nthe only thing, was to sacrifice our lives to save the hapless townsmen,\nwe would not hesitate to do so, for we are too well imbued with the\nsoundness of our duties tot hesitate; but, unhappily, that sacrifice\nwould not avail to save those whom we wish before all to protect. Let us\ntreat, then, with the barbarians, as we cannot conquer them. Perhaps in\nthis way we shall succeed in protecting our wives; and children from the\ndanger that menaces them. In acting thus, under the grave circumstances\nin which we find ourselves, we shall at least have the consolation of\nhaving done our duty, even if we do not obtain all we desire.\"\n\nHearty applause greeted this harangue, and the governor, turning to the\nporter, who stood motionless at the door, gave orders to introduce the\nprincipal Indian chiefs.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVI.\n\nTHE COMANCHES.\n\n\nValentine and his friends awoke at daybreak. The Comanches were already\nprepared to start; and Unicorn, dressed in his great war costume,\npresented himself to the hunter.\n\n\"Is my brother going?\" Valentine asked him.\n\n\"Yes,\" the sachem answered. \"I am returning to the Presidio to receive\nthe answer of the chief of the palefaces.\"\n\n\"What is my brother's intention, should his demand be rejected?\"\n\nUnicorn smiled.\n\n\"The Comanches have long lances,\" he said; \"the palefaces will not\nrefuse.\"\n\n\"My anxiety will be extreme till you return, chief; the Spaniards are\nperfidious; take care they have not planned some treachery.\"\n\n\"They would not dare,\" Unicorn said, haughtily. \"If the chief, whom my\nbrother loves, is not delivered to me safe and sound, the Spanish\nprisoners shall be tortured on the plaza of Santa Fe, the town burned\nand sacked. I have spoken; my brother's mind may be at rest.\"\n\n\"Good! Unicorn is a wise chief; he will do what is necessary.\"\n\nIn the meantime the Comanche warriors had formed their ranks, and only\nawaited the signal of the sachem to start. The Spanish prisoners taken\nduring the night were placed in the centre bound and half naked.\nSuddenly a disturbance was heard in the camp, and two men rushed panting\ntoward the spot where stood Valentine, the sachem and Curumilla. They\nwere Don Pablo and Father Seraphin, their clothes in disorder, their\nfeatures haggard, and their faces glistening with perspiration. On\nreaching their friends, they fell, almost in a fainting state, on the\nground. The proper attentions were at once paid them, and the missionary\nwas the first to recover. Don Pablo seemed stupefied; the tears poured\nincessantly down his cheeks, and he could not utter a word. Valentine\nfelt strangely alarmed.\n\n\"Good heavens!\" he exclaimed, \"What has happened? Don Miguel--?\"\n\nThe missionary shook his head.\n\n\"No,\" he said, \"nothing has happened to him, as far as I know.\"\n\n\"Heaven be praised! But what is the matter, father? What misfortune have\nyou to announce to me?\"\n\n\"A frightful one, indeed, my son,\" the missionary replied, as he buried\nhis face in his hands.\n\n\"Speak, in Heaven's name! Your delay is killing me.\"\n\n\"Dona Clara--\"\n\n\"Well!\" he hunter said, sharply.\n\n\"Was captured again last night by Red Cedar, and torn from the refuge\nwhere I placed her.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" Valentine exclaimed, with concentrated fury, as he stamped his\nfoot, \"Always that demon--that accursed Red Cedar. My curses on him! But\ntake courage, father; let us first save Don Miguel, and then I swear to\nyou that I will restore his daughter to him.\"\n\nUnicorn advanced.\n\n\"Master of prayer,\" he said to Father Seraphin, in a soft and impressive\nvoice, \"your heart is good. The Comanches love you. Unicorn will help\nyou. Pray to your God. He will protect us in our researches, since He\nis, as you say, so powerful.\"\n\nThen the chief turned to Don Pablo, and laid his hand firmly on his\nshoulder.\n\n\"Women weep,\" he said; \"men avenge themselves. Has not my brother his\nrifle?\"\n\nOn feeling the Comanche's hand laid on him--on hearing these words--the\nyoung man quivered as if he had received an electric shock. He drew\nhimself up, and fixed on the chief his eyes burning with the fever of\nsorrow.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, in a broken voice, \"you are right, chief, and,\" passing\nhis hand over his eyes, with a gesture of rage, \"let us leave tears to\nwomen, who have no other weapons to protect their weakness. I am a man,\nand will avenge myself.\"\n\n\"Good. My brother speaks well: he is a warrior; Unicorn esteems him; he\nwill become great on the war path.\"\n\nDon Pablo, crushed for a moment, had regained all his energy; he was no\nlonger the same man; he looked around him.\n\n\"Where are you going?\" he asked.\n\n\"To Santa Fe, to deliver your father.\"\n\n\"I will go with you.\"\n\n\"Come,\" said Unicorn.\n\n\"No,\" Valentine interposed, authoritatively. \"Your place is not there,\nDon Pablo; leave the Comanche warriors to act as they please; they do\nnot need your help to carry out their plans properly. Remain with me.\"\n\n\"Command me, my friend,\" the young man said with resignation; \"I have\nperfect confidence in your experience.\"\n\n\"Good. You are reasonable. Brother,\" he added, turning to the chief,\n\"you can start. The sun is already high in the horizon; may Heaven grant\nthat you may succeed!\"\n\nUnicorn gave the signal for departure. The Comanches uttered their war\nyell, while brandishing their arms, and started at a quick amble, the\nonly pace they know. Curumilla then rose, and wrapped himself in his\nbuffalo robe; Valentine watching him, inquiringly.\n\n\"Does my brother leave us?\" he said.\n\n\"Yes,\" the Araucano answered, laconically.\n\n\"For long?\"\n\n\"For a few hours?\"\n\n\"Where is my brother going?\"\n\n\"To look for the camp of Red Cedar's gambusinos,\" the Indian replied\nwith a cunning smile.\n\n\"Good,\" Valentine said, gleefully. \"My brother is a wise chief; he\nforgets nothing.\"\n\n\"Curumilla loves his brother; he thinks for him,\" the chief answered,\nsimply.\n\nAfter uttering these words, the Unicorn bowed gracefully, and proceeded\nin the direction of the Paso del Norte, soon disappearing in the\nwindings of the road. Valentine looked after him for a long while. When\nhe no longer saw him, he let his head fall pensively on his chest,\nmurmuring in a low voice--\n\n\"Good, intelligent fellow! Heart of gold! The only friend left me! The\nonly one remaining of my old and faithful comrades! Louis, my poor\nLouis, where are you now?\" A deep sigh burst from his bosom, and he\nremained absorbed in a gloomy reverie.\n\nAt length Valentine raised his head, passed his hand over his brow, as\nif to dispel these sad thoughts, and turned to his friends.\n\n\"Pardon me,\" he said, \"but I, at times, give way to my thoughts in that\nfashion. Alas! I, too, have suffered; but let us leave that,\" he added,\ngaily. \"Bygones must be bygones. Let us attend to your affairs.\"\n\nHe made them a sign to sit down by his side on the grass, rummaged his\nalforjas and produced some slight food, which he laid before them.\n\n\"Eat,\" he said to them; \"we do not know what awaits us within the next\nfew hours, and we must recruit our strength. When you have satisfied\nyour appetite, you will tell me all about Dona Clara being carried off\nagain, for I must have the fullest details.\"\n\nWe will leave the three now conversing, and join the Comanches and\nUnicorn again.\n\nWhen the Comanches reached the Plaza Mayor, opposite the Cabildo, they\nhalted. At an order from Unicorn, the prisoners were completely stripped\nof their clothing and placed some distance in front of the first rank of\nIndians, each of them having at his side a fully armed Indian ready to\nmassacre him mercilessly at the slightest sign from Unicorn. When the\npreparations were completed, and the Comanches had stationed sentinels\nat each corner of the streets, opening in the square, in order not to be\ntaken in reverse, and surrounded by the Spaniards, if they felt any\ninclination for fighting, the Spider, the chief who had already\nperformed the duty of flag of truce, pranced up to the gate of the\npalace, and demanded speech with the governor.\n\nThe officer of the guard, who was no other than Don Lopez, politely\nrequested the Indian warrior to wait a few moments, and then proceeded\nin all haste to General Ventura. We have seen what took place, and,\nafter a delay of nearly half an hour, Captain Don Lopez returned. It was\ntime, for the Comanches were beginning to grow tired of waiting, and\nwere preparing to force the passage which was not voluntarily granted\nthem. After some preliminary explanations, Captain Lopez informed the\nSpider that the general, surrounded by his staff, was awaiting, in the\nhall of audience, the sachem of the nation and his three principal\nwarriors.\n\nThe Spider communicated this answer to Unicorn, who gave a nod of\nassent, dismounted, and entered the Cabildo.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII.\n\nNEGOTIATIONS.\n\n\nWhen Unicorn entered the council chamber, preceded by Captain Lopez, and\nfollowed by the three Indian chiefs, the deepest silence prevailed among\nthe Spanish officers assembled to meet him. The governor, seated in a\nchair placed in the centre of the hall, was looking nervously round him,\nwhile tapping on the arm of the chair with the fingers of his right\nhand. Still, his countenance was tolerably composed; nothing externally\nrevealed the terror that devoured him. He answered by a nod the\nceremonious bow of the Comanches, and drew himself up as if intending to\naddress them; but if such were his desire, Unicorn did not grant him\ntime to do so. The sachem draped himself in his buffalo robe with that\nmajestic grace possessed by all those untamed sons of the desert, drew\nhis head up proudly, and walked toward General Ventura, who watched him\napproach with an anxious eye. On coming within four paces of the\ngovernor, Unicorn stopped, crossed his arms on his chest, and took the\nword.\n\n\"I salute my father!\" he said, in a loud and fierce voice. \"I have come,\nas was agreed on yesterday, to fetch the answer he owes me.\"\n\nThe general hesitated for an instant.\n\n\"I am waiting!\" the Indian went on, with a frown that augured ill.\n\nThe general, forced almost into his last entrenchments, saw that the\nhour for surrender had at length arrived, and that no way of escape was\nleft him.\n\n\"Chief,\" he answered, in anything but a firm voice, \"your behavior\nnaturally surprises me. To my knowledge the Spaniards are not at war\nwith your nation; the whites have not done anything of which you have a\nright to complain. For what reason do you come, then, against the sworn\nfaith, and when nothing authorises you, to invade a defenceless town,\nand interfere in matters that only concern ourselves?\"\n\nThe sachem understood that the Spaniard was trying to shift the question\non to other ground; he saw the snare offered him, and was not to be\ncaught.\n\n\"My father does not answer my request,\" he said. \"Still, in order to\nhave finished at once with the recriminations he brings up, I will\nanswer his questions peremptorily, separating them one from the other.\nIn the first place, my father knows very well that the palefaces and\nredskins have been in a constant state of warfare since the arrival of\nwhite men in America. This war may have slightly relaxed at intervals,\nbut has never really ceased. Our two races are hostile; the struggle\nwill not end between them until one of the two families, whether white\nor red, has given place to the other by its general extinction.\nSecondly, my father said that nothing has been done of which we had a\nright to complain. My father is mistaken, we have a cause, the\nimprisonment of Don Miguel Zarate, who, himself an Indian, has never\nbelied his origin. Hence my father must no longer ask by what right I am\nhere, for that is perfectly established; it is that which every honest\nman possesses of defending an innocent person who is oppressed. Now that\nfact is cleared up, let us pass to another. When I came here yesterday,\nmy father gave me to understand that my propositions would be accepted,\nand the exchange of prisoners carried out.\"\n\n\"It is possible, chief,\" the general replied; \"but things are so in this\nworld, no one knows today what he will do tomorrow. With night\nreflection has come, and, in short, your propositions have appeared to\nme unacceptable.\"\n\n\"Wah!\" the Indian said, though not testifying his surprise otherwise.\n\n\"Yes,\" the general continued, growing animated, \"I should be ashamed to\ngrant them, for I should have the appearance of only yielding to\nthreats. No, it cannot be. The two gentlemen you claim are guilty, and\nshall die; and if you venture to oppose the execution of the just\nsentence of the court, we will defend ourselves, and God will protect\nthe good cause.\"\n\nThe Mexican officers warmly applauded this haughty response, which they\nwere far from expecting. They felt their courage rekindled, and did not\ndespair of obtaining better conditions. A smile of disdain played round\nthe chiefs haughty lips.\n\n\"Good,\" he said; \"my father speaks very loudly. The coyotes are bold\nwhen they hunt the buffalo in packs. My father has carefully reflected,\nand is determined to accept the consequences of his answer. He wishes\nfor war, then?\"\n\n\"No,\" the general quickly interposed, \"heaven forbid! I should be glad\nto settle this matter amicably with you, chief, but honor forbids me\nsubscribing those disgraceful proposals which you did not fear to lay\nbefore me.\"\n\n\"Is it really honour that has dictated my father's answer?\" the Indian\nasked, ironically. \"He will permit me to doubt it. In short, whatever be\nthe reason that guides him, I can but withdraw; but, before doing so, I\nwill give him news of a friend whom he doubtless impatiently expects.\"\n\n\"What means that word, doubtless?\"\n\n\"This,\" the Indian said, sharply. \"The warriors whom my father expected\nto arrive to his aid this day have been dispersed by my young men, as\nthe autumn breeze sweeps away the leaves. They will not come.\"\n\nA murmur of surprise, almost of terror, ran through the assembly. The\nsachem let the long folds of his buffalo robe fall back, tore from his\ngirdle the bleeding scalp that hung there, and threw it at the general's\nfeet.\n\n\"That,\" he said, gloomily, \"is the scalp of the man who commanded my\nfather's warriors! Does the chief of the palefaces recognise it? This\nscalp was raised by me from the head of the man who was to arrive, and\nwho, at this hour, has set out for the happy hunting grounds of his\nnation.\"\n\nA shudder of terror ran round the room at the sight of the scalp; the\ngeneral felt the small dose of courage that had still animated him\noozing out.\n\n\"Chief,\" he exclaimed, in a trembling voice \"is it possible you have\ndone that?\"\n\n\"I have done it,\" the sachem answered, coldly. \"Now, farewell. I am\nabout to join my young men, who are impatient at my long absence.\"\n\nWith these words the Comanche haughtily turned his back on the governor,\nand walked toward the door.\n\n\"A few moments longer, chief,\" the general said; \"perhaps we are nearer\nan understanding than you suppose.\"\n\nThe Comanche gave the speaker a glance which made him quiver.\n\n\"Here is my last word,\" he said. \"I insist on the two prisoners being\nhanded over to me.\"\n\n\"They shall be.\"\n\n\"Good; but no perfidity, no treachery.\"\n\n\"We will act honourably,\" the general replied, not dreaming, of resenting\nthe insult conveyed in the Indian's words.\n\n\"We shall see. My warriors and myself will remain on the square till my\nfather has performed his promise. If, within an hour, the palefaces are\nnot free, the prisoners I hold will be pitilessly massacred, and the\n_altepetl_ plundered. I have spoken.\"\n\nA gloomy silence greeted these terrible threats. The pride of the\nMexicans was quelled, and they at length recognised that nothing could\nsave them from the vengeance of the Comanche chief. The general bowed in\nassent, not having strength to answer otherwise. The sight of the scalp\nhad paralyzed in him all desire to contend longer. Unicorn left the\nhall, mounted his horse again, and calmly awaited the fulfilment of the\npromise made to him.\n\nWhen the Indians had left the council chamber, the Mexicans rose\ntumultuously, for each feared the execution of the chief's threats.\nGeneral Ventura was pressed on all sides to make haste, and run no risk\nof breaking his word. When the governor saw that his officers were as\nterrified as himself, he re-assumed his coolness, and cleverly profited\nby this state of mind, in order to throw the responsibility off himself,\nand appear only to act under the impulse of others.\n\n\"Caballeros,\" he said, \"you have heard this man. You understood as well\nas I did the menaces he dared to offer us. Shall such an insult be left\nunpunished? Will you allow yourselves to be thus braved in the heart of\nthe town by a handful of scoundrels, and not attempt to inflict on them\nthe chastisement they deserve? To arms, caballeros, and let us die\nbravely, if it must be so, sooner than suffer this stain on the old\nSpanish honor our fathers transmitted to us!\"\n\nThis warm address produced the effect the general anticipated from it;\nthat is to say, it redoubled, were that possible, the terror of the\nhearers, who had long been acquainted with their chiefs cowardice, and\nknew how little he could be depended on. This sudden warlike order\nseemed to them so unusual, and before all so inopportune, that they\npressed him to accept without delay the proposals dictated by the\nsachem.\n\nThis was all the governor wanted. He had the minutes of the council at\nonce drawn up, when it was signed by all present, he put it in his\npocket.\n\n\"As you insist,\" he said, \"and nothing can induce you to offer an\nhonourable resistance, I will myself proceed to the prison, in order to\navoid any misunderstanding, and have the doors opened for Don Miguel\nZarate and General Ibanez.\"\n\n\"Make haste, pray?\" the officers answered.\n\nThe general, glad in his heart at having got out of the scrape so well,\nleft the Cabildo, and walked across the square to the prison, which\nstood on the opposite side. The Comanches were motionless as statues of\nFlorentine bronze, leaning on their weapons, with their eyes fixed on\nthe chief, ready to carry out his orders.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV.\n\nFREE.\n\n\nDon Miguel and General Ibanez were completely ignorant of what was going\non outside, and the rumours of the town did not reach their ears. Had\nthey deigned to question their jailer, the latter, who was beginning to\nfear for himself the effects of the ill-treatment he had made the two\ngentlemen undergo, would doubtless not have hesitated to give them all\npossible information, for the sake of regaining their favour; but each\ntime this man presented himself before them, and opened his mouth to\nspeak, they turned their backs contemptuously, giving him a sign to\nwithdraw at once, and be silent.\n\nOn this day, according to their wont, the two prisoners had risen at\nsunrise, and then, with incredible coolness, began conversing on\nindifferent topics. Suddenly a great noise was heard in the prison; a\nclang of arms reached the prisoners' ears, and hurried footsteps\napproached the rooms in which they were confined. They listened.\n\n\"Oh, oh!\" said Ibanez, \"I fancy it is for today at last.\"\n\n\"Heaven be praised!\" Don Miguel answered; \"I am glad they have made up\ntheir minds to bring matters to a conclusion.\"\n\n\"On my honour, and so am I,\" the general said, gaily; \"time was\nbeginning to hang heavy in this prison, where a man has not the\nslightest relaxation. We are going to see again that splendid sun which\nseems afraid of showing itself in this den. _Viva Cristo_! I feel\ndelighted at the mere thought, and gladly pardon my judges.\"\n\nStill the noise drew nearer and nearer, and confused voices were mingled\nwith the echoing steps in the passage, and the rattling of sabres.\n\n\"Here they are,\" said Don Miguel; \"we shall see them in a minute.\"\n\n\"They are welcome if they bring us death, that supreme solace of the\nafflicted.\"\n\nAt this moment a key creaked in the lock, and the door opened. The two\nprisoners fell back in surprise on seeing the general, who rushed into\nthe cell followed by two or three officers. Assuredly, if the prisoners\nexpected to see anybody, it was not the worthy General Ventura. Ibanez'\nsurprise was so great at this unexpected apparition, that he could not\nrefrain from exclaiming, with that accent of caustic gaiety which formed\nthe basis of his character--\n\n\"What the deuce do you want here, Senor Governor? Have you, too,\nsuddenly become a frightful conspirator, such as we are accused of\nbeing?\"\n\nBefore answering, the general fell back into a chair, wiping away the\nperspiration that trickled down his forehead, such speed had he\ndisplayed in coming to the prison. Three or four officers stood\nmotionless on the threshold of the widely open door. The condemned men\ncould not at all understand the affair.\n\n\"Have you by any chance, my dear governor,\" General Ibanez said, gaily,\nthough not believing a word of it, \"come to restore us to liberty? That\nwould be a most gallant action, and I should feel deeply indebted to you\nfor it.\"\n\nGeneral Ventura raised his head, fixed on the prisoners eyes sparkling\nwith joy, and said, in a panting voice--\n\n\"Yes, my friends, yes; I _would_ come myself to tell you that you are\nfree; I would not yield to anyone else the pleasure of announcing the\ngood news.\"\n\nThe prisoners fell back in amazement.\n\n\"What!\" General Ibanez exclaimed, \"You are speaking seriously?\"\n\nDon Miguel attentively looked at the governor, trying to read in his\nface the reasons of his conduct.\n\n\"Come, come,\" General Ventura cried, \"this hole is frightful; do not\nremain any longer in it.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" Don Miguel remarked, bitterly, \"You find it frightful; you have\nbeen a long time in discovering the fact; for we have lived in it nearly\na month, and the thought never once occurred to you of disturbing our\nrepose.\"\n\n\"Do not be angry with me, Don Miguel,\" the governor answered eagerly,\n\"it was greatly against my will you were detained so long; had it only\ndepended on me you would have been free; but, thanks to Heaven, all is\nsettled now, and I have succeeded in having justice done you. Come away;\ndo not remain a moment longer in this pestilential den.\"\n\n\"Pardon me, Caballero,\" Don Miguel said coldly, \"but, with your\npermission, we will remain a few moments longer in it.\"\n\n\"Why so?\" General Ventura asked, opening his eyes to their fullest\nextent.\n\n\"I will tell you.\"\n\nDon Miguel pointed to a chair, and sat down himself. Ibanez following\nhis example. There was a moment of deep silence between these three men\nas they strove to read each other's real secret thoughts.\n\n\"I am waiting your pleasure to explain yourself,\" the governor at last\nsaid, as he was anxious to get away, and time pressed.\n\n\"I am about doing so,\" Don Miguel answered; \"you have come to tell us we\nare free, sir; but you do not say on what conditions.\"\n\n\"What do you mean by conditions?\" the general asked, not understanding\nhim.\n\n\"Of course,\" Ibanez went on, supporting his friend; \"and these\nconditions, too, must suit us; you must see, my dear sir, we cannot\nleave this delightful place without knowing the why or wherefore. _Viva\nCristo_! We are not vagabonds to be got rid of in that way; we must know\nif we are justified in accepting the proposals you have just made.\"\n\n\"The general is right, sir,\" the hacendero said in his turn; \"the care\nof our honor does not permit us to accept a liberation which might stain\nit; hence, we shall not leave this prison until you have given us an\nexplanation.\"\n\nThe governor hardly knew whether he was on his head or his heels; he had\nnever before had to deal with such obstinate prisoners. He racked his\nbrains in vain to discover why it was that men condemned to death could\nso peremptorily decline their liberty. His ideas were too narrow, his\nheart was too cowardly for him to comprehend the grandeur and nobility\nin this determination on the part of two men, who preferred an honourable\ndeath to a branded life which they only owed to the pity of their\njudges. Still, he must induce them to quit the prison, for time was fast\nslipping away, and their obstinacy might ruin everything. Hence, General\nVentura made up his mind like a man.\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" he said, with feigned admiration, \"I understand what\nnobleness there is in your scruples, and am happy to see that I was not\nmistaken in the greatness of your character. You can leave this prison\nin full security, and take once more the station that belongs to you in\nthe world. I will lay no conditions on you; you are free, purely and\nsimply. Here are the documents connected with your trial, the proofs\nproduced against you; take them and destroy them, and accept my sincere,\napologies for all that has passed.\"\n\nWhile saying this, the governor drew from his breast an enormous bundle\nof papers, which he offered Don Miguel. The latter declined them with an\nair of disgust; but General Ibanez, less scrupulous or wiser in his\ngeneration, eagerly clutched them, looked through them to see that the\ngovernor was not deceiving him, and then threw them into the _brasero_,\nstanding in the middle of the room. In less than four minutes, all this\nundigested mass was consumed. General Ibanez watched them burning with a\ncertain degree of pleasure, for he began to feel himself really free.\n\n\"I am waiting for you, gentlemen,\" said the governor.\n\n\"One word more, by your leave,\" the hacendero remarked.\n\n\"Speak, sir.\"\n\n\"On leaving this prison, where are we to go?\"\n\n\"Wherever you please, gentlemen. I repeat to you that you are perfectly\nfree, and can act as you think proper. I do not even ask your word of\nhonor to enter into no further conspiracy.\"\n\n\"Good sir,\" Don Miguel said, holding out his hand to General Ventura,\n\"your conduct affects me--thanks.\"\n\nThe governor blushed.\n\n\"Come, come,\" he said, to hide his embarrassment on receiving this so\nill-deserved praise.\n\nThe prisoners no longer hesitated to follow him.\n\nIn the meanwhile, the news of Don Miguel's deliverance had spread\nthrough the town with the rapidity of a train of gunpowder. The\ninhabitants, reassured by the continence of the Comanches, and knowing\nthat they had only come to save a man, in whose fate the entire\npopulation felt interested, had ventured to leave their houses, and at\nlength thronged the streets and squares; the windows and roofs were\nfilled with men, women, and children, whose eyes, fixed on the prison,\nawaited the moment of Don Miguel's appearance. When he did so,\ntremendous shouts greeted him.\n\nUnicorn walked up to the governor.\n\n\"My father has kept his promise,\" he said, gravely, \"I will keep mine;\nthe white prisoners are free; I now depart.\"\n\nThe governor listened to these words with a blush; the sachem returned\nto the head of his war party, which rapidly retired, followed by the\nshouts of a mob intoxicated with joy. Don Miguel, perplexed by the scene\nwhich had taken place in his presence, and who began to suspect a\nmystery in the governor's conduct, turned to him to ask an explanation\nof the Indian chief's words--an explanation the governor luckily\nescaped, owing to the eagerness of the people who flocked up to\ncongratulate the prisoners on their release.\n\nOn reaching the gate of the Cabildo, General Ventura bowed courteously\nto the two gentlemen, and hurried into his palace, happy at having\nescaped so cheaply, and not tearing with his own hands the cloak of\ngenerosity which he had paraded in the sight of his prisoners.\n\n\"What do you think of all that?\" the hacendero asked his friend.\n\n\"Hum!\" General Ibanez muttered, \"The governor's conduct seems to me\nrather queer; but, no matter, we are free. I confess to you, my friend,\nthat I should have no objection to go a little distance from this place,\nthe air of which, despite General Ventura's protestations, appears to me\nremarkably unhealthy for us.\"\n\nAt this moment, and ere Don Miguel could answer, the general felt a\nslight touch on his shoulders; he turned and saw Curumilla before him,\nwith a smiling face. Don Miguel and the general suppressed a cry of joy\nat the sight of the grave and excellent Indian.\n\n\"Come!\" he said to them, laconically.\n\nThey followed him, with some difficulty, through the crowd that\naccompanied them with shouts, and whom they were obliged to stop and\nthank. On reaching a small street near the square, and which was nearly\ndeserted, Curumilla led them to a house before which he stopped.\n\n\"It is here,\" he said, as he tapped twice.\n\nThe door opened, and they entered a courtyard, in which were three ready\nsaddled horses, held by a groom, which they at once mounted.\n\n\"Thanks, brother,\" the hacendero said, warmly, as he pressed the chiefs\nhand; \"but how did you learn our deliverance?\"\n\nThe Araucano smiled pleasantly. \"Let us go,\" he said, making no other\nanswer.\n\n\"Where to?\" Don Miguel asked.\n\n\"To join Koutonepi.\"\n\nThe three men started at full speed. Ten minutes later they were out of\nthe town, and galloping across the plain.\n\n\"Oh!\" General Ibanez said, gaily, \"How pleasant the fresh air is! How\ngood it is to inhale it after remaining for two months stifled between\nthe walls of a prison!\"\n\n\"Shall we soon arrive? Don Miguel asked.\n\n\"In an hour,\" the chief answered.\n\nAnd they went on with renewed speed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIX.\n\nTHE MEETING.\n\n\nOn reaching a spot where the trail they were following formed a species\nof fork, Curumilla stopped, and the two gentlemen imitated him.\n\n\"That is your road,\" the Araucano chief said. \"At the end of that path\nyou will see Koutonepi's bivouac fire. I must leave you here.\"\n\nAfter uttering these words, Curumilla turned his horse and started,\nafter giving them a parting wave of the hand. The Unicorn was not much\nof a talker naturally; generally, he did more than he said. His friends,\nconvinced that urgent necessity could alone have forced him thus to\nbreak through his habits, made no observation, but let him go. When they\nwere alone, they gently relaxed the pace of their horses, and proceeded\nat a canter.\n\nGeneral Ibanez was radiant. He inhaled the fresh air Of the desert,\nwhich dilated his wide chest, revelling in his liberty. He thought of\nnothing but enjoying the present, regardless of the past, which, with\nhis careless character, he had already forgotten, only to dream of the\nfuture, which he gazed on through a prism of brilliant hues. Don Miguel,\non the contrary, felt, during the last few moments, a sad melancholy\ninvade his mind. Not able to account for the emotion he experienced, he\nhad a species of secret presentiment that a misfortune was suspended\nover his head. In vain did he try to dispel these ideas, but they\nconstantly returned more obstinately than ever and it was with a sort of\ndread that he advanced in the direction where he was to meet Valentine,\nalthough he was his best friend, so much did he fear that he would greet\nhis arrival with evil tidings.\n\nThe two gentlemen went on thus for nearly half an hour without\nexchanging a syllable; but, just as they turned a corner in the path,\nthey saw a horseman about thirty paces in front of them, barring the\nroad, and apparently waiting for them. The Mexicans examined him\nattentively. He was a tall man, well armed, and wearing the garb of the\nrich hacenderos; but, singularly enough, a black velvet mask prevented\nthem distinguishing his features. By an instinctive movement Don Miguel\nand his friend moved a hand to their holsters, but they were empty.\n\n\"What is to be done?\" the hacendero asked the general.\n\n\"Go on, of course. We have just escaped too great a peril for us to fear\nthis. Even in the event of the mysterious being planted there before us,\nlike an equestrian statue, trying to play us a trick, which is not\nimpossible.\"\n\n\"Let us trust to Heaven,\" Don Miguel muttered, and pushed on.\n\nThe distance separating them from the stranger was soon cleared. On\ncoming within five yards of him, they stopped.\n\n\"_Santas tardes_, caballeros,\" said the stranger, in a friendly voice.\n\n\"_Santas tardes_!\" the gentlemen answered, in accord.\n\n\"I salute you, Don Miguel Zarate, and you, General Ibanez,\" the stranger\nthen said. \"I am happy to see you at length safe and sound out of the\nclaws of that worthy General Ventura, who, if he could, would certainly\nhave played you a trick.\"\n\n\"Caballero,\" Don Miguel made answer, \"I thank you for the kind words you\naddress to me, and which can only come from a friend's lips. I should be\npleased if you would take off the mask that conceals your features, so\nthat I may recognise you.\"\n\n\"Gentlemen, if I removed my mask you would be disappointed, for my\nfeatures are unfamiliar to you. Do not be angry with me for keeping it\non; but, be assured that you are not mistaken with regard to me, and I\nam really your friend.\"\n\nThe two Mexicans bowed courteously to each other, and the stranger went\non.\n\n\"I knew that so soon as you were free you would hasten to join that\nworthy hunter Valentine, whom the trappers and gambusinos along the\nfrontier have christened the 'Trail-hunter.' I placed myself here, where\nyou must infallibly pass, in order to make you a communication of the\nutmost importance, which interests you extremely.\"\n\n\"I am listening, sir,\" Don Miguel responded with secret alarm; \"and I\nbeg you to accept, beforehand, my sincere thanks for the step you have\ntaken on my behalf.\"\n\n\"You will thank me when the proper time comes, Don Miguel. Today I only\nwarn you: at a later date I hope to aid you, and my help will not prove\nuseless.\"\n\n\"Speak, sir! You excite my curiosity to the highest pitch, and I am\nanxious to learn the news of which you have condescended to be the\nbearer.\"\n\nThe stranger shook his head sadly, and there was a moment's silence.\nThis meeting of three horsemen, one of whom was masked, in this deserted\nplace, where no sound troubled the imposing silence of solitude, had\nsomething strange about it. At length the mask spoke again.\n\n\"Two months have elapsed, Don Miguel, since, through the treachery of\nRed Cedar, you were arrested and made prisoner at the Paso del Norte.\nMany events of which you are ignorant have occurred since then; but\nthere is one I must inform you of at once. On the very night of your\narrest, at the moment you laid down your arms, your daughter was carried\noff by Red Cedar.\"\n\n\"My daughter!\" the hacendero exclaimed; \"And Valentine to whom I\nconfided her, and who was responsible for her safety?\"\n\n\"Valentine attempted impossibilities to save her; but what can one man\neffect against twenty?\"\n\nDon Miguel shook his head mournfully.\n\n\"After researches, long, sterile, and extraordinary efforts, a man\nprovidentially aided by Father Seraphin, at length succeeded last night\nin taking Dona Clara from her ravishers; but Red Cedar, advised by some\nextraordinary chance, entered the house where the maiden had sought\nshelter, and carried her off again.\"\n\n\"Oh! I will avenge myself on that man!\" the hacendero shouted,\npassionately.\n\nThe stranger's eyes flashed with a lurid light though the holes in his\nmask.\n\n\"You will find your son and Father Seraphin with Valentine. Red Cedar\nintends to start this evening at the head of a band of gambusinos, to go\ninto the deserts of the Rio Gila in search of a placer, which his\naccomplice, Fray Ambrosio, had indicated to him.\"\n\n\"Fray Ambrosio!\" the hacendero repeated, in stupor.\n\n\"Yes. Your former chaplain, who served as spy to the squatter, revealed\nyour plans to him, and provided him the means to enter the hacienda and\ncarry off your daughter.\"\n\n\"Good,\" Don Miguel said, in a hollow voice. \"I will remember.\"\n\n\"Red Cedar, I know not with what design, is taking your daughter with\nhim into the desert.\"\n\n\"I will follow him, were it for a thousand leagues,\" Don Miguel said,\nresolutely. \"Thanks to you for having instructed me so fully. But whence\ncomes the interest you take in me so gratuitously, since, as you say, I\ndo not know you?\"\n\n\"You shall learn at a later date, Don Miguel. Now, before I leave you,\none last word--an earnest warning.\"\n\n\"I listen attentively, caballero.\"\n\n\"Do not tell anyone--not even the French hunter, not even your son--of\nour meeting. Let this secret be buried in your breast. When you reach\nthe far west, if you see before you, at one of your bivouacs, a piece of\nmahogany bearing the impress of a horse's shoe, rise at midnight, and\nleave the camp, not letting anyone see you. When you have gone one\nhundred paces in the tall grass, whistle thrice; a similar whistle will\nanswer you, and then you will learn many things important for you to\nknow, but which I cannot tell you today.\"\n\n\"Good. Thanks. I will do what you tell me.\"\n\n\"You promised it?\"\n\n\"I swear it on my word as a gentleman,\" Don Miguel said, as he took off\nhis hat.\n\n\"I accept your oath. Farewell.\"\n\n\"Farewell.\"\n\nThe stranger dug his spurs into his horse's sides and the animal started\noff as if impelled by a tornado.\n\nThe two gentlemen looked after him for a long time, admiring the grace\nand ease of his movements; at length, when horse and rider had\ndisappeared in the distance, Don Miguel went on again pensively, while\nsaying to the general--\n\n\"Who can that man be?\"\n\n\"I know no more than you do. _Viva Cristo_!\" his friend answered, \"but I\nassure you I will know, even if to do so I have to search all the\nthickets and caverns in the desert.\"\n\n\"What,\" Don Miguel exclaimed, \"do you intend to come with me?\"\n\n\"Did you ever doubt it, Don Miguel? If so, you insulted me. You will\nneed all your friends to go in search of your daughter, and inflict on\nthat demon of a gringo squatter the chastisement he deserves. No, no; I\nwill not leave you under such circumstances, for that would be\ncommitting a bad action; besides, I shall not be sorry,\" he added with a\nsmile, \"to get out of the sight of the government for a time.\"\n\n\"My friend, I thank you,\" the hacendero said, as he took his hand. \"I\nhave long known that you were entirely devoted to me; I am pleased to\nreceive this new proof of your friendship.\"\n\n\"And you accept it?\" the general asked gaily.\n\n\"Most heartily; the help of an iron arm like yours must be most useful\nto me under the painful circumstances in which I am placed.\"\n\n\"That is settled, then; we will start together, _Mil rayas!_ and I swear\nwe will deliver Dona Clara.\"\n\n\"May Heaven grant it,\" the hacendero said, sadly.\n\nThe conversation then dropped, and the two friends proceeded in silence.\nA quarter of an hour later they reached the Trail-hunter's bivouac.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI.\n\nDONA CLARA.\n\n\nValentine had been warned, nearly an hour previously, by Unicorn of the\nresult of the negotiations with the governor of Santa Fe, and the\nimmediate liberation of the prisoners; he was, therefore, expecting\nthem. Though they were ignorant where to find him, Valentine presumed\nthat the chief would leave some Indian to direct them, and, therefore,\ndid not feel at all surprised at seeing them. So soon as he noticed\ntheir approach he walked to meet them, followed by Don Pablo and the\nmissionary, while the hacendero and his comrade on their side pricked\non to join them sooner.\n\nA few hours were spent, after the first greetings were over, in a\nconference, of which the poor child so audaciously carried off was the\nsole subject. Valentine drew up with his friends the plan of the\ncampaign against Red Cedar, which was so daring that it would have made\na European nervous; but the free adventurers who were about to carry it\nout in no way feared the mysterious dangers of the desert which they\nwere going to confront. We say, free, because Father Seraphin had taken\nleave of his friends and found Unicorn, with whom he wished to go to the\nComanche villages, in the hope of spreading the light of the Gospel\nthere. Still, he did not despair about, meeting his friends in the\nprairies, whither he was himself proceeding. Toward evening, Curumilla\narrived. The Araucano was covered with dust, and his face damp with\nperspiration; Not uttering a word, he sat down by the fire, took his\ncalumet from his girdle, and began smoking. Valentine let him do so\nwithout asking a question, but so soon as he saw him absorbed in his\npipe, he laid his hand on his shoulder.\n\n\"Well?\" he said to him.\n\n\"Curumilla has seen them.\"\n\n\"Good; are they numerous?\"\n\n\"Ten times the number of fingers on my two hands, and one more.\"\n\n\"_Caramba!_\" Valentine exclaimed, \"Are they so many as that? We shall\nhave a tough job in that case.\"\n\n\"They are bold hunters,\" the chief added.\n\n\"Hum! Do you know when they will start?\"\n\n\"This evening, when the new moon rises.\"\n\n\"Ah, ah! I read their plan,\" the hunter said. \"They intend crossing the\nford of the Toro before day.\"\n\nCurumilla bowed his head in affirmation.\n\n\"That is true,\" Valentine remarked; \"once the ford is passed they will\nbe in the desert, and have comparatively nothing to fear, or at least\nthey suppose so. I must confess,\" he added, addressing his friends,\n\"that Red Cedar is a remarkably clever scoundrel; nothing, escapes him,\nbut this time he has a' tough adversary. I have my revenge to take on\nhim, and, with the help of Heaven, it shall be exemplary.\"\n\n\"What shall we do?\" Don Miguel asked.\n\n\"Sleep,\" Valentine answered, \"we have still several hours before us, so\nlet us profit by them; in the new life we are beginning, we must neglect\nnothing, the body and mind must repose, so that we may act vigorously.\"\n\nCurumilla had slipped away but now returned, bringing with him two\nrifles, pistols, and knives.\n\n\"My brothers had no weapons,\" he said, as he laid his load before the\nMexicans.\n\nThe latter thanked him heartily; for, owing to the foresight of\nCurumilla, who thought of everything, they could now enter the desert\nboldly. Two minutes later the five men were fast asleep, and we will\ntake advantage of their slumber to return to Red Cedar, whom we left on\nthe point of climbing through Dona Clara's window, while Fray Ambrosio\nand Andres Garote were watching at either end of the street.\n\nAt one bound the bandit was in the room, after breaking open the window\nwith a blow of his fist. Dona Clara, suddenly aroused, leaped from the\nbed, uttering fearful cries at the sight of the terrible apparition\nbefore her.\n\n\"Silence,\" Red Cedar said to her, in a threatening voice, as he placed\nthe point of his knife on her chest, \"one cry more, and I kill you like\na dog.\"\n\nThe maiden, trembling with fright, looked pitifully at the bandit; but\nRed Cedar's face wore such an expression of cruelty, that she understood\nhow little she had to hope from this man. She addressed a silent prayer\nto Heaven, and resigned herself to her fate. The bandit gagged the poor\nchild with the rebozo that lay on the bed, threw her over his shoulder,\nand clambered out of the window again. So soon as he put foot on the\nground, he whistled lightly for his comrades to rejoin him, which they\ndid immediately, and, still carrying his burthen, he proceeded with them\nin the direction of the Rancho del Coyote.\n\nDuring the walk, which was not a long one, the bandits did not meet a\nsoul. Andres opened the door and lit a candle; the ruffians entered, and\nthe door was carefully bolted again. Thus, after only a few hours of\nliberty, the wretched girl had fallen once more into the hands of her\nravishers, and placed again by them in the wretched room where she had\nspent so many days in prayer and weeping. Red Cedar carried Dona Clara,\nwho was in a half-fainting state, to her room, removed the rebozo, and\nthen returned to the bar.\n\n\"There;\" he said, with satisfaction, \"that is all right; the sheep has\nreturned to the fold. What do you say, reverend father? This time let us\nhope she will not escape us.\"\n\nThe monk smiled.\n\n\"We shall do well in not remaining here long,\" he said.\n\n\"Why so?\"\n\n\"Because this hiding place is known and will soon be visited.\"\n\nThe squatter shrugged his shoulders.\n\n\"Listen! Fray Ambrosio,\" he said, with a sinister grimace, which he\nintended for a smile. \"I predict that, rogue as you are, you run a great\nchance of dying in a fool's skin, if you are not flayed beforehand,\nwhich may easily be the case.\"\n\nThe monk shuddered. Red Cedar's gaiety had the peculiarity of being even\nmore fearful than his anger. The squatter sat down on a bench, and\nturned to the gambusino.\n\n\"Drink!\" he said roughly.\n\nGarote fetched a jar of mezcal, which he placed before his terrible\naccomplice. The latter, not taking the trouble to pour the liquor into a\nglass, raised the jar to his lips, and drank till breath failed him.\n\n\"Hum!\" he said, with a click of his tongue, \"That's pleasant tipple when\nyou're thirsty. Listen to my orders, my dear children, and try to carry\nthem out to the letter; or, if not, your roguish hides will bear the\nblame.\"\n\nThe three men bowed silently.\n\n\"You, Nathan,\" he went on, \"will come with me, for you are not wanted\nhere, but your presence is necessary at. Cerro Prieto, where our\ncomrades are encamped.\"\n\n\"I will follow you,\" the young man replied, laconically.\n\n\"Good! Now, you others, bear this carefully in mind:--Our enemies will\nnever suppose that I have made such a mistake as to bring my prisoner\nback here; for that is so absurd, that the idea will never enter their\nheads; so you can be at ease, and no one will trouble your peace of\nmind. Tomorrow, so soon as the moon rises, you will make the girl put on\nan Indian dress, mount her, and come to me at Cerro Prieto. Immediately\nafter your arrival we shall start.\"\n\n\"Good!\" Fray Ambrosio answered. \"We will take care.\"\n\n\"I expect so; for, if you do not, I wouldn't give a _cuartillo_ for your\naccursed hide, my reverend friend.\"\n\nAfter uttering these friendly words, the squatter seized the jar of\nmezcal, emptied it at a draught, and sent it flying across the room,\nwhere it broke to pieces.\n\n\"Good bye till tomorrow,\" he then said, \"come, Nathan.\"\n\n\"Till tomorrow,\" they answered.\n\nThe squatter and his son left the rancho, and walked on silently side by\nside, plunged in gloomy reflections produced by the events of the night.\nThey soon left the town. The night was gloomy, but darkness did not\nexist for squatters accustomed to find their way anywhere, and never\ndreaming of going astray. They walked thus for a long time, with slung\nrifle, not exchanging a word, but listening to the slightest noise and\nsounding, the darkness with their tiger-cat eyes. All at once they heard\nthe firm footfall of a man coming towards them. They cocked their\nrifles, ready for any emergency. A voice was then heard, though the\nperson to whom it belonged was invisible.\n\n\"My brothers must not fire; they would kill a friend.\"\n\nThe words were Apache--a language well known to the squatters.\n\n\"Tis an Indian,\" said Nathan.\n\n\"Do you think I did not recognise him?\" Red Cedar replied, brutally;\n\"then,\" he added, in the same dialect, \"there are no friends in the\nshadow of the desert. My brother must get out of my path, or I will kill\nhim like a coyote.\"\n\n\"Is it thus,\" the Indian continued, \"that the 'maneater' receives the\nguide whom Stanapat, the Great Chief of the Apaches, sends him? In that\ncase, good-bye. I will retire.\"\n\n\"One moment,\" the squatter said, sharply, as he lowered his rifle, and\nmade his son a sign to follow his example. \"I could not guess who you\nwere. Advance without fear and be welcome, brother, for I was anxiously\nexpecting you.\"\n\nThe Indian stepped forward. He wore the costume and characteristic paint\nof the Apache warriors; in a word, he was so well disguised, that\nValentine himself could not, have recognised in him his friend,\nEagle-wing the Chief of the Coras, though it was he.\n\nRed Cedar, delighted at the arrival of his guide, received him in the\nmost affable manner. He had long been acquainted with Stanapat, the most\nferocious warrior of all the Indian nations that traverse the immense\nregions of the Rio Gila, and whom we shall presently visit. After\nseveral questions, which Eagle-wing answered without hesitation or once\ntripping, Red Cedar, convinced that he was really the man the Apache\nchief had promised to send him, dismissed all doubt, and conversed with\nhim in the most friendly spirit, inquiring after certain warriors he had\nformerly known.\n\n\"What is my brother's name?\" he asked, in conclusion.\n\n\"The Heart of Stone!\" Eagle-wing replied.\n\n\"Good!\" the squatter said, \"My brother has a grand name. He must be a\nrenowned warrior in his tribe.\"\n\nA short time after, the three men reached the camp of the gambusinos,\nestablished in a formidable position on the top of a rock called the\nCerro Prieto (Black Mountain). The miners greeted Red Cedar's arrival\nwith the most lively joy, for his presence announced a speedy departure;\nand all these semi-savages, the greater part of whose life had been\nspent in the prairies, were anxious to quit civilization to re-assume\ntheir adventurous career, which was so full of charms and strange\nincidents.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII.\n\nEL VADO DEL TORO.\n\n\nRed Cedar reasoned correctly when he told Fray Ambrosio and Garote that\nDona Clara was in safety at the rancho, and no one would dream of\nseeking her there. In truth, Valentine knew the squatter's cunning too\nwell to suppose that he would commit the impudence of bringing his\nprisoner back to the very spot where she was discovered.\n\nThe squatter's two accomplices passed the day quietly in playing, on\ncredit, at monte; each cheating with a dexterity which did honor to\ntheir knowledge of that noble game. No one came to disturb them, or cast\nan indiscreet glance into this famous den, which, in the bright\nsunshine, had an air of respectability pleasant to look on, and amply\nsufficient to dispel all suspicions. About nine in the evening, the\nmoon, though new, rose magnificently on a deep blue sky, studded with\nbrilliant stars.\n\n\"I fancy it is time to get ready, gossip,\" Fray Ambrosio said, \"the moon\nis peering through the trees in your neighbour's garden.\"\n\n\"You are right, senor Padre, we will be off; but let me, I implore you,\nfirst finish this deal; it is one of the most magnificent I ever\nwitnessed. _Caspita!_ I will bet a nugget as big as my thumb on the\nseven of clubs.\"\n\n\"I'll back the two of spades. Something tells me it will turn up first,\nespecially if you pull up the sleeves of your jacket, which must be\nhorribly in the way when dealing.\"\n\n\"Oh dear, no, I assure you; but stay, what did I tell you? There is the\nseven of clubs.\"\n\n\"That is really extraordinary,\" Fray Ambrosio replied, with feigned\nsurprise, for he was not duped by the gambusino's trickery; \"but I fancy\nwe had better make haste.\"\n\n\"Decidedly,\" said Andres, as he hid his greasy cards in his vaquera\nboots, and proceeded to the room in which Dona Clara was confined. She\nfollowed him out, weeping bitterly.\n\n\"Come, come,\" the gambusino said to her, \"dry your tears, senorita; we\ndo not mean you any harm. Hang it all! Who knows but this may end\nperhaps better than you expect; ask that holy monk what he thinks.\"\n\nFray Ambrosio bowed an assent, but the maiden made no response to the\ngambusino's consolation; she allowed herself to be disguised\nunresistingly, but still continued to weep.\n\n\"In truth, it is absurd,\" the worthy Andres muttered, in an aside to\nhimself, while attiring his prisoner and looking covetously at the\npearls with which she was adorned, \"to waste gold and pearls in this\nfashion; would it not be much better to use them in buying something\nserviceable? What she has on her is worth at least three thousand\npiastres--what a splendid game of monte a fellow could have with that\nsum--and if that demon of a Red Cedar had only been willing--well, we\nshall see presently.\"\n\nWhile making these judicious reflections, the gambusino had completed\nthe maiden's Indian toilet. He perfected the disguise by throwing a\nzarape over her shoulders; then giving a parting glance round his\ndomicile, he put in his pocket a pack of cards accidentally left on the\ntable, drank a large glass of spirits, and left the room, followed by\nDona Clara and the monk, who, in spite of the varying incidents of the\nlast few days had regained all his good humour, doubtless owing to the\ngood company in which he was, and the game of monte--that inveterate\npassion in every Mexican.\n\nDona Clara was placed on a horse; Andres and the monk also mounted, and\nleaving the house to the problemical care of Providence, the gambusino\ngave the signal for departure. He made a wide circuit, to avoid passing\nthrough the Presidio, and then started at a gallop in the direction of\nthe Cerro Prieto.\n\nRed Cedar had lost no time, and all was ready for departure. The\nnewcomers did not even dismount, but so soon as they were sighted, the\ncaravan, composed, as we have stated of some hundred and twenty resolute\nmen, after forming in Indian file, started in the direction of the\nprairies, having first prudently detached two scouts to watch the\nneighbourhood.\n\nNothing is so mournful as a night march in an unknown country, covered\nwith snares of every description, when you fear least the ever-watchful\nenemy may pounce on you from every bush. Thus, the gambusinos, restless,\nand starting at the slightest rustling of the leaves, advanced silently\nand gloomily, with their eyes fixed on the clumps that grew along the\nwayside, rifle in hand, ready to fire at the slightest suspicious\nmovement. They marched, however, for upwards of three hours, and nothing\nhappened to justify their fears; a solemn calmness continued to prevail\naround them. Gradually these apprehensions were dissipated; they began\ntalking in a suppressed voice, and laughing at their past terrors, when\nthey reached, on the banks of the Del Norte, the _vado_, or Ford del\nToro.\n\nIn the interior of Southern America, and specially in New Mexico, a\ncountry still almost entirely unknown, the means of communication are\n_nil_, and consequently bridges may be looked for in vain. There are\nonly two methods of crossing even the widest rivers--looking for a ford,\nor, if you are in a great hurry, forcing your horse into the oft-times\nrapid current, and trying to reach the other bank by swimming.\n\nThe squatter had selected the first method, and in a few minutes the\nwhole party was in the water. Although the ground of the ford was\nuneven, and at times the horses were up to their chests, and compelled\nto swim, the gambusinos managed to get across safely. The only persons\nleft on the bank were Red Cedar, Eagle-wing, the guide, Dona Clara, and\nAndres Garote.\n\n\"It is our turn now, Heart of Stone,\" the squatter said, addressing\nEagle-wing; \"you see that our men are in safety, and only await us to\nset out again.\"\n\n\"The squaw first,\" the Indian replied, laconically.\n\n\"That is true, chief,\" the squatter said, and, turning to the prisoner,\n\"Go across,\" he said to her, coarsely.\n\nThe maiden, not deigning to answer, boldly made her horse enter the\nriver, and the three men followed. The night was dark, the sky covered\nwith clouds, and the moon, constantly veiled, only shone forth at\nlengthened intervals, which rendered the passage difficult and even\ndangerous, as it did not allow objects to be distinguished, even at a\ndistance. Still, after a few seconds, Red Cedar fancied he saw that Dona\nClara's horse was not following the line traced by the ford, but was\nturning to the left, as if carried away by the current. He pushed his\nhorse forward, to assure himself of the reality of the fact; but\nsuddenly a vigorous hand seized his right leg, and before he could even\nthink of resisting, he was hurled back into the water, and his throat\nseized by an Indian. Andres Garote hurried to his assistance.\n\nDuring this time, Dona Clara's horse, probably obeying a hidden impulse,\nwas proceeding still further from the spot where the gambusinos had\nlanded. Some of them, at the head of whom were Dick, Harry, and the\nsquatter's three sons, perceiving what was going on, returned to the\nwater, to proceed to their chiefs help, while the others, guided by Fray\nAmbrosio, galloped down the river bank, in order to cut off retreat,\nwhen Dona Clara's horse landed.\n\nAndres Garote, after several fruitless efforts, succeeded in catching\nRed Cedar's horse, which he brought to him at the moment when the latter\nhad scalped his enemy. The American got into his saddle again, reached\nthe bank, and tried to restore some order among his band, while actually\nwatching the incidents of the silent drama being played in the river\nbetween Eagle-wing and the young Spanish girl.\n\nThe Coras sachem had urged his steed in pursuit of Dona Clara's, and\nboth were following almost the same line down the stream, the former\nstriving to catch up the latter, who, for her part, was doing her utmost\nto widen the distance between them. Suddenly the Coras horse gave a\nleap, while uttering a snort of pain, and began madly beating the water\nwith its forelegs, while the river was tinged with blood around it. The\nchief, perceiving that his horse was mortally wounded, leaped from the\nsaddle, and leant over the side, ready to leap off. At this moment, a\nhideous face appeared flush with water, and a hand was stretched out to\ngrasp him. With that imperturbable coolness that never deserts the\nIndians, even under the most critical circumstances, the Coras seized\nhis tomahawk, split his enemy's skull open, and glided into the river.\n\nA formidable war yell was, at this moment, heard from the forest, and\nsome fifty shots were fired from both banks at once, illumining the\nscene with their fugitive flashes. A multitude of redskins rushed on the\ngambusinos, and a terrible fight commenced. The Mexicans, taken\nunawares, defended themselves at first poorly, giving ground and seeking\nshelter behind trees; but, obeying the thundering voice of the squatter,\nwho performed prodigies of valor while exciting his comrades to sell\ntheir lives dearly, they regained courage, formed in close column, and\ncharged the Indians furiously, beating them down with the butts of their\nmuskets, or slashing them with their machetes.\n\nThe combat was short; the redskins, who were only a party of marauding\nPawnees, seeing the ill-result of their surprise, grew discouraged, and\ndisappeared as rapidly as they had come. Two minutes later calmness and\nsilence were so perfectly re-established, that had it not been for a few\nwounded gambusinos, and several Indians stretched dead on the\nbattlefield, the strange scene would have appeared as a dream.\n\nSo soon as the Indians were routed, Red Cedar bent an eager glance up\nthe river; on that side the struggle was also over, and Eagle-wing,\nmounted behind the young lady, was guiding her horse to the bank, which\nit soon reached.\n\n\"Well?\" the squatter asked.\n\n\"The Pawnees are cowardly coyotes,\" the Coras answered, pointing to two\nhuman scalps that hung all bloody from his girdle; \"they fly like old\nwomen, so soon as they see the war plume of a warrior of my nation.\"\n\n\"Good!\" the squatter said, gleefully, \"My brother is a great warrior; he\nhas a friend.\"\n\nThe Coras bowed with a smile of indescribable meaning. His object was\ngained; he had acquired the confidence of the man he meant to destroy.\nDona Clara, Ellen, and the squatter's wife were placed in the centre of\nthe caravan, and the band started again.\n\nAn hour later, a second party of horsemen also crossed the Vado del\nToro. It was much less numerous than the first, as it consisted of only\nfive men, but they were Valentine, Curumilla, Don Miguel, his son, and\nGeneral Ibanez. The real struggle was about to commence: behind them\nthey left the civilised world, to find themselves face to face on the\ndesert with their enemies.\n\n(Those of our readers who take an interest in the Trail-hunter, we must\nask to follow his adventures through a second volume, to be called--THE\nPIRATES OF THE PRAIRIES.)\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Trail-Hunter, by Gustave Aimard\n\n*** ","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}} +{"text":"\n\n# Copyright\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2018 by Sunil Amrith\n\nCover design by Rebecca Lown\n\nCover image \u00a9 View Stock\/Getty Images\n\nCover \u00a9 2018 Hachette Book Group, Inc.\n\nHachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.\n\nThe scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author's intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author's rights.\n\nBasic Books\n\nHachette Book Group\n\n1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104\n\nwww.basicbooks.com\n\nFirst Edition: December 2018\n\nPublished by Basic Books, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Basic Books name and logo is a trademark of the Hachette Book Group.\n\nThe Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to www.hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.\n\nThe publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.\n\nThe Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:\n\nNames: Amrith, Sunil S., 1979\u2013 author.\n\nTitle: Unruly waters : how rains, rivers, coasts and seas have shaped Asia's history \/ Sunil Amrith.\n\nDescription: First edition. | New York : Basic Books, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.\n\nIdentifiers: LCCN 2018020666 (print) | LCCN 2018036442 (ebook) | ISBN 9780465097739 (ebook) | ISBN 9780465097722 (hardcover)\n\nSubjects: LCSH: Water\u2014Social aspects\u2014Asia\u2014History. | Bodies of water\u2014Social aspects\u2014Asia\u2014History. | Water and civilization. | Asia\u2014Civilization\u2014Environmental aspects.\n\nClassification: LCC DS12 (ebook) | LCC DS12 .A54 2018 (print) | DDC 950\u2014dc23\\\n\nLC record available at https:\/\/lccn.loc.gov\/2018020666\n\nISBNs: 978-0-465-09772-2 (hardcover), 978-0-465-09773-9 (ebook)\n\nE3-20181029-JV-NF\n\n# CONTENTS | Cover\n\n---|--- \n|\n\nTitle Page\n\n|\n\nCopyright\n\n|\n\nDedication\n\n|\n\nList of Maps\n\n|\n\nMaps\n\n|\n\nA Note on Names and Terminology\n\nONE | The Shape of Modern Asia\n\nTWO | Water and Empire\n\nTHREE | This Parched Land\n\nFOUR | The Aqueous Atmosphere\n\nFIVE | The Struggle for Water\n\nSIX | Water and Freedom\n\nSEVEN | Rivers Divided, Rivers Dammed\n\nEIGHT | The Ocean and the Underground\n\nNINE | Stormy Horizons\n\nEPILOGUE | History and Memory at the Water's Edge\n\n|\n\nAcknowledgments\n\n|\n\nAbout the Author\n\n|\n\nAlso by Sunil Amrith\n\n|\n\nArchives and Special Collections\n\n|\n\nNotes\n\n|\n\nIndex\n_For Theodore and Lydia_\n\n# LIST OF MAPS\n\nHimalayan Rivers\n\nSouth Asia's Major Rivers\n\nNortheast Monsoon\n\nSouthwest Monsoon\n\nBritish India, 1900\n\nThe Partition of India, 1947\n\nThe Brahmaputra\/Yarlung Tsangpo\n\nIndia's Dams\n\nThe Coastal Mega Cities of Asia\n\nMap of Mumbai\n\nMap showing the winds during the northeast monsoon, which blows from December to March.\n\nMap showing the winds during the southwest monsoon, from June to September.\n\n# A NOTE ON NAMES AND TERMINOLOGY\n\nMANY OF THE PLACES I WRITE ABOUT IN THIS BOOK HAVE BEEN known by different names at different points in time. As a rule, I have used the names that correspond to the period I am writing about\u2014to cite a few examples, I use Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, Poona, and Rangoon when I am discussing the colonial period and the early decades after independence; I switch to Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune, and Yangon, respectively, when I am talking about more recent history, as those names were formally changed in the 1990s. I adopt a similar strategy when it comes to country names: for example, I use Ceylon and Malaya when discussing the colonial period, and Sri Lanka and Malaysia when writing about the post-independence era.\n\nFor clarity I have transliterated words from South Asian languages in a way that reflects common practice in the region rather than employing the formal diacritical marks favored by scholars of South Asian languages.\n\nA NASA satellite image from October 27, 2002, showing a Himalayan mountain range and the rivers that descend from the Tibetan Plateau into North India. CREDIT: Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA\/GSFC\n\n# ONE\n\n# THE SHAPE OF MODERN ASIA\n\nLOOKING DOWN FROM ORBIT, THE LENS OF A NASA SATELLITE LANDS upon this patch of Earth. In the upper half of the picture lies the curve of a Himalayan mountain range, fringed by the iridescent lakes of the Tibetan plateau.\n\nThe satellite picture is a snapshot of a single moment on October 27, 2002. But there are layers of history embedded within it. It shows us the outcome of a process that unfolded in deep time. Approximately 50 million years ago, the Himalayas were created by the collision of what would become the Indian peninsula, which had detached from Madagascar, with the Eurasian landmass. The island buckled under the edge of Eurasia, pushed up the Tibetan Plateau, and eradicated a body of water later named the Tethys Sea. \"Geology, looking further than religion,\" E. M. Forster wrote in _A Passage to India,_ \"knows of a time when neither the river [Ganges] nor the Himalayas that nourish it existed, and an ocean flowed over the holy places of Hindustan.\" Volcanic activity under the Indian Ocean kept the pressure up, forcing layers of rock to crumple under the Indian margin to create the largest mountain chain on Earth.\n\nSo massive are the mountains, so heavy is their concentration of snow, ice, heat, and melting water that they shape Earth's climate. Asia's great rivers are a product of this geological history. They flow south and southeast, and they have shaped the landscape that is visible here: the force of the rivers descending from the mountains eroded rock, creating the gorges and valleys. Over centuries the rivers have carried silt and sediment from the mountains; they have deposited them along Asia's valleys and floodplains to sustain large human populations. Writing in the 1950s, guided by maps and not yet by satellite photographs, geographer Norton Ginsburg described Asia's \"mountain core\" as the \"hub of a colossal wheel, the spokes of which are formed by some of the greatest rivers in the world.\"\n\nAnd then your eye comes to rest on what was invisible to the satellite but is now superimposed\u2014evidence of a more recent history lies in the borders that dissect the rivers, their shapes governed by bureaucratic, not environmental, logic. Within the frame of this image alone, the mountains run through southwestern China, Nepal, Bhutan, and northeastern India. The rivers are more unruly; they spill beyond the frame of the photograph. From mountain peaks flow ten great rivers that serve a fifth of humanity\u2014the Tarim, the Amu Darya, the Indus, the Irrawaddy, the Salween, the Mekong, the Yangzi, the Yellow River, and, at the heart of this photograph, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra. The Himalayan rivers run through sixteen countries, nourished by countless tributaries. They traverse the regions we carve up as South, Southeast, East, and Central Asia; they empty out into the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, the South and East China Seas, and the Aral Sea.\n\nLook at the left of the picture and you can see a more compressed history. The haze of pollution that hangs over North India is a composite \"brown cloud\" of human-produced sulfates, nitrates, black carbon, and organic carbon. Aerosol concentrations over the Indian subcontinent are the highest in the world, especially in the winter months when there is little rain to wash the skies clean. Individual particles remain in the atmosphere only for a matter of weeks, but cumulatively the cloud lasts for months\u2014what we see here is a fleeting archive of every domestic stove, every truck and auto-rickshaw exhaust pipe, every factory smokestack and crop fire that burned across the Gangetic plain after the end of the monsoon rains that year. But the location of the cloud, and its contributing sources, testify to a longer twentieth-century history of population growth, urban expansion, and uneven economic development through that belt of northwestern India. Over time, a constant succession of transient \"brown clouds\" may have attenuated rainfall over South Asia over the past half century, transforming the water cycle that binds the clouds, the mountains, and the rivers.\n\nFinally, look at the snow on the mountain peaks visible from outer space. The time horizon this gestures toward is the future. The descent of water is vulnerable, now, to the ascent of carbon. As Earth's surface warms, the Himalayan glaciers are melting; they will melt more rapidly in the decades ahead, with immediate consequences for the flow of Asia's major rivers\u2014and for the planet's climate.\n\nASIA IS HOME TO MORE THAN HALF THE WORLD'S POPULATION, but it contains less freshwater than any continent except Antarctica. A fifth of humanity lives in China, a sixth in India; but China has only 7 percent, and India 4 percent, of the world's freshwater\u2014and within both countries that water is distributed unevenly. The quality as well as the quantity of water is under strain from a multiplicity of new demands and uses. Asia's rivers are choked by pollutants and impounded by large dams. An estimated 80 percent of China's wells contain water unsafe for human consumption; in India, groundwater is poisoned by fluoride and arsenic, or made undrinkable and unhealthy by salinity.\n\nThe effects of climate change are already manifest. They compound the water-related risks that Asia's peoples already face. Most predictions hold that the Himalayan rivers will swell as the planet warms and the ice thaws; and then, around the middle of this century, they will start to dry out for part of the year. Existing inequalities will deepen: wet regions will get wetter, and dry regions will get drier. Within that broad pattern, there will be an increase in variability and a rise in extreme weather. The effects of planetary warming have already begun to interact with regional drivers of climate change\u2014changes in land use, aerosol emissions, and \"brown clouds\"\u2014to multiply uncertainty. Coastal regions in particular face a cascade of threats: heat stress, flooding, rising sea level, and more intense cyclonic storms. Most at risk is the coastal crescent at the southern and eastern edge of the Eurasian landmass, home to the greatest concentration of the world's population. All twenty cities in the world with the largest populations vulnerable to rising sea levels are in Asia. Most threatened, because numbers are compounded by high levels of poverty and inequality, are Mumbai and Kolkata in India, Dhaka in Bangladesh, Jakarta in Indonesia, and Manila in the Philippines.\n\nAll the while, statesmen and engineers plot water's final subjugation by technology. Over the next decade, more than four hundred large dams will be built on the Himalayan rivers\u2014by India, China, Nepal, Bhutan, and Pakistan\u2014to feed the region's hunger for electricity and its need for irrigation. New ports and thermal power plants line the coastal arc that runs from India, through Southeast Asia, to China. India and China have embarked on schemes to divert rivers to bring water to their driest lands: costing tens or hundreds of billions of dollars, they are the largest and most expensive construction projects the world has ever seen. At stake in how these plans unfold is the welfare of a significant portion of humanity. At stake is the future shape of Asia, the relations among its nations. Each of these risks, each of these responses, is rooted in ideas, institutions, and choices that earlier generations have made\u2014that is to say, they are shaped by Asia's modern history.\n\n# I\n\nTo understand why Asia is the part of the world most vulnerable to climate change, why South Asia in particular stands at the front line, we need to turn to the history of water. Across the heartland of Asia\u2014from Pakistan in the west, through India and Southeast Asia, to China in the east\u2014the control of water has underpinned an increase in human population and an expansion in longevity that would have been unimaginable even in the middle of the twentieth century. In a warming world, Asia is distinctive for its sheer scale, and distinctive for the scale of inequality among its peoples. Both are rooted in the quest for water, which is a vital feature of modern Asian history, and one that we have ignored.\n\nThe struggle for water in modern history is a global story. We can tell a version of it set in the western United States, or in Germany, or in the Soviet Union, which was an Asian as well as a European power. But nowhere has the search for water shaped or sustained as much human life as in India and China. Their demographic weight is not a fact of nature. It is an outcome of history, a history in which the control of water was pivotal. Today that control is more rigorous than ever, thanks to intensive hydraulic engineering, but the foundations of that control are fragile. Nowhere is the multiplier effect of any destabilization in the material conditions of life greater than it is in Asia. This, too, demands a historical explanation. As rains grow erratic and storms more intense, as rivers change course and wells dry up, the hard-won gains of half a century are vulnerable to reversal. The force of planetary warming combines with the material legacy of earlier quests to control water. Warming seas meet coastal zones that sag under the weight of growing cities, many of them founded as colonial ports in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. River deltas are sinking, starved of sediment by large dams upstream that were built in the 1950s and 1960s. We live with the unintended consequences of earlier generations' dreams and fears of water.\n\nThe origins of these dreams and fears, the longevity of the policies and infrastructures to which they gave rise, are the subject of this book. _Unruly Waters_ tells the story of how the schemes of empire builders, the visions of freedom fighters, the designs of engineers\u2014and the cumulative, dispersed actions of hundreds of millions of people across generations\u2014have transformed Asia's waters over the past two hundred years.\n\nThis is not the way we usually understand Asia's modern history. Since the 1990s, identity and freedom have been the dominant themes in historical writing: these have oriented the study of Asia as much as anywhere else. The late 1980s and the 1990s witnessed an upsurge in struggles for democracy in China, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Burma. In trying to explain the weakness or the persistence of authoritarian states, historians looked to political and intellectual history to capture alternative understandings of freedom, especially as earlier clusters of ideas were reinvigorated after the end of the Cold War. In the study of South Asia, the theme of identity has loomed largest. In India in the 1990s, political mobilization along caste lines\u2014and growing recognition of the deep wounds that caste still inflicts on Indian society\u2014clashed with the spectacular rise of a violent and exclusionary Hindu nationalism to focus historians' attention on the cleavages of culture and community that continue to divide South Asia.\n\nThese histories shed light on struggles for recognition and justice that are unfinished; they pinpoint inequalities that endure. But there is much that we have missed. Novelist Amitav Ghosh points out the irony that twentieth-century literary fiction proved oblivious to the growing crisis of climate change at the very moment of its escalation\u2014a solipsistic turn at a moment when the material world was in the process of irrevocable transformation. With only a few exceptions, the same charge can be leveled at those of us who write history. My premise here is that the transformation of Asia's environment, and in particular its ecology of water, may be as consequential in modern history as the political and cultural transitions that have compelled our attention\u2014and it is consequential, not least, for its impact on both culture and politics.\n\nOutside the specialized field of environmental history, the disappearance of nature from most broad accounts of historical change has been marked. It is also recent. In the 1970s and 1980s, agrarian history was a vibrant field. In those decades, discussions of water and agriculture in Asia fought to shake off the ghost of the German Marxist sociologist Karl Wittfogel. Wittfogel had argued in the 1950s that the need for centralized control over irrigation lay at the heart of \"hydraulic societies\" like China, ancient Egypt, and India, predisposing them all to absolutist government, or what Marx had called \"oriental despotism.\" Wittfogel's generalizations crumbled under closer examination. The agrarian histories written in the 1970s and 1980s emphasized the variability of arrangements through which different Asian societies harnessed the power of water. They all insisted on the importance of irrigation, but traced no simple relationship between that hydraulic fact and political forms. Browse through any study of South Asian or East Asian agriculture written in those decades: water is omnipresent. Historians of China were inclined to take a very long view, showing how the control of water shaped Chinese society and civilization over millennia; historians of South Asia were more likely to emphasize discontinuity\u2014and especially the rupture that came with British colonialism, which forced the Indian countryside more fully into the global capitalist economy. Whether on the scale of millennia or of decades, this work exudes a rich sense of landscape. It is alive with a sense of the seasons changing, of the shifting flow of rivers, of the threat that floods or drought posed to human survival. This tradition of historical writing disappeared most conspicuously from the study of South Asia, where the turn to cultural history swept all before it. But in other fields, too, historians decamped to the cities, leaving rural history behind as they turned to urban culture and politics, to intellectual history, to histories of cosmopolitanism and travel and migration. They did so just when a mounting water crisis began to pose an existential threat.\n\nThere are two main ways in which my view departs from the perspective of earlier work on the Asian countryside. The first is to see water as more than just a resource. In the pages that follow, the effects of new economic pressures and new technologies on water itself\u2014on the water cycle, on the toxicity of water, on ideas about the value of water\u2014are as important as the effect of water resources on agricultural output, which is what economic historians were primarily concerned with. As Asia's waters were transformed, water was understood in new ways by meteorologists, hydrologists, and oceanographers. Recent scientific research, made possible by advances in imaging technology and statistical capacity, has transformed the possibility of understanding water and climate historically, bringing us to archives we had scarcely thought to look at. The great French historian Marc Bloch believed that human history lived \"behind the features of landscape\" as much as it lived in \"tools and machinery\" and in institutions. It lives, too, behind the chemical content of river water samples; behind satellite images of the water that lies underground; behind the composition of the smog that hovers above South Asia every winter, altering its rainfall. It lives in the changing ocean currents and winds.\n\nIn Fernand Braudel's three-fold conception of historical time, the first, slowest-moving layer was the time of nature and the seasons: a \"history of constant repetition, ever-recurring cycles.\" His perspective influenced histories of the Indian Ocean, for example, in which the regularly reversing monsoon winds provide a basic material backdrop, enabling long-distance trade and shaping the agricultural cycle. But over the last two hundred years nature has been altered by human intervention to such a profound extent that that stability and \"constant repetition\" cannot be assumed. By the end of the twentieth century it became possible to ask\u2014as this book will ask\u2014not only how climate has shaped us, but how we have affected the climate.\n\nMy second departure stems from a more elastic sense of geography. Like most history-writing until the end of the twentieth century, agrarian history took the nation-state for granted, though often the most meaningful unit of study was the region-within-the-nation: South China or Java, the Bengal or Mekong deltas. To put water at the heart of the narrative is to demand that we adopt a more flexible conception of space. Rivers pay no heed to human frontiers; but political boundaries have had a material effect on their flow. The quest to understand climate has led meteorologists and engineers and geographers to think beyond borders; but they have faced countervailing pressure to fix their plans and dreams in place. Water draws our attention not only to the two-dimensional space between points on a map\u2014as when we trace the crooked line of a river\u2014but also to depth and altitude, which turn out to matter more than historians have realized.\n\nWhat we end up with is not an alternative to the well-known narrative of modern Asia shaped by empire and capitalism, forged by anticolonial revolution, remade in the second half of the twentieth century by ambitious new states. Rather, water adds another dimension to that familiar story. Asia's waters have long been a gauge for rulers' ambition, a yardstick of technological prowess\u2014and a dump for the waste products of civilization. Water is, in a sense, a \"sampling device\" for other sorts of change, even as changes in water ecology have had a direct effect on millions of people's lives. We can trace many of Asia's political transitions through the effects they had on water: from the global reach of the British empire in the nineteenth century, to the projects of national reconstruction that the Indian and Chinese states carried out in the twentieth. But the history of water is more than a mirror to human intentions. The history of water shows that nature has never truly been conquered. Water has served as a material constraint on every Promethean plan of growth and plenty. The sheer ferocity of a wet climate\u2014a climate of monsoons and cyclones\u2014remains a source of fear, and no fear is as great as the fear of water's absence, in drought. The cultural history of water is one of reverence as much as hubris. And water has its own chronology\u2014the chronology of the seasons; the episodic chronology of sudden, intense disasters; the imperceptible chronology of cumulative damage, as manifested in the effects of human activity on the oceans.\n\n# II\n\nEnvironmental history derives its richness from a close attention to particular landscapes\u2014the most profound works have often been local and regional in scope, ranging from the study of a single village to a city, a forest, or a river. Only at that limited scale can we truly tease out the relationships between nature and human society. But the scale of environmental change has ballooned; its pace has accelerated. Connections between environmental crises have multiplied: the causes of harm and risk in any given locality may lie far away. We need a larger view. In a 2009 article, \"The Great Himalayan Watershed,\" historian of China Kenneth Pomeranz took up the challenge: \"For almost half the world's population,\" he wrote, \"water-related dreams and fears intersect in the Himalayas and on the Tibetan plateau.\" The Himalayan rivers bind the futures of the significant portion of the world's population that depend on them; conflicts over their course, and their use, threaten to ratchet up tensions between bordering states, especially India, Pakistan, and China.\n\nThe scale and interconnection of Asia's water crises provide a starting point for _Unruly Waters_. But this is not only a view from the Himalayan peaks; still less is it the omniscient view from a satellite image, for one characteristic of the satellite view is that there are no people in it, even if signals of the human imprint are everywhere apparent. This is a history of Asia's waters with India at its heart\u2014and there are three compelling reasons why India is an illuminating vantage point from which to tell a story that crosses regional and national boundaries.\n\nThe first is India's centrality to the history of the British Empire; and empire's centrality, in turn, to the history of climate change. The conquest of most of the world by European powers in the nineteenth century forced a fundamental transformation in the human relationship with the rest of nature. Asian and African lands were drawn more closely into a global capitalist economy. Their absorption was underpinned by imperial gunboats and colonial taxes, but it was driven, too, by new opportunities for enrichment and advancement. India was at the sharp edge of change\u2014exploited more intensively and on a larger scale than almost anywhere else, and pivotal to the further thrust of imperial power into Asia. From European trading companies' earliest expansion into the islands of the Atlantic and the Caribbean in the early modern era, they thrived on the exploitation of \"cheap nature\" as well as coerced labor. The pace of change stepped up in the nineteenth century. The period from the 1840s to the 1880s witnessed the global triumph of industrial capitalism; in Eric Hobsbawm's words, \"an entirely new economic world was added to the old and integrated into it.\" India's fields and its waters were pushed harder to sustain the colonial state\u2014which depended on agricultural taxes\u2014and to produce the raw materials that fed Europe's industrial machine and its working classes: cotton, jute, indigo, sugar, tea, and coffee. Each of these thirsty crops generated new demands for water.\n\nFrom India, imperial power and investment spread east and west across the Indian Ocean. British ships, filled with Indian troops, set sail in 1839 to bombard China, to force the Chinese government to allow the sale of Indian opium to Chinese consumers\u2014a traffic that was vital to the East India Company's financial health. A reordering of the entire region between India and China followed. By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, from Burma to Vietnam, Asia's demography changed as migration opened new frontiers of settlement; its ecology altered to accommodate the spread of cash crops for export. Many of Asia's largest coastal cities\u2014Mumbai, Calcutta, Chennai, Dhaka, Hong Kong, Jakarta\u2014began life as colonial ports, built to sustain the global trading networks on which European empires thrived.\n\nImperial India reached further than the present boundaries of the Indian nation-state, and further, too, than the region we now define as South Asia\u2014present-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka. But British India was also more internally variegated than independent India. Areas under direct British control existed amid a patchwork of other forms of polity, known collectively as \"princely states,\" all of which retained a degree of sovereignty while submitting to overall British domination. Both within the Indian subcontinent and beyond its shores, water constituted the connective tissue of imperial power. In the British imagination, India extended across the vastness of the Indian Ocean, connected to China and Southeast Asia (the \"East Indies\") through the flow of its rivers and the span of its climate. The ability to imagine India on that scale was, itself, a product of the nineteenth century and its new ways of seeing\u2014maps, censuses, surveys, and photographs. It depended on the compression of space by the railway and the steamship. The contraction of those larger geographies in the twentieth century is a recurrent theme in this book.\n\nIn another sense, too, India's experience of imperialism cast a long shadow over the history of Asia's waters. British colonialism was a source of enduring trauma for many Indians, including for the educated elite that led India's nationalist movement in the first half of the twentieth century. Beyond the outright violence that the British government of India deployed, this trauma resided in a sense of profound social and economic destabilization. The effects of British policies combined with drought at various moments in the nineteenth century to create famines that killed millions. At the core of anticolonial thought in and beyond India was a clear imperative: \"never again.\" In China, too, the experience of a \"century of humiliation\" at the hands of European powers, beginning with the catastrophic Opium Wars, left political leaders with a deep and urgent drive for self-sufficiency and self-reliance. The control of water was central to almost every scheme that arose from this quest for development. Memories of the nineteenth century lie beneath the fervor with which India built 3,500 large dams, and China 22,000, in the decades after independence. The memory of subordination by European empires continues to shape Indian and Chinese foreign policy: it orients their approach to agriculture; it even underpins their responses to climate change.\n\nIf India's role in empire is one reason to put it at the heart of this story, the second is India's political history after independence. Alone among Asia's newly independent or postrevolutionary states, India has been a democracy continuously since 1947, for all but three years. Clamorous and vibrant and flawed, Indian democracy has coexisted with glaring social and economic inequalities; the Indian state has often behaved in an authoritarian manner, not averse to exercising the powers it inherited wholesale from the British Raj. In their pursuit of water at any cost, there has been little to distinguish Asian states with different political systems and with varied ideological complexions. Still, the depth and diversity of India's public sphere has been unique. Debates about water in India were never limited to disagreements between experts behind closed doors (as they were in China until the 1980s). They threaded through newspaper columns; they animated social movements; they filled the publications of environmental organizations. Many of these ideas echoed beyond India, and in turn Indian observers marshaled examples and gathered data from around the region. One vehicle for the movement of ideas about water and technology was the cinema. In the second half of the twentieth century India developed a popular film industry that exceeded Hollywood in size and matched it in influence in the postcolonial world: Indian films drew large audiences across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. To an extent that has no parallel, Indian cinema captured the hopes and fears that fired visions of \"development\" across the Third World. Water was a recurrent theme.\n\nThe third, and perhaps the most fundamental, reason to tell this story looking out from India is a climatic one. The Indian subcontinent is the crucible of the monsoon. And the monsoon is the thread that runs through _Unruly Waters._ In its simplest definition the monsoon is \"a seasonal prevailing wind.\" There are other monsoons, in northern Australia and in North America; none is as pronounced, as marked in its reversal between wet and dry seasons, as the South Asian monsoon. More than 70 percent of total rainfall in South Asia occurs during just three months each year, between June and September. Even within that period, rainfall is not consistent: it is compressed into a total of just one hundred hours of torrential rain across the summer months. Despite a vast expansion in irrigation since 1947, 60 percent of Indian agriculture remains rain-fed, and agriculture employs 60 percent of India's population. Unlike China, unlike most large countries in the world, India's population will continue to be predominantly rural by the mid-twenty-first century. No comparably large number of human beings anywhere in the world is so dependent on such intensely seasonal rainfall. In the first decade of the twentieth century, the finance minister in the imperial government declared that \"every budget is a gamble on the rains\"; more than a century later, leading environmental activist Sunita Narain reversed the terms but retained the substance of the observation: \"India's finance minister _is_ the monsoon,\" she declared.\n\nStorm clouds, characteristic of the weeks leading up to the burst of the monsoon. CREDIT: NurPhoto\/Getty Images\n\nClimate is woven into the fabric of Indian social, economic, and political thought in a way that it is not (or is no longer) elsewhere. In the late twentieth century that claim would have raised hackles among scholars of South Asia; it might still do so today. A fundamental assumption of modernity was that we had mastered nature. The notion of India in thrall to the monsoon would seem to perpetuate a colonial idea of India's irredeemable backwardness. To emphasize the power of the monsoon would be to portray Indian lives as so many marionettes moved by a climatic puppetmaster. That is how this story would have been understood a generation ago. But to our eyes now, alarmed by the planetary crisis of climate change, a reminder of nature's power has different implications. This is not a story of geography as destiny. It is a story of how the _idea_ of geography as destiny provoked, from the mid-nineteenth century on, a whole series of social, political, and technological responses within and beyond India. The monsoon is significant precisely because it has been a unique source of human concern, fear, and adaptive ingenuity. The desire to liberate India from its climate powered hydraulic engineering on an ever-increasing scale, with consequences far beyond India's borders. The struggle to understand the monsoon's dynamics motivated scientific research that remains at the core of our understanding of global climate. Living with the monsoon, India never had the luxury of the climate-blindness that has seeped into many other societies' worldviews. The history of how Indians have understood and coped with the monsoon may have wider lessons at a moment when climate can no longer be ignored, anywhere in the world\u2014in this sense, at least, India is not behind the world but ahead of it. The lessons are not always heartening. As we will see, awareness of the monsoon's enduring power has coexisted with inertia, with negligence, with decisions to put more people in harm's way, and with maneuvers by the wealthy and powerful to insulate themselves from risk.\n\nThe South Asian monsoon has effects far beyond South Asia. We know this, at least in part, because of climate research undertaken in India in the twentieth century. Sir Gilbert Walker, a pioneer of global climate science, wrote in 1927 that \"the climate of India is of special interest, not merely as that of the greatest tropical region in the British Empire, but also because it seems to have been designed by nature with the object of demonstrating physical processes on a huge scale.\" That sense of scientific opportunity, combined with the pressing material need to understand the monsoon, inspired a century of study in India. Charles Normand, Walker's successor as head of the Indian weather service, insisted that the monsoon is \"an active, not a passive feature in world weather.\" Subsequent research has confirmed his view\u2014the Asian monsoon is entwined with many aspects of the global climate. It has an important influence on global atmospheric circulation. The future behavior of the South Asian monsoon has implications for the whole world. Arguably no other part of the global climate system affects more people, more directly.\n\nAND SO, STARTING OUT FROM AND RETURNING TO INDIA, WE FOLLOW the monsoon, the mountain rivers, and ocean currents\u2014straying into Chinese waters, traveling down the Mekong, skirting the coastal arc of Asia, and coming back to the heart of South Asia.\n\nThis is a story with many possible beginnings. The recently excavated Liangzhu Ancient City, along the lower Yangzi River delta, reveals the vast scale of hydraulic engineering undertaken along China's coast five thousand years ago. The elaborate step-wells of Rajasthan and Gujarat, and the anicuts (dams) along the rivers of South India, are testament to a long struggle to cope with the monsoon. But our starting point lies in the nineteenth century, when the scale and interconnectedness of Asia's waters first became visible, in tandem with unprecedented pressure to put water to work. The concatenation of political, economic, and environmental transformations this set in train continue to shape modern Asia.\n\n# TWO\n\n# WATER AND EMPIRE\n\nALONG THE BANKS OF THE GODAVARI RIVER, CLOSE TO THE MIDSIZED city of Rajahmundry on the eastern coast of India, stands a museum dedicated to Sir Arthur Thomas Cotton. Pointing the way to the museum, a bronze statue of the man watches over a busy bridge across the river; he is mounted on a horse, head cocked, eyes on the horizon.\n\nArthur Cotton was born in Surrey, one of eleven children. He joined the East India Company's forces in 1819, as second lieutenant in the Madras Engineers. Two years later, he was seconded to the chief engineer of Madras, and developed his lifelong fascination with water. He was an evangelical Christian, a stern and devout man. His career began with a marine survey of the Pamban channel, off the coast of Madras. In the 1840s, Cotton renovated and restored the ancient dam at Kallanai, along the Kaveri River that flows east from the Western Ghats mountain range to the Bay of Bengal; the Kaveri's fertile delta was, and still remains, the agrarian heartland of Tamil-speaking South India. Cotton's attention moved north of the Kaveri, to the Krishna and Godavari rivers that meet the Indian Ocean in the region of Andhra, farther up India's eastern seaboard. In 1852, Cotton completed a barrage, or dam, over the Godavari River at Dowleswaram, which regulated the flow of the river using large gates. Henry Morris, the district's chronicler, described the barrage as the \"noblest feat of engineering skill which has yet been accomplished in British India.\" It was a \"gigantic barrier thrown across the river from island to island, in order to arrest the unprofitable progress of its waters to the sea.\" The Godavari delta gets scarcely a mention in most general histories of British India. It witnessed no major battles or massacres; it was home to few members of India's nationalist intelligentsia; its urban centers were relatively small. But the region epitomizes the transformation of India's waters in the nineteenth century.\n\nStatue of Sir Arthur Cotton at the Arthur Cotton Museum, near Rajahmundry, India. CREDIT: Sunil Amrith\n\nThe Cotton museum, close to the barrage, conveys both unaffected enthusiasm and palpable neglect. The photographs are faded. Monuments of water technology from the 1850s\u2014pulleys and simple pumps\u2014are dotted around the complex. There is something almost accidental in their placement, as if they had been forgotten there. But the museum is well attended by groups of schoolchildren and by young couples. Most of the explanatory text in the museum is in Telugu. The message is unambiguous: Arthur Cotton saved the Godavari delta. His bold engineering skill turned it from a poor region into an expanse of irrigated fertility. Frescoes on the wall tell the story: before Cotton, this land was stalked by famine and leached by drought; thanks to his munificence it became the \"rice bowl\" of India, secure from the fluctuations of climatic fortune. On a local bus the next day, my neighbor turned to me and\u2014prompted by nothing more than the lush landscape around us, and a sense that I was a visitor\u2014told me the story again. \"Everything here,\" he said, his arm sweeping across the horizon, \"is here because of Cotton _dora_ ('Boss Cotton'); he was a very great person.\" A Telugu language biography of Cotton was published a few years ago. Farmers' associations are named after him. Every year on his birthday, cultivators gather to garland his statue. In 2009 a small delegation from Andhra, including a former cabinet minister, traveled to England to locate his grave, which they found in a quiet corner of Dorking, Surrey. Such veneration of a colonial Englishman is unusual in contemporary India: curiously at odds with the movement to rename cities and streets and buildings to erase the stain of imperialism. It reflects a sense that water has a value beyond ideology, beyond politics\u2014beyond history.\n\nFresco inside the Arthur Cotton Museum showing Andhra at the mercy of the elements before Cotton's engineering feats. CREDIT: Sunil Amrith\n\nBoat on the Godavari River. CREDIT: Sunil Amrith\n\nThe geography of empire in India was sculpted by wind and water. Until the nineteenth century, the only India that Europeans knew, the only India they were interested in, was the India that was wet. They sailed to India's coasts, swept there by the direction of the monsoon winds; in the eighteenth century, they moved upriver into the Ganges valley, heartland of the successive Indian empires of the Mauryas, the Guptas, the Afghans, and finally the Mughals. By 1800, the English East India Company had defeated its remaining Indian challengers: the Marathas in the west, and Tipu Sultan's kingdom of Mysore in the south. Following the Napoleonic Wars, British power commanded the Indian Ocean. But the British faced the same hydraulic dilemmas of every South Asian empire before them. The sea routes between India and the world were governed by the reversal of the winds. Communication between the coasts and the interior was slow; India's mighty rivers could only be traveled up at certain times of the year; roads were poor. The East India Company's revenues were tied to the cycle of planting and harvesting. Only gradually did the Company incorporate arid zones into its domain\u2014the Deccan and the southeastern edge of the Peninsula by 1800; and then, by the middle of the nineteenth century, India's northwest frontier.\n\nOver the next half century British engineers and administrators and investors sought to master nature, as a step toward connecting India's interior more closely to its coastal ports and from there to the rest of the world. The quest to understand water in India fused the efforts of adventurers and engineers, mariners and scientists. They were driven by curiosity and by necessity. Some sought profit and renown. Others followed their private enthusiasms. Not all of them served the colonial state. Their work would not have been possible without the ingenuity of Indian assistants, observers, draftsmen, recorders, porters, and soldiers, whose achievements have been effaced, for the most part, from the historical record. Women were scarce in this scientific world, but the few who were involved made contributions of lasting significance. The science of water in nineteenth-century India traced the descent of the rivers, the tracks of the storms, and the path of the rains. Each of these crossed the borders of British India. Knowledge of each brought awareness of interdependencies and inequalities on a regional scale. Each provoked new kinds of political intervention.\n\n# I\n\nThe word \"monsoon\" appeared in English first in the late sixteenth century, derived from the Portuguese _mon\u00e7\u00e3o_. It comes from the Arabic _mawsim_ (for \"season\"), which also provides the word for \"season,\" _mausam,_ in Urdu and Hindi. In its simplest definition, it is a weather system of regularly reversing winds, characterized by pronounced wet and dry seasons. There are many monsoon systems around the world, but the Asian monsoon is by far the greatest in scale and consequence, and the Indian subcontinent is its zone of most intensive activity.\n\nSouth Asia lies at the heart of the monsoon system because of the geological history that has left the Indian peninsula protruding from Eurasia into the vastness of the Indian Ocean. India lies at the edge of the continental landmass that dominates the northern hemisphere, facing a southern hemisphere that is mostly water. The monsoons have evolved over tens of millions of years. They have left an archive of their natural history on the seabed and on land. Tiny algae, diatoms, and single-celled marine plants called radiolara show that the monsoons first appeared in the Miocene era, soon after the Himalayas irrupted from the collision of the island Indian peninsula and the Eurasian landmass. Traces embedded in tree rings tell us that the Asian summer monsoon has strengthened during warm interglacial periods, as during the Medieval Warm Period up to the fourteenth century, and weakened during periods of planetary cooling, as during the Little Ice Age that lasted from the middle of the sixteenth to the early eighteenth centuries.\n\nAs early as 1686, English astronomer Edmund Halley identified the basic driving force of the monsoon as the differential heating of the sea and the land\u2014he saw it as a gigantic sea breeze. In the summer months, land temperatures rise more rapidly than the sea warms. Winds are driven from areas of high pressure over the sea to areas of low pressure over land. \"The Air which is less rarified or expanded by heat and consequently more ponderous,\" Halley wrote, \"must have a Motion towards those parts thereof, which are more rarified, and less ponderous, to bring it to an Equilibrium.\" Halley's understanding missed one crucial dimension, which was understood by George Hadley in the eighteenth century\u2014Earth's rotation affects the winds, causing them to veer right in the northern hemisphere and left south of the equator.\n\nSo as the Asian landmass begins to heat up in the spring, the warming air above it rises, and cooler, moist ocean air moves in to take its place. The monsoon winds blow from the southwest, curving and doubling back to grip India, pincerlike, from both the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. The air sweeping in from the ocean contains vast stores of solar energy in the form of evaporated water, which is released as the vapor condenses as rain: the release of this stored energy sustains the power of the monsoon. The monsoon makes landfall in Kerala and Sri Lanka in late May or early June, reaching the Bengal delta by the end of the month and moving steadily inward. The arrival, or \"burst,\" of the monsoon is presaged by a period of unsettled weather and frequent thunderstorms. When it comes it can be spectacular. It brings welcome relief after months of building heat; it sustains the land's capacity to feed India.\n\nTorrential rainfall cools the earth's sodden surface as the peaks of temperature and rainfall move steadily inland, finally petering out as they reach the far northwest of India and Pakistan. The Himalayas are a crucial part of the monsoon system. The elevation of the Tibetan Plateau leads it to warm rapidly and so drives the differentials of pressure and temperature that power the monsoon system; but the mountains themselves act as a colossal barrier to the winds, essentially sealing India off from the rest of Asia, and concentrating the monsoon rains to the south of the mountains, along the Gangetic plain.\n\nAs the temperature contrast between land and sea begins to even out, the system returns to equilibrium, and another period of transition begins. As winter advances the Asian landmass cools more rapidly than the ocean. The winds now reverse to blow from the northeast, creating dry conditions over much of Asia between November and March. But neither in summer nor in winter is the monsoon uninterrupted. The wet season is characterized by frequent suspensions in rainfall, known as \"breaks\"; the \"dry\" winter monsoon brings the bulk of the year's rainfall for a few regions, including the Tamil Nadu coast in southeastern India. The periods of transition, as the winds reverse, are prime time for the devastating cyclones that visit the Bay of Bengal regularly. As we will see throughout _Unruly Waters,_ the quest to understand the monsoon, which began in earnest in the second half of the nineteenth century, has been riddled with obstacles. The study of the monsoon remains filled with uncertainty.\n\nIN THE LONG SWEEP OF INDIAN HISTORY THE MONSOON IS BOTH an internal and an external frontier. The monsoon has shaped the limits of cultivation and the distribution of crops. It has facilitated communication between some places and barred it between others. Its ecological niches have created economic unevenness\u2014the stuff of which political power is made. The reach of the monsoon also marks the junction, the ecological nexus, between two very different ideas of India. One is as a settled agrarian empire; the other, as the outward-looking heart of the Indian Ocean world. The pattern of the monsoon draws a rough vertical line down the middle of the Indian subcontinent, dividing the drier west\u2014part of a Eurasian \"arid zone\" stretching across Central Asia and as far as the Sahara\u2014from the wet, marshy east, which stretches beyond, to Southeast Asia, to form a region that twentieth-century geographers called \"monsoon Asia.\" The bulk of India's population has always lived to the east of that line.\n\nThe line dividing wet and dry zigzags across the subcontinent. The arid zone reaches down from Rajasthan in the northwest to the Deccan plateau at the heart of central India. The Deccan lies in the \"rain shadow\" created by the hulking Western Ghats mountain range\u2014the rain clouds that sweep in from the Arabian Sea collide with the high mountains and disgorge their contents, leaving little for the plains beyond. From there arid bands snake down to the very far southeast of India, interspersed with more fertile coastal or riverine belts. The frontier corresponds to the ancient division\u2014still visible today, though now modified by technology\u2014between the major staple crops that have fed Indians for centuries: rice in the monsoon zone, and wheat or millet in the drier region.\n\nThe great rivers of South Asia modify the patchwork of wet and dry. They interact with the monsoon in a hydraulic cycle of colossal proportions. Because of their fertility, their ability to sustain life and to produce a surplus, the Gangetic plains have been the heart of every Indian empire. Their rich alluvial soils have supported a large population for centuries. The river system watered crops and provided an artery of transportation and trade, if never on the same scale or with the same reach as the Yangzi River system in China and its ancient complex of canals.\n\nGiven their immense power both to sustain and to destroy life, India's rivers have been among the most revered on Earth. The river Ganges\u2014often styled as \"mother,\" or \"Ma Ganga\"\u2014is the archetypical sacred river, spiritual source of all of India's rivers, writes scholar of Hinduism Diana Eck. In some sense, all of India's other rivers are microcosms of the Ganges. For millennia, the Ganges has been a site of pilgrimage, most especially at the point of its confluence with the Yamuna River at Prayag. For many Hindus, _moksha_ \u2014liberation from the cycle of rebirth\u2014has been believed to come from bathing in the waters of the Ganges, or being cremated on it banks. The purity of the waters of the Ganges ( _gangajal_ ) has long been accepted and valued by people across India. Hindu scriptures contain many versions of the origin myth of the Ganges, known as the _avatarana,_ or descent to Earth. In the version of the story in the _Ramayana_ and the _Mahabharata,_ the unruly Ganges tumbles from heaven, tamed as it flows through the serpentine locks of Shiva's hair before it spills onto the plains of India. In all of these stories, the Ganges epitomizes liquid _shakthi,_ the energy that sustains the universe. The Ganges is not alone, it stands at the apex of a land of sacred waters. In many regions of India, rivers have been personified; their flow helps people to imagine how distant places are connected to one another. In many spiritual traditions in South Asia, the rivers have been thought to channel the power of all the water in the world, from the clouds to the oceans.\n\nTHE LINE BETWEEN PLENITUDE AND SCARCITY MIRRORED THE trajectory of the rain-bearing winds and followed the paths of the rivers. Over centuries India's rulers built irrigation canals, storage tanks, channels, and dams. These shifting arrangements bore little resemblance to Wittfogel's ideal type of a \"hydraulic society.\" Regional leaders and imperial administrations spearheaded construction projects, but so too did local lineages, temple complexes, and landowners. In the pre-modern period the most widespread infrastructures of irrigation were found in Sri Lanka and in central and southern India. The biggest of them were elaborate hydraulic systems, individual waterworks linked in a larger web. And some of the dams, like the sixteenth-century Daroji reservoir in arid northern Karnataka, were large even by modern standards. Spurts of hydraulic ambition alternated with stasis, construction with disrepair. The power that arose from the control of water spread unevenly, liable to seizure or decay.\n\nWater was never far from the minds of the mounted conquerors from the highlands of Inner Asia who stormed their way to the Gangetic plain in the second millennium to forge a new political power in India. The heart of their power lay at the frontier between the monsoon and the arid lands. They harnessed the benefits of both. Established in 1206, the Delhi Sultanate was the first Persian-Islamic state in South Asia. Though it collapsed in the second half of the 1300s, riven by internal division and threatened by fresh invasions from the northwest, the reach of the sultanate's power into the heartland of the Indian subcontinent was a prelude to the Mughals' even greater empire.\n\nThe Mughals were a Turko-Mongol dynasty with roots in present-day Uzbekistan. They unified much of the Indian subcontinent during the two centuries when they were at the height of their powers. Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babar (1483\u20131530), known as Babur, was the first Mughal emperor. He claimed descent from Timur (Tamerlane), the Turkic conqueror, and on his mother's side from Chingghis Khan. Driven from Samarkand, Babur established a new kingdom in Kabul, Afghanistan. From there he launched an assault on the Indian subcontinent, where he established the Mughal Empire in 1526. From the age of twelve, he kept a diary from which he later composed the _Babur Nama,_ one of the earliest autobiographies in the Islamic tradition. He was a meticulous observer. He was driven by naked ambition. He was not averse to brutality. He was a lover of nature. The _Babur Nama_ is filled with references to water. Babur's primary interest was in water as both ornament and practical necessity in constructing the gardens that he loved. In the Mughal tradition of landscape architecture, gardens played both a symbolic and an aesthetic role: they were places of beauty and sensual pleasure. Their proportions embodied the principles of order and harmony.\n\nBabur's interest in water went beyond the requirements of his exquisite gardens. He commented on the entire system of irrigation at work as he advanced into North India. The cultivation of gardens and the sustenance of agriculture were related endeavors. \"The greater part of the Hindustani country is flat,\" he observed of the Yamuna valley. \"Many though its towns and cultivated lands are, it nowhere has running waters\"\u2014by \"running waters,\" Babur meant the canals well known in the Central Asian lands of his birth. Rather, \"rivers and, in some places, stagnant waters\" in wells or tanks, irrigated the Indian plains. He saw that \"autumn crops grow by the downpour of rain themselves,\" but that \"some vegetables\" had to be \"watered constantly.\" Babur observed cultivators at work. He was struck particularly by the method that the British would later dub the Persian Wheel. \"In Lahore, Dibalpur and those parts people water by means of a wheel,\" he wrote:\n\nThey make two circles of ropes long enough to suit the depth of the well, fix strips of wood between them, and on these fasten pitchers. The ropes with the wood and attached pitchers are put over the well-wheel. At one end of the wheel axle a second wheel is fixed, and close to it another on an upright axle. This last wheel the bullock turns. Its teeth catch in the teeth of the second, and thus the wheel with the pitchers is turned. A trough is set where the water empties from the pitchers and from this the water is conveyed everywhere.\n\nFurther down the Yamuna valley, toward Agra, he noticed that \"people water with a bucket\"\u2014leather buckets lifted by yoked oxen\u2014which he described as \"a laborious and filthy way.\"\n\nThe Mughal realm expanded ceaselessly between 1560 and 1605, and again between 1630 and 1690. Its territories stretched from Gujarat in the west to Bengal in the east, and far into South India. The Mughals mobilized long-distance trading networks that followed the caravan routes to the western edge of central Asia and beyond. They stored wealth in precious metals. Once the Mughals conquered the Gangetic plains, they filled the state's coffers from productive, densely settled agrarian lands and large populations. The Mughals inaugurated a rigorous system of land taxation. The administration relied on an interlocking system of larger landowners ( _zamindars_ ), who served as tax collectors, and, below them, subordinate holders of rights to the land. The state used land grants to reward its loyal officials and to co-opt local elites into the system.\n\nMughal military and financial prowess came from the mounted martial traditions of dry lands. As many as one in five men served in local military forces, often as seasonal labor in a climate where agriculture was uncertain and horses were plentiful. But India's unruly waters had a bearing on Mughal military strategy, as they would later constrain the options of the British. As they approached the Bengal delta, Mughal armies struggled beyond Rajmahal\u2014their horses were ineffective in the humid conditions; they had to use boats. The _Akbar Nama,_ Abul Fazl's account of the Emperor Akbar's reign (1556\u20131603), describes the challenge of climate. In 1574, as Akbar's forces captured the city of Patna\u2014near the site of the ancient Ganges River port of Pataliputra\u2014they \"chose the river route, in this season full of turbulence, and with constant rain and tempest.\"\n\nAside from military campaigns, the instability of India's rivers were a source of woe to local inhabitants. Historian Irfan Habib's _An Atlas of the Mughal Empire_ \u2014a painstaking work of recovery\u2014pieced together, from the minutiae of Persian sources and European travel accounts, how often, how abruptly, rivers changed course. This turmoil came from the huge loads of silt the rivers carried down from the Himalayas\u2014when the rivers were in full force they threw up sandbanks and islands as obstacles around which the waters found a new path; silt deposits raised riverbeds and pushed the rivers into new channels. At other times, sudden changes in course were driven by violent earthquakes. The only response was flight\u2014abandoned settlements lined the banks of vanished rivers, as when the Ganges \"deserted\" the once-flourishing town of Kanauj in the early sixteenth century. People had no choice but to move with the migrating waters. Beginning in the early seventeenth century, the Ganges began to shift eastward. A major earthquake in 1762 and another in 1769\u20131770 jolted the river away from its channel, forcing it into contact with new tributaries: the Tista and the Jamuna, the Jelangi and the Mathabhanga, the Kirtinasa and the Naya Bhangini. Even the names that rivers bore could be a testament to their instability: \"Naya\" means new, suggesting memories of an old Bhangini. The coastline shifted with the rivers: Habib reconstructs the coast of Gujarat through \"decaying ports\": places that had once been on the coast, that now lay silted up.\n\nAs their realm expanded to reach India's coasts, the Mughals incorporated within their realm port towns that faced the eastern and western Indian Ocean. Long before the arrival of Europeans, merchants in India had trading links that spanned the Indian Ocean rim. Indian textiles filled marketplaces across Southeast Asia and China, the Mediterranean and West Africa. Many regions of India\u2014Gujarat, Bengal, and the Coromandel coast\u2014thrived on long-distance trade. Textiles brought forth medicinal products, spices, local crafts, and large quantities of precious metals. On one estimate the Indian economy absorbed 20 percent of the world's supply of silver between 1600 and 1800. Throughout Southeast Asia's era of commercial expansion in the sixteenth century, Indian traders from the coasts of Gujarat, Madras, and Bengal shipped cloth to Pegu and Tennasserim in Burma, to the thriving port of Melaka on the Malay peninsula, and to the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java.\n\nThe Portuguese apothecary Tom\u00e9 Pires observed in Melaka in 1512 that ships from Bengal brought \"five white cloths, seven kinds of _sinabafos,_ three kinds of _chautares, beatilhas, beirames_ and other rich materials. They will bring as many as twenty kinds.\" In their holds came \"very rich bed-canopies, with cut-cloth work in all colors and very beautiful,\" and \"wall hangings like tapestry.\" Pires concluded that \"Bengali cloth fetches a high price in Melaka, because it is a merchandise all over the east\"\u2014from Melaka these textiles would make their way to markets across the Indonesian archipelago. In return, Indian traders exported from Melaka \"camphor and pepper\u2014an abundance of these two\u2014cloves, mace, nutmeg, sandalwood, silk, seed-pearls a large quantity, copper, tin, lead, quicksilver, large green porcelain ware from the Liukiu [Japan's Ryukyu islands], opium from Aden... white and green damasks, _enrolados_ from China, caps of scarlet-in grain and carpets; krises and swords from Java are also appreciated.\" The variety of Indian cloth gave rise to a lexicon that seeped into languages of trade everywhere: longcloth and salemporis, moris and gingham, dungarees and guinea cloth and kaingulong. Indian weavers targeted diverse markets. Their weaves, patterns, colors, and designs were all adapted to local tastes.\n\nThe Indian Ocean's trading world reached deep into the interior. It intersected with circuits of commercial exchange that went overland to Central Asia. In India, as elsewhere, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw the deepening commercialization of the countryside. From 1500, South India saw the rise of a merchant class whose diversified business included overseas trade, collecting and keeping a share of local tax revenues, and financing local rulers' military ambitions. Global demand for Indian cotton set up a chain of transactions that linked the cotton-growing countryside to the port towns. Cultivators became more dependent on credit from urban merchants to finance the next year's crop; gold and silver currency came into more widespread use. Agrarian commercialization fed the Mughal state's treasury. The state's demand for cash taxes, historian Victor Lieberman observes, \"acted like a giant pump, sucking foodstuffs from the countryside into towns and cites.\"\n\nThis was the world that European trading companies entered; initially, they were players among many others. The monsoon winds brought the first Portuguese ships to India at the end of the fifteenth century. Arriving at Malindi on the eastern coast of Africa, Vasco da Gama sought advice from Indian traders there. They counseled him on the pattern of the winds that would take him across the Indian Ocean to Calicut. A local pilot guided his voyage. Chartered companies from Europe's western edge took to the sea because the landed power of the three great Islamic empires\u2014the Ottoman, the Safavid, and the Mughal\u2014blocked their path across central Eurasia. So they found an alternative route to the profitable cotton textiles of India, the spices of the Indonesian archipelago, and the ceramic manufactured goods of China. Their ships rounded the Cape of Good Hope and crossed the Indian Ocean. They arrived on the coast of western India to find a region already open to the world, tied by commerce to the littoral of the Indian Ocean right up to the Mediterranean. Coastal India already, in the sixteenth century, faced both ways: connected to the far reaches of the Indian Ocean, but also to mountainous Central Asia.\n\nSuccessive invaders of South Asia had come on horse from the northwest. Now, parvenu claimants to power approached by sea. Conquest was neither easy nor initially attractive. Monopoly was what the Europeans sought. In staking a claim to exclusivity they militarized the Indian Ocean's sea lanes in a new way. Roiled by the Dutch revolt against the Spanish crown at home, the Portuguese soon met competition from the Dutch and English East India Companies in the Indian Ocean. European power was concentrated in a scattering of \"factories\" along the Indian coast. Each served as a dormitory, a trading post, and a warehouse all in one. European power rested on relationships delicately negotiated with local rulers. Competition among Europeans fueled the companies' expansion\u2014armed conflict at home and rivalry on the high seas heightened commercial contests in India.\n\nBy the eighteenth century European chartered companies had mobilized relationships and resources that spanned the globe. They paid for their purchases in Asia with silver from the mines of Potos\u00ed (in present-day Bolivia). They transported Indian cottons to the coast of West Africa, and exchanged them for enslaved human beings. Europeans possessed many advantages as they inserted themselves into the fissiparous politics of regional kingdoms that had risen to fill the political void of a declining Mughal Empire. As well as precious metals, they could offer their local allies the security promised by the sophisticated weaponry at their disposal. The companies raised a lot of capital, quickly, aided by their structure as joint-stock firms. They intervened in local succession disputes. They did deals with bankers and _zamindars_. British, French, and Dutch companies became enmeshed at the frontier between the coast and the interior.\n\nThe transformative moment came in the second half of the eighteenth century. British maritime power pushed inland. Not long after the Battle of Plassey in 1757\u2014which stabilized the British \"bridgehead\" in Bengal\u2014the East India Company received the _diwani,_ or the right to the land revenues of Bengal, the most fertile province of the Mughal Empire. Bengal's agrarian wealth funded a violent cycle of English expansion. The Company's army rose to become one of the largest military forces in the world. The English were the first truly to harness both of the monsoon frontiers, welding maritime and landed wealth. Between 1757 and 1857, British control expanded up the Ganges valley from Bengal; the most rapid period of expansion came in the 1790s and 1800s, as British confidence and ambition were fueled by the worldwide war against France. The Company subdued the proudly independent southern Indian kingdom of Mysore in 1799, the Gangetic kingdom of Awadh and the southern domain of Arcot in 1801, the Dutch-dominated island of Sri Lanka by 1815, the Maratha lands in western India by 1818, and the coast of Burma by 1826. The late Christopher Bayly, whose early work on the merchants and markets of North India is unsurpassed, observed that at all times the Ganges valley remained \"the main axis of Britain's Asian Empire.\" The valley's commerce \"pointed northward to the high regions of Central Asia,\" while \"huge quantities of cotton, opium, and indigo bound for China and Europe\" flowed downriver to Calcutta, along with hides, oilseeds, and the saltpeter used to make gunpowder. Shipments of rice, opium, and tobacco went upstream toward India's northwest frontier.\n\nAs British power forced its way into the interior, into southern and western India, the distribution of water created different possibilities for agricultural, fiscal, and therefore political expansion. For scientists and travelers, mastering the map of India's water became a matter of curiosity; for revenue administrators it was a matter of urgency.\n\n# II\n\nOne of the earliest maps of the British domains in India was the work of James Rennell (1742\u20131830), surveyor-general of Bengal. Given the centrality of the Ganges to British power in India, Rennell set out to map the Ganges, from its source to the Bengal delta. He described the descent of the river from the \"vast mountains of Thibet\" to the Indian plains, where it \"serves the capacity of a _military way_ through the country,\" before reaching the ocean in \"a labyrinth of rivers and creeks.\" Rennell was impressed by the power of India's rivers: \"next to earthquakes,\" he wrote, \"perhaps the floods of the tropical rivers produce the quickest alterations in the face of our globe.\" He described the \"extensive islands\" of silt (known locally as _chars_ ) formed \"during an interval far short of that of a man's life.\" Rennell saw that \"it is no new thing for the rivers in India to change their course.\" He described how the confluence of the Kosi and the Ganges had migrated forty-five miles in a short span of time. The mighty Brahmaputra, India's second-largest river, had \"varied its course still more.\" Rennell described the Brahmaputra as unknown, forbidding, and turbulent. Where the Brahmaputra met the Ganges, in the Bengal delta, he described \"a body of running fresh water, hardly to be equalled in the old hemisphere.\" Its governing influence was the monsoon. The characteristic pre-monsoonal storms, known as northwesters, were \"the most formidable enemies that are met with in this inland navigation.\" Of enemies there were plenty. Traveling upriver, he wrote, a regular \"budgerow\" ( _bajra_ )\u2014large boats with cabins that covered their length, most common along the Ganges\u2014\"hardly exceeds 8 miles a day, at ordinary times.\"\n\nMap of the Ganges and Brahmaputra as they meet in the Bengal delta, from James Rennell, _A Bengal Atlas: Containing Maps of the Theatre of War and Commerce on That Side of Hindostan_ (London, 1781). CREDIT: Courtesy of the Map Collection, Harvard College Libraries\nRennell was not alone in his fascination with, even fear of, India's climate. As they established gardens as a site of botanical and commercial experiment, Company officials in India took a greater interest in the weather\u2014none more so than William Roxburgh (1751\u20131815). Roxburgh studied anatomy and surgery at Edinburgh University at a time of intellectual ferment; he left Edinburgh in 1772 to join the East India Company's ship _Houghton_ as surgeon's mate on a voyage to India. The following year, he signed on for another voyage, which took him via Saint Helena and the Cape to Madras. Upon his arrival at Fort Saint George in 1776, Roxburgh began a meteorological diary. He equipped himself with a portable barometer \"made by RAMSDEN\" and an indoor thermometer supplied by Nairne and Blunt\u2014scientific instruments, like texts and theories, moved along imperial shipping lines. His outdoor thermometer he placed \"under a small, shady tree.\" His observations, three each day, devised a scale for describing the winds: \"gentle, brisk, stormy, and what we call a tufoon in India.\" The rain gauge he had initially proved worthless; he assured his correspondents that he had installed a better model on the roof of his house on the hospital grounds. Based initially in Madras, Roxburgh moved south down the coast to the small port of Nagore, long connected to Southeast Asia by Tamil Muslim merchants; from there, he settled in Samulcottah (Samalkot) on the Godavari delta, midway along India's eastern coast, until finally in 1793 he became director of Calcutta's botanical garden. Roxburgh followed many pursuits. He made a small fortune as a private trader. He kept an \"experimental botanical plantation\" where he grew indigo and pepper, breadfruit and sugarcane; he collaborated with botanist Johann Gerhard K\u00f6nig, who was stationed at the Danish settlement of Tranquebar on the Madras coast.\n\nRoxburgh was a keen observer of life around him. He took an interest in how the monsoon's rhythms shaped farming on the land. \"The rains generally set in, in June,\" he wrote in his description of the growing season of the Godavari delta, \"towards the end of that month, the coarse or early Paddy, is sown, and in July the better sorts, or great crop.\" He described how \"our rains continue from the time they set in, June, 'till about the middle of November; July and August, are generally our wettest months: in October and November the weather is more stormy, being the period we call the Monsoon.\" In his usage, \"monsoon\" was the period of change, as the winds switched from southwest to northeast. \"The cultivator has to depend on the rains,\" he said again; \"the more favorable they are, the better is the crop.\" Higher, more arid lands, \"as in every other part of India,\" were given over to \"dry grain.\" He undertook a detailed study of hardy crops that thrived in dry conditions, locally and around the world. He ordered samples from across the empire; he planted them in his experimental garden.\n\nRoxburgh became an astute observer of South India's climate, both in its regularity and its extremes. He could not himself escape its risks. In 1787, a severe cyclone struck the Godavari delta; it destroyed Roxburgh's home, his herbarium, his library, and most of his personal wealth. His family escaped narrowly with their lives. He observed at close quarters the prolonged drought that brought famine to the region in the late 1780s and early 1790s. In 1791 Roxburgh wrote to his friend, celebrated English naturalist Joseph Banks, that \"the famine of these provinces begins to rage with double violence, owing to a failure of our usual rains.\" Two years later, Roxburgh's friend Andrew Ross declared that \"the dreadful effects of the famine here have... far exceeded any description from us.\" He saw that \"in many places where populous villages formerly stood, there is at present neither vestige of man or beast.\" Roxburgh looked for patterns in the data he had collected\u2014he sought to understand the cycles of the seasons, and variations from year to year. During his years on the Coromandel coast, Roxburgh had collected an extent of meteorological data on the Madras coast that one historian describes as \"unrivalled elsewhere until the 1820s except among indigenous Chinese observers.\" The early initiatives of Roxburgh and his colleagues formed a foundation on which India's modern meteorology was built.\n\nHe began to wonder, like so many others of his generation and education, whether India's nature might benefit from \"improvement.\" He wanted to harness the water that \"passes annually unemployed into the sea.\" He was \"astonished\" to find not the \"least trace of any work, ancient or modern, for retaining, or conveying the water to fertilize their Paddy Lands\" in the region; the result was that \"the cultivators here depend entirely on rains, when they fail, a famine is, and must ever be, the consequence.\" Roxburgh observed, and sketched, the Godavari delta; he imagined it transformed. \"In consequence of the favourable level and descent of lands,\" he wrote, \"we clearly see the infinite benefit that must arise from the waters of large rivers when a method of making them subject to the will of man is affected.\" The solution he saw was to use natural basins to store large quantities of water as the Godavari descended from the hills.\n\n# III\n\nHowever we understand India's economic transformation in the nineteenth century, water is at the heart of it. The flow of water\u2014the flow of India's rivers, their seasonality, their propensity to change course\u2014constrained how India's producers could respond to new market opportunities and new compulsions. Britain's industrialization had benefited from an elaborate network of canals; India's economic development, by contrast, was limited by the difficulty and expense of water transportation. China had a far more extensive network of canals than India at the time, but unlike in Britain, energy sources were far from the waterways. The availability of water enabled a changing landscape of cash crop production, for some; water's absence tested others' capacity for bare subsistence. Water was instrumental to making the Indian soil produce more of the commodities the world demanded.\n\nIn the 1830s and 1840s, India's British rulers still faced constraints that would have been familiar to their predecessors. Transport was slow\u2014and dangerous. \"No part of the inland navigation of India is so dreaded or dangerous,\" wrote the botanist Joseph Hooker in 1848, \"as the Ganges at its junction with the Cosi\"; in the rainy season the Cosi \"pours so vast a quantity of detritus into the bed of the Ganges that long islets are heaped up and swept away\"; boats \"are caught in whirlpools formed without a moment's warning.\" The monsoon governed not only the harvest\u2014and threatened the possibility of harvest failure\u2014but also threatened the health of Europeans. Cholera, malaria, and other ailments led many British officials in India to an early grave. Water was still a source of both awe and foreboding for British residents in India. A medical topography of Calcutta published in 1837 stated that \"without taking into view the expanse of the Bay [of Bengal], the coup d'oeil of a good map of Bengal will at once show how bountiful nature has been to that country, by means of her majestic rivers with innumerable tributaries.\" But these waters were at the same time the source of \"aqueous exhalations\"\u2014a product of the \"commerce of land and water\" in a monsoon climate\u2014that menaced life. The author James Martin saw a clear \"connexion of the rainy season with disease,\" and suggested that \"among Europeans, the diseases of the rainy season assume a character of diminished vital action.\" Throughout the nineteenth century, fears persisted of whether Europeans could survive tropical climates.\n\nTo make India productive, to integrate it more fully with the global capitalist economy that was in formation, to exploit more effectively its natural resources to feed Britain's industrialization, British engineers and investors and administrators looked to master the unevenness of water, its extreme seasonality in India; and they sought to conquer space. Both of these quests unfolded between the 1830s and 1870.\n\nHALF A CENTURY AFTER ROXBURGH'S TIME, THE GODAVARI DELTA was still \"entirely without any general system of irrigation, draining, embankments or communications.\" This was the verdict of Arthur Thomas Cotton (1803\u20131899), the museum to whose memory opened this chapter. Like Roxburgh's before him, Cotton's problem was the distribution of rainfall across the landscape. His task: \"counteracting the irregularity of natural supplies of water.\" \"One year a portion of the whole crop... is destroyed by the overflowing of the rivers,\" Cotton observed, \"in another, the crop is destroyed by a failure of the rains over three-fourths of the district.\" He was convinced that \"not an acre... need be dependent at all\" upon the rains if a comprehensive system of irrigation were introduced. He insisted that the Godavari delta needed not a piecemeal restoration of existing irrigation works, but rather \"works of a general nature.\" Perennial irrigation; an improvement in the \"roads and bridges\" of the region; a restoration of the port of Kalinga (\"Coringa\") so that it could fulfill its potential as \"incomparably the best port\" between Hooghly and Trincomalee\u2014such investments in infrastructure would free the district from its uneven and capricious rainfall.\n\nCotton made a fervent case for government intervention. India was unlike Britain, he argued; the rules governing public expenditure could not be considered akin to the principles of household economy. The problem was that \"there is almost literally no capital to enable landowners to make improvement.\" An outlay of three hundred or four hundred thousand rupees each year by the state \"would put life and activity into the whole district\"\u2014in time, revenue would flow into the treasury far exceeding what the state might spend. Possessed by evangelical self-confidence\u2014nothing less than a sense of destiny\u2014Cotton went further. He condemned what he saw as his countrymen's \"proneness... to lower ourselves to the level of natives\" instead of \"diligently applying the means which God has placed in our hands to benefit the countries He has given us charge of.\" Cotton found the support and the money for his grand scheme. In 1852, he completed his barrage at Dowleswaram. But his dreams were bigger. Cotton imagined a network of canals that would, one day, bring the Himalayan rivers to the southern tip of the peninsula. He also saw that the rivers had unrealized potential for navigation. In 1867, Cotton dreamed of a link between the Brahmaputra River\u2014its upper reaches were still at that time unknown to British explorers\u2014and the Yangzi. \"The throwing open of all India to all China, the access of a country containing 200 millions of people to the produce of a country occupied by 400 millions,\" he wrote, would be \"a work of such magnitude as that nothing approaching it has ever been seen in the world.\"\n\nIn the British imagination as well as in administration, Peninsular India was quite distinct from the \"heartland\" of Gangetic India. Separated by half a century, William Roxburgh and Arthur Cotton in turn sought to mold a riverine landscape that attached the dry interior of the Deccan plain to the coast of the Bay of Bengal. They sought both to harness and to overcome the political inheritance that distinguished South India from the north. In the former, political power was contested within a system of small states that arose to fill the void of the troubled Mughal Empire; the hydraulic landscape was dispersed in thousands of tanks, wells, dams, and weirs, many of them now lay in a state of disrepair after decades of warfare\u2014not least the warfare that accompanied English expansion. But Cotton's counterparts along the Ganges were no less anxious to see what could be done to \"improve\" nature: to repair or replace the hydraulic remnants that scattered the valley. They faced different challenges, they chose different solutions, but they shared many assumptions with their counterparts in the south. Just two years after Cotton's barrage was complete, a project still more monumental opened its floodgates: the Ganges Canal, at the time (and still today) the largest in the world.\n\nThe Ganges Canal was the creation of Proby Cautley\u2014Arthur Cotton's contemporary, classmate, and eventually his bitter rival. Cautley arrived in India in 1819 as an artilleryman. A few years after his arrival, the first Anglo-Burma war in 1824 drew many of the East India Company's engineers across the Bay of Bengal; their absence created new openings in India for those without formal training. Like so many Company officers, Cautley was an autodidact. He learned his craft through practice and observation. Working in different ecological settings, Cautley and Cotton embraced different hydraulic approaches. By the 1860s, they fought their battles in a bitter and public war of pamphlets. Cotton accused Cautley of making fundamental mistakes in the design of the Ganges Canal; at stake was not only prestige, but also a debate over the ownership and financial management of India's hydraulic works. Along the Ganges, as everywhere else in India, the infrastructure of water control long preceded British rule. But in the nineteenth century British engineers turned the Ganges valley into one of the most \"thoroughly engineered\" landscapes in the world.\n\nThe Gangetic plain's hydraulic transformation began with the Company's effort to restore the old Yamuna Canal's supply of water to Delhi. The waterworks dated back to pre-Mughal times: Delhi's water infrastructure owes much to the rule of Sultan Iltutmish in the thirteenth century. He ordered the construction of an elaborate web of tanks and step wells. The Mughals brought them to a new level of sophistication. They built a complex of ornate gardens along the banks of the Yamuna River, laid out around the tombs of Mughal leaders. They watered their new capital at Shahjahanabad from a canal and an interlocking system of smaller canals and drains. Emperor Akbar ordered the renovation of the West Yamuna Canal\u2014first built by the ruler Firoz Shah\u2014for irrigation, and extended it to Delhi. Akbar's Canal Act of 1568 declared the canal's aims to be \"to supply the wants of the poor,\" to \"leave permanent marks of the greatness of my Empire by digging canals,\" and to ensure that \"the revenues of the Empire will be increased.\" The British found the canal gone to ruin, yet traces of its sophisticated engineering remained. In 1820, British engineers restored the water supply to Delhi through the West Yamuna Canal. They followed quite consciously in the footsteps of Mughal architects.\n\nWith this success in hand, local administrators turned to the restoration of the eastern branch of the Yamuna Canal. Second in command of this project was young Proby Cautley, who had no prior experience of hydraulic engineering. Cautley was open, perhaps unusually open, to learning from local practices: he suggested adapting local well-building techniques to provide a stronger foundation for bridges than usual European methods could sustain in the soils of the Gangetic plain. As he took charge of the canal project, Cautley ordered the construction of rest houses every ten or twenty miles along the path\u2014in keeping with the old Mughal tradition of _caravansarais_ along the Grand Trunk Road. Besides water, Cautley's interests encompassed archaeology, paleontology, and botany. In 1831, while supervising the digging of a well as part of the canal project, he discovered evidence of an ancient settlement at Belka. With even more enthusiasm, Cautley and his colleague Hugh Falconer began collecting fossils of mammals and birds and fish, eventually shipping to the British Museum in London a collection that took up 214 crates. The history of science in nineteenth-century India often saw the blurring of lines between disciplines.\n\nBy the middle of the 1830s, though, Cautley was first and foremost a water engineer. In 1835, he became the Company's superintendent of canals. His predecessor in that role, John Colvin, had left him with an idea: to build a canal to bring the waters of the Ganges to the arid Doab (the name means \"between two rivers\") that lay between the Ganges and the Yamuna. Early investigations concluded that the canal would be too expensive\u2014and probably an engineering challenge too far. The calculus of costs and benefits, so central to the Company's mode of administrative thought, changed in 1837 when a major famine devastated the drought-prone Doab. By 1840 plans were in place to build what would become the Ganges Canal.\n\nThe centerpiece of the canal complex was a headworks at Haridwar, where the Ganges meets the plains. Its most complex feat of design was the Solani aqueduct, which ran sixteen miles below Haridwar\u2014civil engineer G. W. MacGeorge, author of an 1894 treatise on the infrastructure of British India, called it the \"most interesting and remarkable modern structure in India.\" The technical challenges were formidable. The project created a hybrid landscape as an artificial \"river\" crisscrossed Himalayan streams that in the summer became torrents. \"To carry the great canal\u2014itself a small river\u2014across such a country,\" one British engineer observed, \"to see it pass silently on, uninterrupted and uninjured by these torrents\" was \"a triumph of art and engineering ability.\" Above all, it was a feat of labor. The works were labor-intensive; machines played little role in the initial stages. The canal was the work of thousands who molded and fired bricks, their kilns fed by timber from local forests. Earthworkers ( _bildars_ ) dug the canal. Hundreds of men were deployed in transporting materials. Much of the work was organized by local contractors, who recruited workers from across the region. We know almost none of their names. Historian Jan Lucassen, in studying a strike by the brickworkers in 1848\u20131849, has uncovered a few of their stories. When their employers tried to cut wages, brickworkers first deserted the site, and later set fire to a number of encampments.\n\nAt the time of its opening in 1854, the Ganges Canal was more than seven hundred miles long. A pamphlet, \"A Short Account of the Ganges Canal,\" was distributed in English, Hindi, and Urdu at the opening. It declared that \"the great motive by which the British government was led to sanction the Ganges Canal\" was \"to secure to its people, in the country between the rivers Ganges and Jumna, an immunity from the pains and losses that famine brings with it.\" The famine of 1837 and 1838 was still fresh in the spectators' memories. For Company administrators, those memories involved the loss during the famine of land revenues, and relief expenditures amounting to over 5 million pounds\u2014financial loss was the spur to action, however sincere the humanitarian considerations might have been.\n\nA year after the canal opened, the _North American Review,_ a Boston literary journal, published an account of the Ganges Canal and its opening ceremonies. It evoked the \"double sanctity\" that the \"mysterious river of the farthest East\" now possessed\u2014the Ganges had long been revered and worshipped as a divine river, a place of pilgrimage for people from the distant corners of India; now it was newly (or doubly) blessed by the bounty of technology. The canal was hailed as \"the largest of its kind in the world, adapted for navigation as well as for irrigation\"; it was \"designed not less for the benefit of a remote future than of the present age.\" The inauguration of the canal drew large crowds. \"From the most distant parts of India pilgrims came up this year,\" the American correspondent wrote, \"when the revered Ganges was about to leave her ancient and hallowed channel for one formed for her by the hands of strangers.\" Quoting from a \"private account\" that had come into the journalist's possession, he described how the aqueduct's embankments were \"lined by our own work-people, to the number of more than thirty-five thousand men,\" in \"long lines of stout forms.\" The military presence was strong, for here as in every development of infrastructure in India, military imperatives were paramount. \"The infantry were on the tops of the aqueduct parapets\" while \"the artillery were stationed on a high piece of ground.\" The crowd gathered to celebrate the new canal was estimated at not fewer than five hundred thousand people.\n\nThe canal was a monument to imperial power, a symbol of English conquest over India's land and water. In his opening speech, Lieutenant Governor John Colvin\u2014Cautley's predecessor, and the originator of the idea for the Ganges Canal\u2014declared that \"we have an answer... to the old reproach, that the British have left no permanent mark upon the soil of India to attest the power, the wealth, and the munificence of their nation.\" But the canal also marked a symbolic step up in the justification of British rule on humanitarian grounds. In the eyes of the American journalist, it was \"difficult to conceive of a more impressive service\" than the opening prayers consecrating the complex. Seen through the observer's evangelical imagination, the entire Ganges Canal complex was the work of a \"few hundred Christians in the heart of a foreign country, surrounded by many thousand heathens\"\u2014a \"work of civilization... for the benefit of these unenlightened multitudes.\" He declared a new \"era of intelligent and liberal government\" that \"regards and cherishes the interests of the governed.\" He conceded that, for all its benefits, the advance of British rule in India had been attended by \"the bitter consequences of evil\" and \"past misgovernment.\" But the tide had turned: \"The night in which false religion, tyranny, and war have enveloped India,\" he wrote, \"is giving place to the day of Christianity, good government, and peace.\"\n\nNot long after the completion of the Ganges Canal, the Indian Rebellion of 1857 brought an end to the East India Company's rule. A mutiny within the army spiraled into widespread social protest that spread across North India; the old Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah, was the rebels' symbolic leader. The rebellion was suppressed with spectacular violence. The British government took control of India from the East India Company. The colonial state intervened more extensively in the countryside. It used the law to reconfigure property rights and to reshape relations between landlords and tenants, men and women, Hindus and Muslims, dominant and subordinate castes. It used force to settle mobile people, and the force of punitive contracts to mobilize labor for the plantations of Southeast Asia. In 1869, the government's approach to the land found clear expression in Lord Mayo's dictum that \"every measure for the improvement of the land enhances the value of the property of the State\"; especially so, he added, because \"the duties which in England are performed by a good landlord fall in India, in a great measure, upon the government.\"\n\nIN THE ODES OF THE EMPIRE'S PRAISE SINGERS, THE ACHIEVEMENTS of British engineers in nineteenth-century India stood without parallel. But what truly was new about the hydraulic fever of the second half of the nineteenth century? For Cotton, it was the capacity to design the world anew through \"works of a general nature.\" But the ancient tank irrigation of southern India was just as ambitious, just as systemic. Landscapes of water have always been shaped by human intervention. Water historian Terje Tvedt warns us against the conceit that the \"conquest of nature\" is a modern phenomenon. But there can be no question that the scale of the works designed and built in the nineteenth century were without precedent. Steam power broke the physical limits of earlier modes of construction\u2014even though, as we have seen, old methods were used extensively as better adapted to local ecology.\n\nThe British justification of large-scale public works, too, had new dimensions. In precolonial India, though not as markedly as in China, the control of water lent legitimacy to local rulers. Irrigation works bolstered local resilience to drought, and ensured states' coffers remained full. Maximizing revenue remained the be-all and end-all of British rule in India, from start to finish; behind every investment in infrastructure lay the aim of extraction. Like many local rulers before them the British government of India used irrigation works to signal their benevolence, to demonstrate their power, to satisfy their own vanity. But some British architects of water went further than this. Driven by an aggressive evangelical Christianity, engineers like Arthur Cotton saw their mission as going far beyond the sustenance of revenue for the state. Irrigation, alongside other technologies, would usher in the social and moral transformation of rural India: midwife to an ever-expanding universe of commerce and trade. The moral argument for infrastructure in India laid deep roots in the nineteenth century\u2014it would not be long before it was turned against British rule.\n\nIn earlier times the benefits of hydraulic infrastructure resided entirely at the local, or at most the regional, level. In this sense, perhaps the most far-reaching change that British imperial engineering brought was its spatial expanse\u2014in the imagination of British engineers and administrators and investors, the irrigation of a particular district of the Godavari delta or the Gangetic plain would have repercussions across the globe, as more and more of the products of India's soil found their buyers in the markets of London and Liverpool, Hamburg and New York.\n\n# IV\n\nThe irregular availability of water was one challenge; the conquest of space was another. To take the augmented products of India's irrigated lands to market, India's great rivers had to be made navigable. In the first three decades of the nineteenth century, little had changed since cartographer James Rennell's description in the 1790s. The inland waterways of Bengal sustained \"a system of regional trade that served a population of some 60 millions.\" An array of specialist vessels plied the waterways of the Bengal delta: salt boats, the boats used by woodchoppers in the Sundarbans, the small craft for the traffic in betel leaf, and the distinctive port lighters that serviced European merchantmen, loading and unloading their cargoes. Higher up the hierarchy in this catalog of rivercraft were the _bajra_ preferred by European employees of the Company, with a large sail on a single mast. Most luxurious was the pinnace, reserved for higher officials and the wealthiest Indian merchants. The river teemed with life, animated by the labor of boatmen with a panoply of specialized skills. A distinctive Anglo-Indian lexicon emerged to describe work on the river\u2014the product of British translations and mistranslations, transcriptions and mispronunciations of local words. _Serangs_ and _tindals_ were boatswains; _manjhees_ and _seaconnies_ were steersmen; _dandees,_ expert oarsmen, _lascars,_ sailors. Each group knew the river intimately.\n\nBut fluctuations in the Ganges River's flow between the wet and the dry season, the heavy loads of silt that it carries, forging and undoing sandbanks and shoals along its course\u2014these all made it treacherous for larger vessels. Sandbanks deceived the most seasoned boatmen. Insurance firms charged the same premium on freight going from Calcutta up the Ganges to Allahabad as they did to London. If anything, Company rule had slowed traffic along the river, because of its punitive taxation. This was the view of Charles Trevelyan, who traveled down the Ganges and the Yamuna in 1830 to report on the oppressions inflicted by countless customs posts, acting in the Company's name, along the riverbanks. \"These streams, intersecting, as they do, the whole of the Bengal Provinces from one end to the other and terminating in the Sea port of Calcutta,\" Trevelyan wrote, \"must be the great channels and high roads of trade of the country.\" But they fell short of that potential. Trevelyan found that the number of customs inspections was enough \"not only to embarrass the navigation of the Jumna, but to close it entirely for nearly half its course from the hills.\" He noted how few of the \"great staples\" of salt, cotton, ghee, and asafoetida traveled by river\u2014instead, merchants resorted to \"tedious and expensive land carriage.\" Only one cargo of salt arrived in Agra from Delhi in the year 1830 even though vast quantities were traded yearly from Delhi \"for the consumption of our Eastern Provinces.\" In his sloping copperplate hand, Trevelyan was damning: \"It may appear extraordinary,\" he wrote, \"that the Officers who are charged with the collection of the customs should possess so imperfect an idea\" of the inspections and exactions conducted in their name. Those who suffered most were the \"poorer class of merchants and traders who can ill afford to pay.\" Trevelyan noted that \"speed is the Life of Trade.\" Like so many other Company officers, he was a trader himself: he spoke from experience. Trevelyan's report played a key role in the East India Company's abolition of internal customs duties.\n\nBy the time Trevelyan made his voyage downriver, the Ganges was the site of some of the earliest experiments with steam technology in India. British administrators and businessmen looked eagerly to the expansion of trade and navigation upriver. The first steam engine to arrive in Calcutta, in 1817 or 1818, was there to clean the river Hooghly. The eight-horsepower engine from Birmingham powered revolving buckets to clear the river of the silt it carried from the hills. A few years later, the steamboat _Diana,_ launched in July 1823 by the Calcutta shipbuilding firm Messrs Kyd & Co, drew large crowds to witness its maiden voyage. As a commercial proposition it failed. War spurred technical improvement. In 1825 the company launched a military expedition against the Burmese kingdom after tension along India's expanding northeastern frontier. The old dredger was converted into a warship; unprofitable _Diana_ was pressed into service to carry medical supplies and the wounded between India and Arakan, on the eastern littoral of the Bay of Bengal. It was deployed up the Irrawaddy River, where local people labeled the ship the \"fire devil.\"\n\nBy the 1830s, steamboat agents had set up shop at every point along the river\u2014most of them as a sideline to their primary occupations. Many profited from the arrival of steam. J. P. Leslie was by day a pleader at the Allahabad High Court; he made himself the government's agent at the port and charged commission for overseeing the loading and unloading of cargo. Carr, Tagore, & Co., managing agents, secured the contract to supply coal to the government's Steam Department from their mines in Burdwan, in eastern Bengal. The Ganges was a microcosm of India's economic transformation. Steamboats began to carry to Calcutta the revenues on which the East India Company's administration depended\u2014the proceeds of the annual harvest. Steamboats were filled with \"boxes loaded with five thousand rupee coins,\" each one \"roped, ticketed, and sealed with lead and wax\" and guarded by one or more soldiers. Upriver, private money traveled from Calcutta merchants to Patna, Benaras, and Allahabad\u2014advances on the crops eagerly awaited by traders in London and Liverpool and New York. The Ganges was a conduit for India's economic integration with the world. The bulk of the cargo traveling up from Calcutta consisted of the material paraphernalia of British imperialism in India\u2014arms, medical supplies, printing presses, seals for opium agents, compasses and theodolites for the staff of the Indian Survey, the mammoth project to map and survey every inch of British territory in India. Consignments of three commodities dominated steam traffic along the Ganges: cotton, indigo, and opium. Each was of global importance. Long transported to Calcutta on country boats, indigo was small enough to be stashed away\u2014it was a favored way for company officers to smuggle their ill-gotten gains out of the country. From 1836, consignments began to travel downriver by steamboats.\n\nBy the end of the 1830s, ironclad steamers traversed the 780 miles between Calcutta and Allahabad in three weeks, but beyond Allahabad they found their passage blocked. The Ganges continued to challenge the power of steam. Even under experienced pilots, steamboats ran aground. They foundered on the river's treacherous shoals and sandbanks. Silt blocked the path of large vessels, confining them to the most easily navigable stretches of the river. More nimble vessels lacked the power to push upriver. And steamboats were expensive. The most valuable commodities formed the bulk of the cargo on steamboats along the Ganges. But steam freight was too costly for most merchants. Bulk goods\u2014rice, sugar, saltpeter, linseed, hemp, and hides\u2014continued to travel on country boats, or overland. Far from supplanting earlier uses of the river, the steamboat took its place in a varied economy of energy and transportation: the oldest and the newest technologies coexisted and competed with one other. Often the river itself\u2014its currents, its seasonality, its contours\u2014set the boundaries of what was possible or financially viable.\n\nIn the end it was not road but rail that emerged as the biggest competitor to steam vessels on the river. Because of British investors' embrace of the railroad, steam transportation along the Ganges never really flourished.\n\nTHE WORLD OVER, THE COLLAPSE OF SPACE AND TIME BY THE RAILROAD, the steamship, and the telegraph underpinned the transition to industrial capitalism. Writing of the same period in the nineteenth century, environmental historian William Cronon describes how Chicago's tentacles reshaped the entire landscape of the American Midwest. Cronon writes of the \"railroads' liberation from geography\"\u2014their ability to operate \"quite independently of the climatic factors that had bedeviled earlier forms of transportation.\" But how much did this apply in India? Could rail operate \"independently\" of the monsoon, where river transport could not?\n\nIndia's railway dreams were born in the 1830s; by the 1840s, these visions had become a sort of \"mania.\" The construction of India's railway network began in the 1850s and reached its zenith in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, financed by private investors at public risk, their returns guaranteed by the state. By this time railway lines snaked across Europe and North and South America. Now speculators eyed India with anticipation. After false starts and burst bubbles, construction began in the 1850s. In 1853 the Marquess of Dalhousie, governor-general of India, inaugurated the construction of India's railways: investors were guaranteed a rate of return of 5 percent. As ever, military needs loomed largest in the government's calculations. As Dalhousie told Parliament in a statement that inaugurated India's railway age, a countrywide rail network \"would enable the Government to bring the main bulk of its military strength to bear upon any given point in as many days as it would now require months.\" He envisaged the \"commercial and social advantages\" of the railway as \"beyond all present calculation.\" Beyond calculation, too, were the \"extent and value of the interchange which may be established with people beyond our present frontier.\"\n\nWithin three decades, civil engineer George W. MacGeorge estimated that the railway had reduced India to \"one-twentieth of its former dimensions.\" Trains could cover up to six hundred kilometers a day. Bullock carts could manage, at best, twenty to thirty kilometers a day; river boats could cover sixty-five kilometers a day going downstream, but even fewer than a bullock cart when battling upriver. The railway grid consolidated the state's control over Indian territory. India's cotton and indigo, jute and opium moved faster to the ports of Bombay and Calcutta for export. The railway implanted the colonial state upon the recently conquered lands of the northwest.\n\nAmong those who watched with interest was Karl Marx, who saw the railway as a necessary tool to break down feudalism and social division. Rail collapsed distance. Rail integrated markets. Marx quoted from a British observation just a few years earlier, in 1848, that \"when grain was selling from 6\/- to 8\/- a quarter at Khandesh, it was sold at 64\/- to 70\/- at Poona, where people were dying in the streets\"; the sole reason was that \"the clay-roads were impracticable.\" In Marx's view, one of the railway's potential benefits lay in what it could do to the hydraulics of the land: it could \"easily be made to subserve agricultural purposes,\" he thought, \"by the formation of tanks\" along the railway embankments, \"and by the conveyance of water along different lines.\" A few years later, in 1860, railway engineer Edwin Merrall published a riposte to Sir Arthur Cotton's condemnation of expensive railway construction in India; it was a defense of the value of railways, faced with Cotton's alternative\u2014investing in India's waterways. For Merrall, too, water was central. Merrall insisted that the railway could overcome climatic variation, operating \"at all seasons of the year,\" whereas rivers swelled during the monsoon and dwindled in the dry season, leaving few months of the year when they could be traversed safely. India regularly suffered from famine, \"from the failure of the periodical rains\"; but \"such scarcity,\" he argued, \"is not general, but partial and local,\" and could \"very easily be met by an increased supply of food from other and more fortunate districts.\" The railway's greatest promise was to connect the driest parts of India with those \"which never want water.\"\n\nIt is difficult to write about India's railways without a flurry of astonishingly large numbers. Over the second half of the nineteenth century, the Indian railways expanded to encompass twenty-four thousand miles of track, and India possessed the fourth-largest railway network in the world: by far the largest in Asia. India's railways demanded a \"prodigious consumption of mineral or vegetable food, in the shape of coal, coke, or wood,\" vast quantities of iron and steel, and the complex manipulation of water to supply the engines. Because so many of the materials were imported, Indian railway expansion was a fillip to British industry.\n\nBut what did this mean for villagers in a district facing drought or flood? Some observers worried from the outset that, contrary to the dominant view, transportation was no panacea for social and economic inequality. Writing in 1851, C. H. Lushington, railway commissioner, saw that the lands of the Ganges valley were \"sublet in very small portions\"; they were worked by the \"poor and needy\" who were \"without capital who live from hand to mouth.\" They lacked the stocks of grain that would \"make it worth their while\" to seek distant markets. He worried that railway lines would cut through small holdings, dividing them further; he feared the \"serious and tangible injuries\" that would come from the way the railway lines interfered with drainage by building over natural floodplains. A quarter of a century later, many of his fears would prove prescient.\n\nThe railways reached deep into the interior. They carried the force of the state and the pull of global markets to even the smallest villages. An Indian economist writing in the mid-twentieth century described the railways as sparking a \"revolution in the economic pattern of the country\": the \"age-old walls of localized economy,\" he wrote, \"were collapsing.\" Recent analysts reach a similar conclusion based on the modeling of district-level data. Dave Donaldson estimates that the arrival of the railroad in any given district raised real income by 16 percent, thanks to \"previously unexploited gains from trade due to comparative advantage.\" He echoes a sense widely shared in the late nineteenth century: \"Districts that had been largely closed economies opened up as they were penetrated by railroads.\" His data show that the dependence of local grain prices and even local mortality rates on local rainfall vanished at last with the arrival of the railways. But these numbers tell us little about how resources were shared within each village, district, or household. Markets grew more integrated, but many without land or capital were not well positioned to benefit from this expansion. And what effect did these transformations have on those\u2014the lower castes, women and children, those ill or disabled\u2014who had to look outside the market, to benefits in kind or to always-tenuous customary entitlements, for their security and survival?\n\nRailway bridge over the Godavari River. CREDIT: Sunil Amrith\n\nHowever dazzling its scale, the rail network met the needs of a colonial export economy, driving produce to the river mouth ports. It was designed to take India's jute and cotton and tea and coal to where merchants needed them; it was designed to transport labor to the plantations and mines and factories. The massive expansion in mobility both within and beyond India in this period coexisted with deepening pockets of social and geographical immobility. Swaths of India remained off the railway map. The inequality between regions that benefited from the change and those left behind grew starker. Where there were no rail connections, roads also tended to be poor, and waterways poorly maintained. The National Sample Survey of India showed that, even a century after 1870, no fewer than 72 percent of journeys in many parts of rural India were undertaken on foot. Always, the newest and the oldest technologies depended on one another: as historian David Arnold observed, \"The railways relied on country carts to bring raw cotton and other cash crops to the railheads or distribute grain to needy villages in times of famine.\"\n\nBut in this age of evangelical faith in the \"civilizing\" effects of capitalism, of which British rule was the \"Providential\" vehicle in India, the railway seemed to augur an \"extraordinary awakening\": a \"wonderfully rapid subversion of previous habits of life and thought\" in India. The engineer George MacGeorge's encomium concluded that \"one of the most rigid and exclusive caste systems in the world\" had been \"penetrated on every side by the power of steam.\" Many Indian observers shared his enthusiasm. Madhav Rao, chief minister of the princely states of Travancore, Indore, and then Baroda, wrote of the \"glorious change the railway has made,\" as \"populations which had been isolated for unmeasured ages, now easily mingle in civilized confusion\"\u2014it offered no less than the prospect of India becoming \"a homogeneous nation.\" Not only did the railway change people's behavior, it transformed the landscape: trains ran through the rainy season and the dry, they crossed bridges across rivers and mountains, connected humid and arid regions. As they cut a track through the Western Ghats, railway engineers had turned \"the stupendous natural inequalities of the precipitous hills into a series of uniform inclined surfaces,\" and \"the whole rugged and inhospitable region has been smoothed down.\"\n\nBehind the self-regarding, if genuine, heroism of the engineers' accounts lies the forgotten heroism of those Indian workers who built the steel lines, the canals, the bridges. Countless among them paid with their lives. However fervently the railway engineers believed they could import their methods from England\u2014just as they imported steam engines, coal, locomotives, tracks, sleepers, and even prefabricated bridges\u2014what emerged in practice was a hybrid approach to building infrastructure. India's ecology could not easily be \"smoothed down.\" Whether through railway lines or irrigation canals, reshaping the Indian landscape was a colossal feat of work.\n\nIt was India's hydrology that challenged every scheme. Building the rail line from Howrah to Burdwan in Bengal, engineers faced an \"inland sea\" of water channels that required, in response, \"viaducts, bridges, culverts, and flood openings\" on a scale that no engineering project in the nineteenth century had ever attempted. Building bridges and aqueducts over the Himalayan rivers demanded ingenuity and a great deal of improvisation. Designs had to take into account the \"immense volumes of water periodically brought down\" by the great rivers through \"seasons of flood,\" and the \"erratic and unstable character of their channels.\" The rivers \"scoured\" the piers and abutments of bridges: torrents of water scraped away their foundations. So the engineers harnessed the knowledge of the people who knew the land most intimately. Even with the arrival of steam dredges and sand pumps, the terrible labor of divers and hand-diggers was vital; the piers of India's railway bridges often reached one hundred feet below the water's surface. Other skills came into play. Work was overseen by men who had experience as seafarers, as _lascars,_ in the British merchant marine. Their mastery of the winds, the tides, the currents; their mastery of a language of command\u2014these were put to new use to reshape India's inland seas, far from the ocean air.\n\nFew believed as fervently as Rudyard Kipling in Britain's imperial mission. But in his short story \"The Bridge Builders\"\u2014based on his experience watching the Kaisar-i-Hind bridge being built across the Sutlej River, a tributary of the Indus in the northwest\u2014what emerges most strongly is a sense of fragility before nature, and the deep dependence of British engineers on local expertise. The driving force in the story is the character of Peroo, a _lascar_ from Kachch, \"familiar with every port between Rockhampton and London.\" His mastery of the sailing ship had found a new outlet:\n\nThere was no one like Peroo, serang, to lash, and guy, and hold, to control the donkey-engines, to hoist a fallen locomotive craftily out of the borrow-pit into which it had tumbled; to strip, and dive, if need be, to see how the concrete blocks round the piers stood the scouring of Mother Gunga, or to adventure upstream on a monsoon night and report on the state of embankment-facings.\n\nAs a storm threatens the bridge he has designed, chief engineer Findlayson falls into an opium-induced hallucination, haunted by the question of whether his bridge would survive the onslaught of the water: he asks himself, \"What man knew Mother Gunga's arithmetic?\"\n\nIn the story the bridge survives. But the fears were well founded. India's ecology of water threatened not only the stability of bridges but the lives of the thousands of men who built them. Railway workers faced punishing conditions; infectious diseases were a constant threat. New infrastructure diverted watercourses, altered drainage channels, modified the water cycle; new risks were not far behind, posed above all by malaria. However far the power of steam had advanced, the monsoon rivers retained the capacity to surprise. In 1868, Sibganj, a \"great grain market\" along the Ganges, was destroyed: \"A northward movement of the river in 1868 swept away the bank on which the market stood.\" Traders moved on; they set up at Karik, six miles to the northeast.\n\n# V\n\nIf India's empire builders needed a reminder of their fragility, it came from the ferocity of the monsoon climate.\n\nIn October 1864, a \"cyclone of unparalleled fury\" struck Calcutta and the coastal districts of Bengal. The \"rivers raged and tossed like a sea\" and left the city \"in ruins.\" \"Far as the eye can see,\" a British correspondent wrote, \"there is unbroken waste and gloom.\" The cyclone originated in the Bay of Bengal, to the west of the northern Andaman Islands, on October 2. That morning, from the deck of the _Conflict,_ sailors observed that \"the stars had a sickly appearance.\" The sailors saw that the sun \"rose blood red.\" The cyclone had built up in the southwest, its effects felt in Ceylon and Port Blair a few days earlier; it gathered force as it approached the Andamans. From the Andamans the cyclone swept up the Bay of Bengal, traveling at ten miles an hour toward the mouth of the Hooghly River. As the cyclone approached the coast of Bengal, the steamer _Martaban_ was at anchor in the Saugor Roads. By the morning of October 5, the wind-whipped vessel drifted with its \"jibboom gone and likewise the fore-royal and top-gallant masts.\" By the afternoon the gusts had eased, the captain wrote, \"leaving us a total wreck.\" The crew realized they had been \"dragged 17 miles across the banks at low tide.\"\n\nAnother vessel, the _Ally,_ foundered. It had departed from Calcutta on October 4, carrying 335 migrants bound for Mauritius. They were indentured workers, hundreds among the hundreds of thousands of indentured laborers from India bound to labor on the sugar plantations that met the British Empire's taste for sweetness. The ship was overturned by a gale. Only twenty-two of the emigrants and seven of the ship's crew survived.\n\nHowever visibly Calcutta was affected, the storm was worse in rural Bengal. It swept through coastal districts and moved inland to the northeast, finally fizzling out over Assam on October 7. Few people survived to bear witness. The storm surge generated \"great sea waves... which, on reaching shallow waters, were piled up to a height greatly exceeding that of the highest spring tides, when they broke over the low lying lands at the mouths of the Hooghly and Godavery.\" A lighthouse keeper wrote to Calcutta in despair: \"I cannot accurately state what the loss of life has been by the Cyclone and inundation, but I am afraid the fatal malady has carried off more.\" Disease killed many more than the initial flood. \"Every tank, pond and well,\" he wrote, \"is stagnant with decaying matter.\" More than fifty thousand people died. Flooding drove millions from their homes.\n\nThis account of the storm, penned in 1867, comes from Henry Francis Blanford. He was born in London in 1834. His father, William Blanford, owned a workshop manufacturing gilt moldings\u2014one of innumerable small manufacturers propelling Britain's industrialization. In 1851, Henry joined London's Royal School of Mines, and from there traveled to the Bergakademie in Freiberg to continue his study of mining. Along with his brother William Thomas Blanford, Henry joined the Geological Survey of India in 1855. Their first assignment was to explore the Talchir coalfield in Orissa, in eastern India\u2014vital in this new era when India's hunger for coal was spurred by the railways. The Blanfords' inquiries in Orissa established some of the key groundwork for the later discovery of Gondwana, the supercontinent that fused the southern hemisphere's landmasses together with the Indian subcontinent and the Arabian Peninsula. Gondwana broke up into eastern and western segments\u2014separating Africa, South America, and Australia\u2014while the Indian subcontinent's northward drift and collision with the Eurasian continent, around 50 million years ago, created the Himalayas.\n\nThe following year, 1856, Henry took over as curator of the new Museum of Geology in Calcutta, and supervised the official Geological Survey of India, charged with exploring India's geology with a view to exploiting its mineral resources. He spent the rest of the 1850s in southern India, investigating the stratigraphy and paleontology of rock formations between Tiruchirapalli and Pondicherry. After a sojourn back in Europe to recover from ill health brought on \"by the exposure incidental to geological surveying in India,\" Blanford returned in 1862 to teach physics and chemistry at Presidency College, Calcutta.\n\nAround that time, Blanford became involved with the Asiatic Society. Founded by famed Orientalist and linguist Sir William Jones in 1784, for \"enquiring into the History, Civil and Natural, the Antiquities, Arts, Sciences and Literature of Asia,\" the Asiatic Society of Calcutta emerged as the most influential among a network of learned societies in the colonial world. Its journal was a storehouse of cultural, linguistic, and scientific research. The inclusion of meteorology among its subjects was due in large part to the work of a retired ship's captain and president of the Marine Courts of Calcutta, Henry Piddington (1797\u20131858). Inspired by the work of Colonel Henry Reid\u2014pioneer of American meteorology and author of _An Attempt to Develop the Law of Storms_ \u2014Piddington's interest in the characteristic storms of the Indian Ocean was deeply practical. His aim is clear from the title of his 1848 treatise, _The Sailor's Horn-Book for the Law of Storms,_ which he dedicated to \"mariners of all classes in all parts of the world.\" In his catalog of different types of storms, Piddington proposed a new word, \"cyclone,\" to describe those driven by \"circular or highly curved winds.\" He derived his term \"from the Greek _kukloma_ (which signifies amongst other things the coil of a snake).\" The new science of cyclones demanded attention from sailors, he wrote, \"for it is... a question of life and death, of safety or ruin.\" He described a \"storm wave,\" of the kind that struck Bengal in 1864, as a \"mass of water... driven bodily along with the storm or before it\"; crashing upon bays and estuaries, they caused \"dreadful inundations.\" Piddington published in the Asiatic Society's journal a series of ships' logs, from which he derived his work on the forces driving the Bay of Bengal's cyclones. Blanford began lecturing at Presidency College, Calcutta, a few years after Piddington's death; he studied Piddington's writings and developed an interest in the science of storms. Given his prominence in Calcutta's world of science, given his expressed interest in the weather, Blanford was an obvious candidate to lead the society's inquiry into the great cyclone of 1864. James Gastrell, Blanford's collaborator in compiling the report on the great cyclone, was the Asiatic Society's treasurer, and he also worked as the deputy surveyor-general for the government of India. What began as a report for the Asiatic Society became an official inquiry.\n\nTo reconstruct the path of the storm, Gastrell and Blanford pored over the logbooks of ten ships dispersed across the Bay of Bengal through the storm. The storm's chroniclers tallied the ships' barometric pressure readings with sailors' descriptions of sky and sea; they plotted these against the ships' likely positions to track the storm's path. The record of the _Moneka_ gives a sense of the terse precision of the ship's log, heavy with foreboding:\n\nFrom midnight to noon, light and variable winds from north-west to west, with cloudy weather; sea more composed, but south south-west swell as lively as ever. No rain this day. Barometer 29.74. Thermometer 82\u02da. From noon until midnight, light and unsteady winds from west by north, with cloudy weather; sky looking very black and lowering to the north and north north-east, with a high rolling sea from the same quarter. Sea rose very quickly; observed lightning in the north north-west. Barometer inclined to fall. Midnight, gently increasing wind from west, with gloomy appearances to north north-east. Sea still very heavy from that quarter. Ship pitching, bows under.\n\nGastrell and Blanford traced the cyclical motion of the winds by comparing the logs of the _Conflict_ and the _Golden Horn_. The two vessels began the afternoon of the storm one hundred miles apart; by midnight, they were at most twenty or thirty miles apart, having been blown toward each other by the rotating cyclone. Sailors' most common response to the power of the storm was awe. The power of steam was no match for the cyclone. The _Alexandra_ was a steam tug, at the mouth of the Hooghly River when the storm hit; traveling into a headwind, its engines \"were set going with seven revolutions, at full power,\" making no progress. The \"frightful roar of the hurricane\" drowned out even the din of the steam engine. The winds overcame the ship: a \"moaning sound,\" a \"sudden blast from the northwest,\" and suddenly the ship was lying on its side.\n\nVital though ships' readings were, their barometers were not always standardized, and their readings were difficult to compare with one another. The ships' records had to be read against measurements from land observatories. Gastrell and Blanford had access to the records of sixteen land stations, from Agra and Benares on the Gangetic plain to Kandy in the mountains of Ceylon and Port Blair on the Andaman Islands; farthest south was the station in Singapore. They were few in number and widely spaced. Their records had to be supplemented by the private journals kept by individuals such as one Mr. Barnes of Kandy. He noted on October 1, 1864: \"raw and very damp, low scud _nimbi_ covering the greater part of the sky, (dense _cirro-cumuli_ beyond), and moving generally from west south-west, the wind veering from west to south and back.\"\n\nTo follow the storm after it made landfall, the investigators relied on eyewitnesses: lighthouse keepers, railway stationmasters, European missionaries and district officials, captains of riverboats, government engineers. Gastrell and Blanford were tireless in their work of archiving the storm. Accounts of the devastation were heartbreaking. The storm's detectives searched these reports for telling details; they were intrigued by accounts that described the changing color of the sky, the shifting quality of the light, as the cyclone advanced. It was the best record they had of the formation and movement of clouds. Observers saw clouds of \"dark lead\" and indigo; they saw blackened afternoon skies lit up with \"balls of fire,\" and nocturnal landscapes glowing with eerie light.\n\nStorm investigation was a form of narrative, and nature was the protagonist. Gastrell and Blanford depicted a battle of forces. A few days before the storm's arrival on the coast of Bengal, \"the northerly current retreated before its stronger opponent, now forcing its way up the east of the Bay.\" That current was in turn \"opposed\" by the Yamadoung Mountains of Arakan on Burma's western coast\u2014an obstacle the winds circumvented as they \"curved round\" them. The story of the storm took form akin to a travel account: it had a point of origin, an itinerary, and a destination\u2014and it left a trail of destruction in its wake. The investigators depicted the storm's \"tracks\" using wood-block print, in two dimensions on a map. But their picture of the storm\u2014bringing together pressure readings, wind speeds, latitude, and longitude\u2014was fully three-dimensional. They were as interested in its vertical as its horizontal dimensions: the dance of rotating winds, the churning ocean currents, the contours of landscape.\n\nGastrell and Blanford were limited to retrospective reconstruction. What they hoped for was instantaneous information. Their goal was to track future storms as they unfolded, through a network of monitoring stations linked by telegraph. They emphasized the \"great importance\" of meteorological telegraph stations \"along both coasts\" of India; ideally, they wanted an archipelago of observatories encompassing Ceylon and the Burma coast, \"if possible as far down as Port Blair on the east side of the Bay.\" From the very detail of their inquiry into the storm of 1864, they sought an expanded sense of correlation and consequence across space and time, using \"indications from distant stations.\" What were the telltale signs, in the Andamans or in Ceylon, that presaged trouble in Bengal a few days later? How could some form of warning be delivered in time? Their view of the world was one that linked land, sea, and atmosphere. The Indian Ocean, on this view, was a weather factory: the source of India's climate.\n\nWITH THE ADVANCEMENT OF STORM SCIENCE CAME A DIFFERENT way of thinking about space\u2014and about India's place in the world. A new understanding of the monsoon emerged from the fusion of maritime and terrestrial observation. In the same decades, British explorers and scientists began to study the Himalayas. From there, botanist Joseph Hooker observed the monsoon from the other side\u2014from the mountain peaks. In Sikkim, Hooker witnessed a watery realm reaching from the ocean to the atmosphere; the sky was a mirror to the sea. \"The ocean-like appearance of this southern view,\" he wrote, \"is even more conspicuous in the heavens than on land, the clouds arranging themselves after a singularly sea-scape fashion.\" \"Upon what a gigantic scale does nature here operate,\" Hooker exclaimed. He described a climatic system where \"vapours raised from an ocean whose nearest route is 600 kilometres distant are safely transported without the loss of one drop of water to support the rank luxuriance of this far distant region.\" And then, \"the waste waters are returned by the rivers to the oceans, and again exhaled, exported, recollected and returned.\"\n\nThe enduring power of the monsoon to cause distress and upset political calculation, within and far beyond India, would become amply clear in the 1870s.\n\n# THREE\n\n# THIS PARCHED LAND\n\nBETWEEN 1876 AND 1879 THE DECCAN PLATEAU IN THE SOUTH and parts of northwestern India suffered famine as intense as any ever recorded. Twenty years later, in 1896 and 1897, drought ravaged millions of lives again, this time across a large expanse of central India. Before they had recovered, another serious famine struck those same regions in 1899 and 1900. Crops withered. Cattle perished. Tanks ran dry. Employment vanished. Those with the least power in society\u2014the landless, the aged and infirm, women and children\u2014were the first to find that they could earn no money with which to purchase the food that made it to market, its price swollen by scarcity and rumor. People moved to the cities, where some of them survived on private charity; hundreds of thousands moved to British famine camps, where they received meager rations and a cash wage for strenuous labor building roads, digging ditches, breaking stones. Rarely in the voluminous reportage on the famines do we read the actual name of a person who died. They succumbed to starvation; weakened by hunger, they fell to cholera, to plague, to the catchall \"fevers\" that medical officers inscribed as their \"cause of death.\"\n\n\"The rains failed.\" The phrase recurs in almost every account of these catastrophes, always intransitive. What this meant is that the rains failed to behave as they were expected to\u2014they failed to fall when, as much, or where they usually did. The rains failed to obey the patterns upon which human societies had organized their material lives. The suffering of those years reached as far as China, Java, Egypt, and Brazil's northeast. In China five northern provinces\u2014Shandong, Zhili, Shanxi, Henan, and Shaanxi\u2014bore the brunt of the suffering. Between 9.5 and 13 million people died in China, most of them from diseases that spread hand-in-glove with starvation. We know now that failures of rainfall in the late nineteenth century were caused by El Ni\u00f1o Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events of exceptional intensity. El Ni\u00f1o is a quasiperiodic rise in sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific, with effects on global atmospheric circulation. Local fishers off the coast of Peru had identified the phenomenon as early as the seventeenth century, and had called it El Ni\u00f1o (Christ child), since it tended to appear near Christmas time. Those who tried to make sense of it in the nineteenth century had only a growing sense that the droughts were global in reach\u2014somehow connected.\n\nMore searching questions followed. The rains failed\u2014did individuals, societies, and governments fail, too? In an era when technology promised to collapse both time and space\u2014as so many enthusiastic observers of rail and steam foresaw\u2014need drought always turn to starvation? In an era when the British Empire proclaimed its superiority and its benevolence, did the colonial authorities act with foresight and justice? Could the famines have been prevented? These questions animated supporters and critics of colonial policy, economists, and meteorologists; they haunted administrators who carried the guilt for starvation in their districts. Drought and famine sparked many discussions about the future of water, for it was water's absence that had spelled disaster. Water unleashed new claims upon states by journalists and humanitarians and engineers; water unleashed new claims by states upon their subjects. Here, in the realm of ideas\u2014in competing visions of the future, in the articulation of fears about nature and hopes of betterment\u2014lay the lasting legacies of the nineteenth century's nightmares. We live with them still.\n\n# I\n\nThe first portent of trouble in southwestern India came with the drought that set in over the princely state of Mysore in 1875. The following year, rainfall during the southwest monsoon was much lower than usual over the whole Deccan plateau. By October, as local supplies were exhausted, the first murmurings of famine began to be heard in districts across Madras and Bombay. In the western Indian countryside of Bombay Presidency, the alarm was raised early on by workers of the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha. Founded in 1870, the association was, in the words of its constitution, a \"mediating body\" between the state and \"the people.\" The Sabha was a bold experiment in representative politics\u2014each member had to produce a _mukhtiarnama_ (a power of attorney) signed by at least fifty people, authorizing him to speak on their behalf. Dominated by the landed and the wealthy, exclusively male in membership, the Sabha flourished under the leadership of Mahadev Govind Ranade, a judge and social reformer who carried a reputation as an orator when he moved from Bombay to Poona in 1871. The Sabha pioneered a new tradition of social investigation in India. The British kept close watch, sensing that the Sabha, in the words of one official, \"threatens to grow into an _imperium in imperio,_ \" noting that \"popular representation is a sharp weapon, and a very perilous one to play with.\" The Sabha's growth coincided with the worst famine to hit the region in living memory\u2014from the start, the Sabha played an important role in drawing attention to the suffering.\n\nIn a series of letters to the government of Bombay, written in the last few months of 1876, the Sabha gave an account of the famine's spread: one of the letters insisted that it contained \"details accessible only to those who, like the agents and correspondents deputed by the Sabha, live among, and form part of, the people overtaken by this calamity.\" The Sabha's workers mirrored the \"tours\" undertaken by British officials through their districts, but they presented a view closer to the ground. The dispatches are brief; village by village, they chart a looming catastrophe. One of the entries reads:\n\nPangaum, Oct 11\u2014No rain except the first showers.... Drinking water scarce, as in the hot season. The tank will last for 3 months. No new water in the wells.... Neighbouring villages in a worse condition. The only relief work is to be commenced at Mohol. Great distress is expected of the respectable and poor people. Grains should be imported and sold gratis.\n\nThe northeast monsoon brought no respite that winter, extending the drought to southeastern India. One contemporary observer noted that prices \"sprang at a bound\" to levels previously unknown. In a brutal reversal of what had been thought would be the impact of the railways, newly laid rail lines raised prices as grain was \"hurriedly withdrawn by rail and sea from the more remote districts,\" channeled to urban markets where speculators fed on fears of shortages to reap higher prices. In the summer of 1877, the monsoon was slow to begin and then patchy, followed by a deluge late in the season which destroyed many of the limited crops that had managed to take root. Water's absence, followed by a short burst of excess, brought cultivators to ruin across Madras Presidency, their reserves depleted by the previous year's crop failures. That summer the drought spread north; central India and parts of the northwest saw their lowest rainfall ever on record. They had few reserves to fall back on because so much grain had been exported from India, drawn by high prices on the London market. What began as a localized drought in Mysore became a catastrophic famine. The winter rains of 1877 brought some relief, but only in the summer of 1878 did \"normal\" rainfall produce a good harvest. The drought coincided with the most severe El Ni\u00f1o event in 150 years; its effect was global.\n\nEverywhere drought sparked a rapid rise in food prices accompanied by an abrupt loss of agricultural employment. Landless laborers in the worst-affected districts were the first to feel the effects. What followed was a collapse in the livelihoods and incomes of the most vulnerable sections of the population. Many people undertook long journeys in search of relief. By the end of 1876, starvation began to kill those who were most vulnerable. Illness thrived where immunity had been weakened by widespread starvation. Cholera and dysentery accompanied the movement of people, and social disruption contributed to their spread. The return of the rains in 1877, and then more fully in 1878, saw another spike in death: most likely as a result of malaria, which thrived in the sudden change in the ecology of water after a long dry spell.\n\nIN THE MIDST OF INDIA'S DISASTER, IN MAY 1877, RICHARD STRACHEY presented a lecture in London on the \"Physical Causes of Indian Famines.\" Strachey was from an aristocratic family deeply connected with empire. From the 1840s, as a member of the Bengal Engineers, he took an interest in irrigation. Meteorology was among his most enduring interests, and from 1867 to 1871 he served as director-general of irrigation. He would go on to lead the government of India's Famine Enquiry Commission of 1880. He began his lecture by depicting a constant struggle between the forces of life and death: \"Among the most active of forces are the conditions of local climate, and notably those of atmospheric heat and moisture.\" Many contemporary observers saw climate as an active force in the world. In its late-nineteenth-century English usage, \"agency\"\u2014from the medieval Latin _agentia_ \u2014was used as often to refer to natural as to human actions. India was overcome by the \"agency of drought,\" preyed on by \"agencies of destruction.\" These \"devastating forces of tempest, drought, flood and disease\" rendered human life fragile in their wake.\n\nAs the drought gripped the Deccan region, administrators and journalists and missionaries followed its path. Drought appears in their accounts as an unwelcome visitor, leaving telltale marks upon the land: \"The whole country is bare and brown,\" one letter described; \"tanks, which at this season of the year ought to be wide sheets of water, are now nothing but vast expanses of dry mud.\" Drought left its fingerprint on market prices. The most widely traveled famine observer was Sir Richard Temple, sent to tour the affected districts by the imperial government in Calcutta. He had one overriding goal\u2014to spend as little money on famine relief as possible. Critics charged that he barely dismounted from his carriage: he swept through the land and saw only what confirmed his prejudices. But his own pen left us a vivid description of monsoon failure. Temple recounts the progress of drought as if it were on a journey. \"On the right or southern bank of the Toongabhadra river,\" he reported, \"the drought developed all its most destructive agencies, and showed its greatest force all along the frontier.\" Drought \"visited\" the city of Madras, and then \"rested for some time on the districts of South Arcot, Tanjore, and Trichinopoly, and threatened them with evil.\" It had the force of a marauding army as it \"extended itself with havoc throughout the southern peninsula, laying waste the districts of Madura and Tinnevelly, right down to the sea-shore near Cape Comorin.\" Worse was to come. By the middle of 1877, \"all hope of the south-west monsoon was given up,\" the Madras government wrote to the British Indian capital in Calcutta. The government of southern India pleaded for resources. Endowed with a cruel propensity to tease, the clouds tantalized only to disappoint: \"Very heavy showers would fall with a dash from blackened skies over a small area, whilst all around the skies continued as iron.\"\n\nDrought was an \"agency\" of famine; its prime characteristics were violence and caprice. In many eyes, a Christian God brought or withheld rain: \"I now see but little chance\" of rain, wrote Mr. Price, collector of Cuddapah district, \"except by a special dispensation of Providence.\" Some invoked Hindu cosmology: the rains rested in the power of \"Indra and Vayu, the Watery Atmosphere and the Wind,\" who were \"still the prime dispensers of weal or woe to the Indian races.\" Others turned to the language of science to describe the physical drivers of climate: \"The true cause of all movements of the atmosphere which we describe as wind is wholly mechanical, being difference of pressure at neighboring places,\" Strachey declared. Mechanical or divine, to see climate as an active force was also to attribute a certain inevitability to drought. Famine appeared to be a natural characteristic of India, no less than its landscape. At best, governments and communities could adapt to the certainty of periodic monsoon failure. In the shadows of this resignation lay a British reluctance to acknowledge that now, to an extent unimaginable fifty years earlier, the means were at hand to mitigate the impact of famine quite drastically. That, after all, was the boosters' claim for the railways. But faced with the scale of the crisis, faced with demands to spend more money, it was easier to insist that famine was, and ever would be, India's climatic fate.\n\nIF THE DROUGHT WAS A FORCE OF NATURE, IT ALSO PRESENTED AN all-too-human crisis. Prolonged and exceptional in its severity, it threw into sharp relief the fractures of society. It exposed the fragile infrastructures of economic life. It pressed upon the limitations of the physical infrastructure\u2014the word only came into widespread use in English in the early twentieth century, from the French\u2014that had impressed so many observers of India's landscape. In the late nineteenth century, human dependence on water\u2014rains and rivers, wells and streams\u2014began to be posed as a moral and political challenge.\n\nIn India, as in many parts of the world, the weather reflected moral concerns. Throughout Christian Europe, extreme weather and geological events\u2014floods, droughts, eruptions, earthquakes\u2014were seen as manifestations of divine judgment. China had a deep tradition of \"moral meteorology,\" as historian Mark Elvin describes: \"Rainfall and sunshine were thought to be seasonal or unseasonal, appropriate or excessive, according to whether human behavior was moral or immoral\"; the conduct of the Emperor mattered most of all. \"The people of the empire bring floods, droughts, and famines on themselves,\" the Yongzheng emperor declared in a decree of 1731. Because extremes of climate were unevenly distributed, a moral geography of rain and drought could be discerned\u2014areas that suffered most, on this view, were those where standards of public behavior or administration had slipped. North America, too, had its version of \"moral meteorology.\" In the 1870s and 1880s, ideas about rainfall and virtue underpinned conflicting views of how land should be allocated in the Great Plains of the United States. The idea arose that \"rain follows the plow\": industrious white settlers would transform the land, and their labor would in turn bring rain. Settlers, historian Richard White writes, saw themselves as \"the agents of climate change.\" Aridity was a form of cultural or spiritual malaise.\n\nA form of \"moral meteorology\" pervaded the writings of missionaries in India who observed the great drought\u2014but it acquired a radical edge, as they suggested it was a judgment not on the morality of Indian society but rather on that of the British government. Florence Nightingale wrote from India in 1878 that \"the land of India is not especially subject to famine\"; she insisted that \"the cultivators of the soil are industrious; the native races compare favorably with other races in capacity to take care of themselves.\" The true nature of the problem was simple: \"We,\" the British, \"do not care for the people of India.\" \"Famine in India is no invincible foe,\" another observer wrote\u2014\"in a climate whose great danger is drought, and where Nature therefore teaches the necessity of precaution, we reap only a legitimate punishment when we suffer the penalties of imprudent neglect.\" Here was a reversal of the language of Malthus: the \"precaution\" was lacking, the \"imprudence\" manifest on the part of the British rulers of India and not its people. An American writer in the _New York Times_ went so far as to describe a \"state of society in India whose only parallel in recent times was to be found in American slavery.\" In a bold Tamil work depicting the great famine in verse, Villiyappa Pillai, court poet of the small kingdom of Sivagangai, turned the conventional view on its head. His bitingly satirical poem, published at the end of the nineteenth century, depicts the lord Sundarweswara (Siva) confessing to the starving people of the area that he was helpless in the face of their suffering\u2014he directs them instead just to write a letter to the local _zamindar_. The \"agencies of destruction\" were not climatic\u2014they were human.\n\nWho personified, or what embodied, the transformation sweeping India and leaving millions vulnerable to a failure of the rains? A clear culprit emerged from critical accounts of the famines of the 1870s: \"the new class of capitalists.\" They were described by W. G. Pedder, an official who had worked in Gujarat and Bombay, as \"men possessed by no ennobling ideas of public duty, cowards by caste and confession, citizens in no sense beyond that of benefiting society by selfish accumulation.\" Pedder insisted: \"The dearth was one of money and labour rather than of food; the cultivators were without the resources their own fields should have furnished, the labourers could not obtain work and wages.\" The core of Indian cultivators' vulnerability, he observed, was their \"constant relations with a mercantile class\" who combined \"the functions of general shopkeepers, dealers in agricultural produce, bankers, and money-lenders,\" known as _banias,_ or _saukars_. Already indebted to the local moneylender, cultivators found themselves trapped without reserves if the harvest should fail. Pedder juxtaposed the wily \"unscrupulousness\" of the lenders with the \"ignorance and timidity of the peasants.\"\n\nA lack of capital was the root cause of cultivators' vulnerability. The railway commissioner Lushington had seen this as early as the 1850s, when he cautioned against undue optimism about the railways. Andrew Wedderburn, the collector of Coimbatore district in Madras\u2014a humane and direct voice railing against official inaction during the famine\u2014saw that \"some villages have sold their brass vessels, their ornaments (even including their wives' 'talis'), their field implements, the thatch of the roofs, the frames of their doors and windows.\" In Bombay, G. L. Hynes, the master of the mint, saw something similar: \"Silver ornaments and melted country silver discs are pouring in,\" he wrote, to the tune of 9 lakhs (900,000) of rupees each month.\n\nThe leaders of the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha also had the malign influence of the moneylender firmly in their sights. In the first issue of their journal, in 1878, they published their analysis of the famine. They argued that India's cultivators \"are found to be too poor, too hopeless of retaining their independence, too inextricably involved in debt to be able to undertake agricultural improvements.\" The famine had served to \"throw the Ryots [cultivators] more and more into the hands of the Sowcars [moneylenders], and leave them little ground to hope a change for the better.\" Families fortunate enough to have sufficient resources to survive three seasons of drought now found \"the savings of years utterly exhausted.\" They, too, had no choice but to turn to the moneylenders\u2014and, at once, \"from free men they have been degraded into slaves.\"\n\nWHILE HUMANITARIANS, SOCIAL REFORMERS, AND EVEN SOME COLONIAL officials attributed India's vulnerability to famine to the grip of social and economic inequality, other observers drew a direct connection between nature's \"agencies of destruction\" and human actions. In the eighteenth century, a group of European naturalists known as \"desiccationists,\" many of whom had traveled and worked in tropical lands, argued that cutting down trees caused drought. Deserts, on their view, were but ruined forests. This view gained prominence through the work of Alexander von Humboldt, who wrote in 1819 that \"by the felling of trees that cover the tops and the sides of mountains, men in every climate prepare at once two calamities for future generations; the want of fuel and a scarcity of water.\" Desiccationist views were common in British India by the middle of the nineteenth century; very often they were used to condemn local pastoralism and to restrict the use of forests by India's tribal peoples, known today as _adivasis_. Justified by arguments for conservation, the colonial state encroached upon India's forests, claiming more and more forest land, as well as uncultivated \"wastelands\" for itself; this limited the use rights of local people in a punitive way.\n\nThe strongest iteration of the desiccationist view was penned by an anonymous correspondent to _Macmillan's Magazine_ in 1877. He called himself \"Philindus\"\u2014an echo, probably deliberate, of the liberal publication _Friend of India_. His dispatch reached a wide audience, discussed not only in England but as far away as Japan. Philindus begins his piece by recalling an episode at \"the most sacred sanctuary of South Indian vapidity: I mean the bar of the Madras Club,\" where he heard two men, \"Jones and Brown of the Civil Service,\" denigrating Arthur Cotton's achievements as driven by vanity and wasteful expenditure. After a strong defense of Cotton's genius, echoing Cotton's belief that water was the key to India's security and prosperity, Philindus set out his main claim: the \"disastrous action of drought in Southern India\" owed much to the \"enormous extent\" to which \"the jungles of the Carnatic, and of the Peninsula generally, have been cut down during the past century.\" He invoked the authority of the American geographer George Perkins Marsh, whose influential 1865 book contained the first global account of environmental transformation by human hands. Marsh had seen that \"as forests are cut down, the springs which flow from them, and consequently the water-courses which are fed by these, diminish in number, continuity and volume.\" Philindus approved: he was quite certain that \"the most crying of the evils\" afflicting South India was \"the increasing desiccation of the country from the reckless destruction of its trees and forests.\" In the first of their \"Famine Narratives,\" published for India's growing reading public, the Sabha's reformers invoked a similar sense of drought being caused by human intervention: \"Owing to denudation of forests and the absorption of waste lands under the mischievous system of a wrongly conceived revenue settlement,\" they argued, \"the occasional rain that falls is never retained by the soil.\"\n\nAt the peak of the great famine, the Government of India's Forest Act of 1878 brought India's forests under public ownership. Was this the avant-garde of global conservation, or a land grab that dispossessed India's most marginal people? It was both. The attempt to limit the pace at which India's forests were being cut down began with a material concern about rapid depletion of a profitable resource, vital not least to India's railways. By the 1870s, the ecological argument pushed in the same direction, spurred by concerns about the long-term climatic harm that deforestation brought. By the same token, the Forest Act compounded the creeping attack on the rights of India's _adivasis_. Wrote Valentine Ball, an Irish geologist and anthropologist who had spent many years in central India: \"The reservation of forest tracts which prohibits the inhabitants from taking a blade of grass from within the boundaries\" had the effect of leaving people \"cut off from... food sources throughout wide areas.\" Forests were a refuge particularly in lean times: a source of tubers, fruits, and other foodstuffs that staved off starvation, even if they were no defense against hunger. The encroachment of the state upon India's forests threatened the lifestyles as well as the livelihoods of _adivasi_ communities.\n\n# II\n\nThe famine provoked a searching look at Indian society; most of all, it turned the spotlight on the state. The British government's inaction, its seeming indifference to Indian lives, catalyzed criticism from within and from outside.\n\nThe most immediate charge was that the government of India had neglected the most basic precautions in advance of the drought, driven by a damaging parsimony. It had neglected southern India's web of tanks; by the 1870s, many of them lay in ruins. One British observer lamented that \"the former rulers of India, if not so great or so powerful, yet had more of that simple craft and homely benevolence which show themselves in storing the rain and diverting the torrent to the first necessities of man.\" In these humble tasks, the British colonial state failed. Their failure was evident when the rains at last came, late in the summer of 1877\u2014so much rain that \"the famine year of 1877 will appear in the Madras meteorological records as the year of the heaviest rainfall in a long period.\" The maintenance of tanks had fallen victim to the state's drive to cut spending, but many saw that \"when economy is required, [tanks] are the very last thing that should be tampered with.\" The neglect of India's infrastructure of water allowed \"a flow towards the sea of a precious fluid which represents in passing away unused a sacrifice of human lives.\" Florence Nightingale observed that the Madras rains of 1877 \"were lost, because the tanks were left unfinished in the autumn of 1876; the order having been issued for the stoppage of all public works\" as a measure to cut government spending. The result: \"Millions of tons of precious water so ran to waste,\" and millions of people starved for want of water. From this point on, the \"waste\" of India's water came to be a battle cry for humanitarians, engineers, and critics of colonial policy.\n\nA greater indictment of colonial rule arose from what the famine revealed about the conditions of life in India\u2014it was as if the catastrophe lifted a veil covering the everyday workings of Indian society and economy. The reason that so many people in India were so vulnerable to the failure of the rains, many argued, was that British domination had impoverished them, eroded their defenses. \"A people must be poverty-stricken beforehand to be thus absolutely cut down by want of food,\" an American observer of the famine wrote. The idea that British misrule had undermined Indian economic independence was not novel; Adam Smith had been damning in his assessment in _The Wealth of Nations_. By the 1860s, the notion of a \"drain of wealth\" from India was most closely associated with the writings of Dadabhai Naoroji, a Parsi merchant and scholar who would go on to be elected the first Indian member of the British Parliament. Naoroji penned a devastating verdict on the economic effects of British rule in India. The famines of the 1870s sharpened his scalpel. The vast bulk of India's people were \"living from hand to mouth,\" he wrote, so much so that \"the very touch of famine carries away hundreds of thousands.\" Despite this, he argued, the Indian peasantry bore a \"crushing\" burden of land tax\u2014India essentially paid for its own colonization through the \"home charges\" remitted each year to Britain. \"Every single ounce of rice... taken from the 'scanty subsistence'\" of India's people, Naoroji charged, \"is to them so much starvation.\" Heedless of India's suffering, British rule, in contravention of its own stated principles, \"moves in a wrong, unnatural, and suicidal groove.\"\n\nNaoroji's analysis was all the more powerful for being couched in the language of loyalty to empire: his fury was measured, every sentence backed by the colonial government's own statistics. Like so many political economists at the time, Naoroji was fond of fluid metaphors\u2014he wrote of a \"drain\" of wealth from India, of \"flows\" in the wrong direction. India's closeness to the brink of disaster and the fragility of its people's subsistence arose from its acute dependence on water. In the view of so many critics of British policy in the 1870s, to mitigate that dependence\u2014to secure life against the \"very touch of famine\"\u2014ought to be the overriding concern of government.\n\nAS THE DISASTER UNFOLDED, THE MOST PRESSING CHARGE AGAINST the British government was that it had failed to provide adequate relief to starving people: it was too slow, too callous, too divided within itself, too concerned with economy, or simply too incompetent. The deliberate withholding of relief by the state, underpinned by an unrelenting faith in free markets and notwithstanding plentiful stocks of food in other regions of India\u2014this remains at the core of historians' later attempts to provide a moral reckoning of India's nineteenth-century famines.\n\nWilliam Digby (1849\u20131904) wrote the most detailed account of the Madras famine, in two exhaustive volumes that appeared in 1878. Digby was a journalist and campaigner. From a humble start at his local paper, the _Isle of Ely and Wisbech Advertiser,_ Digby edited the _Ceylon Observer_ and, from 1877, the _Madras Times_. Digby's account is a tragedy in slow motion: a story of warnings ignored, precautions abandoned, decency abrogated. A recurrent theme in his account of the famine is the conflict between local officials, many of them humane and observant, and an imperial government hidebound by ideology. As the first reports of starvation deaths began to filter through to the government in the last months of 1876, every village magistrate in North Arcot district received a warning from the collector that they would be \"held responsible for the safety of individuals whose deaths may have been occasioned by starvation.\" But responsibility was precisely what the imperial government wished to avoid. Late in 1876, as it seemed more likely that large-scale famine relief would be necessary, the Madras government tried to bolster its granary by purchasing food in secret, acting through Messrs Arbuthnot & Co. The Madras government was at pains to do so anonymously so as not to interfere with the market, but its actions drew the ire of the imperial government, which ordered an immediate halt to the practice: \"The supreme authorities objected to interference with trade,\" Digby observed laconically.\n\nFamines had recurred periodically in India through the nineteenth century. British responses were ad hoc: they depended on the proclivities of the officials in charge at the time; they drew on local precedents and memories of earlier dearth; they were shaped by the security or fragility of colonial control over the affected areas. The most recent crisis before the disasters of 1876\u20131878, the Bihar famine of 1873\u20131874, was anomalous: on that occasion British intervention in the face of food shortages was unusually energetic and effective. Rather than imposing controls on the grain trade, the government imported directly 480,000 tons of rice from Burma, which by that time was emerging as India's new rice frontier. With regular and plentiful rainfall in the Irrawaddy delta, Burma seemed immune from the fluctuations of climatic fortune that bedeviled Indian agriculture. More locally, the state purchased grain incognito, acting through agency houses to stockpile food without creating panic in the market. Local people were employed on relief works for a cash wage. By contrast with common British practice, eligibility tests for relief were neither exacting nor punitive: the administration trusted the knowledge of village leaders and local-level officials. Even by the standards of, say, the late twentieth century, British intervention in the Bihar famine was a success. The official in charge of relief was Richard Temple.\n\nFar from celebrating the policy's success in Bihar, public reaction in England was harsh. _The Economist_ condemned the large expenditure on famine relief, concerned that it had led Indians to believe that it was \"the duty of the Government to keep them alive.\" Worse was to follow. A tract titled _The Black Pamphlet of Calcutta,_ circulated in 1876, turned its fire on Temple in particular, describing his policies as \"an economic catastrophe, a culmination of unthrift and unreason.\" It was published anonymously but its author was soon revealed as Charles O'Donnell, an Irishman who served in the colonial government of India. In these critics' eyes, the famine was a fiction, because for all the money spent, hardly a single death from starvation was recorded; they refused to see that this may rather have confirmed the policy's wisdom.\n\nTemple was stung by humiliation. An ambitious man, he was determined to learn from the experience, and more determined to see that it did not hold back his advancement. When Temple was appointed the viceroy's envoy to the famine districts in 1877, there were murmurings that he might be too generous. He set out to prove them wrong. As Digby pointed out, \"Sir Richard was commissioned to the distressed districts to economise, and it was known... that he would exercise economy.\" Temple fought to trim the scale of relief that the Madras government was providing to its starving subjects\u2014in what became notorious as the \"Temple Wage,\" he cut wages on relief works to (or even below) the level of basic subsistence. A newspaper in Ceylon pointed out with dark humor that the scale of rations provided in the famine relief camps of Madras was significantly lower than those enjoyed by a prisoner, Juan Appu, \"recently convicted of knocking out the brains of a near relative.\" In a missive \"from the affected districts,\" a missionary correspondent took aim at Temple's \"extra-economical theory of managing a famine\"\u2014perhaps there is a double meaning here, suggesting both that Temple's policy was excessively stingy, and that it was \"extra-economical\" in the sense of being motivated by ideology more than by economy. The letter concluded: \"The duty of a great Government is not only to prevent its subjects from dying of starvation but to save life.\"\n\nOthers around the world drew different lessons from India's famine. In Shanghai, as news of the horror of North China's famine reached the port city's elite, a feature in _Shenbao_ \u2014one of China's first modern newspapers\u2014praised the British response to India's famine to underline the paper's charge that the Chinese state had failed to relieve its suffering subjects. The reference to India was mostly rhetorical, a way to call attention to the Chinese state's weakness. It was not based on a deep understanding of the Indian famine; rather, _Shenbao_ 's account of the Indian famine drew largely on the accounts of Shanghai's British press, which reflected the ideological orthodoxy in support of Temple's parsimony.\n\nBY THE TIME THE SUMMER MONSOON ARRIVED IN 1878, SWATHS OF India lay in ruins. At a most cautious estimate, 5 million people had died from starvation or from disease. When the British government appointed a commission of inquiry to investigate the catastrophe, it was all set to be a whitewash. The viceroy, Lord Lytton, sought vindication in the face of widespread criticism at home and abroad; the finance minister, John Strachey, pushed for the appointment of his brother, Richard, as chair of the committee. Despite its origins, despite a heavy dose of self-justification, the Famine Enquiry Commission's 1880 report was an \"intellectual and administrative masterpiece,\" in the words of one of the most astute observers of hunger and famine in late-twentieth-century India. Under Strachey's leadership, the commission included (as \"English\" member) the Irishman James Caird, Madras official H. E. Sullivan, and C. Rangacharlu and Mahadeo Wasadeo Barve, officials of the princely states of Mysore and Kohlapur. They toured the country. They accumulated hundreds of hours of testimony. One theme dominated their report\u2014water.\n\nThe famine commissioners' diagnosis of the root cause of India's famines was unequivocal: \"All Indian famines,\" they wrote, were \"caused by drought.\" The commissioners saw that India's task was to find means for the \"protection of the people of India from the effects of the uncertainty of the seasons.\" The seasonality and unpredictability of the monsoon was at the heart of the matter. The report's opening sketch of India's geography takes the form of a narrative map of water, an account, by now familiar, of the frontiers of wet and dry lands. Strachey's long-standing interest in meteorology was one reason why the committee's report went beyond justifying imperial policy: Strachey saw, here, an occasion for the elevation of meteorology to a position of greater prominence in India's future. To Strachey's dismay, there was vigorous debate within the committee. The final report was accompanied by a dissenting note by Caird and Sullivan. They disagreed with the majority view that the government of India was right not to intervene in the grain trade. Caird and Sullivan condemned the reliance on harsh \"tests\" to determine eligibility for relief; above all, they advocated for the establishment of public granaries in remote districts, where private trade was unlikely to reach. India's suffering, they saw, came from a \"want of timely preparation to meet a calamity, which though irregular in its interval, is periodical and inevitable.\"\n\nIf there was disagreement on how far the state should intervene in markets, on the \"inevitability\" of drought all agreed. Turning to the question of whether droughts may better be predicted, the famine commission dismissed an idea that was fashionable at the time\u2014the theory that sunspots, dark and cool patches on the sun's surface caused by magnetic flux, followed eleven-year cycles correlated with droughts across large parts of Earth. The theory was championed by figures including the economist W. Stanley Jevons, famed logician and proponent of the \"marginalist revolution\" in economics, and William Wilson Hunter, editor of the _Gazetteer of India_. The commissioners, however, concluded that sunspots \"cannot be said to be in any sufficient degree established, still less to be generally accepted\"\u2014they had been \"contested on various grounds, such as that the evidence is directedly opposed to them.\" Instead, the commissioners lauded the patient work of meteorological observation. \"As at present no power exists of foreseeing the atmospheric changes effective in producing the rain-fall, or of determining beforehand its probable amount in any season,\" the commissioners concluded, \"the necessity becomes greater for watching with close attention the daily progress of each season as it passes, for ascertaining with accuracy and promptitude the actual quantity of rain in all parts of the country.\" They observed that \"within the last few years a very satisfactory system of meteorological observations has been established all over British India\"\u2014there were more than one hundred rainfall observation stations across the country by 1880, and these tracked the progress and development of the monsoon across the country. The famine commissioners insisted that \"it is of primary importance\" that this infrastructure \"shall be maintained in complete efficiency.\"\n\nThe most important institutional innovation of the commission lay in the Famine Codes, which sought to break the link between drought and famine. They consisted of prescriptions for local government officials faced with scarcity. Their ultimate tool was the provision of large-scale public works in famine-affected areas to generate employment income, and to attract food supplies to the area by boosting purchasing power. The codes were, by definition, an emergency measure, but they also stimulated thinking about how to reduce India's dependence on the vagaries of the monsoon. \"Among the means that may be adopted for giving India direct protection from famine arising from drought,\" the famine commission concluded, \"the first place must unquestionably be assigned to works of irrigation.\" The famine commission's overriding conclusion was that India's water resources needed to be managed better.\n\n# III\n\nTwenty years after the suffering of the 1870s, India experienced two more major famines that marked what historian Ira Klein has aptly called a \"grim crescendo of death.\"\n\nThe drought of 1896 was felt first in the \"black soil\" region of Bundelkhand in central India, in the nineteenth century a region at the frontier of cotton production for export. By the end of the year, the summer rains had fallen short; the suffering spread across central India, reaching up toward Punjab, down to Madras, and east to upper Burma. The return of the rains in 1897 then unleashed a lethal epidemic of malaria. The famine coincided with an epidemic of bubonic plague that arrived in Bombay in 1896. The epidemic would persist for a decade, thriving on the large-scale migration sparked by famine, feeding on a population weakened by hunger, spreading along the railway lines to rural areas. In the eastern region of Chota Nagpur, creeping deforestation and colonial forestry laws had imperiled local _adivasi_ communities, which had no local source of subsistence left, even as they fell through the cracks of the minimal safety net provided by colonial relief works. Mass starvation ensued. Only three years later, the same regions of central India faced another failure of the summer monsoon. Rainfall in 1899 was the lowest ever recorded in India. The drought covered an expanse of a million square kilometers of territory\u2014central India was again worst hit\u2014affecting tens of millions of people. In Bombay, the famine of 1899 and 1900 was the worst of the nineteenth century.\n\nBy the 1890s, photographic technology had become cheaper and more portable than it had been two decades earlier. Haunting images of starving people in India circulated through missionary and humanitarian networks around the world. Fund-raising drives garnered millions of pounds in donations. Missionaries, writers, and photographers traveled to India. Among them was the American George Lambert, representing the Home and Foreign Relief Commission that drew its members from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Nebraska, and Kansas. The famines of the 1890s helped to bring about a new global humanitarian sensibility on the part of middle-class publics in Britain, the United States, and Europe\u2014a sense of identification with the suffering of distant strangers. But the same imagery that brought forth donations often reinforced the idea of a helpless India at the mercy of the elements, diverting attention from the political and economic subordination to British interests that left such a large number of Indians vulnerable to the monsoon. The question that had raised itself in the 1870s remained: was famine a \"natural\" disaster, or a political one?\n\nThe backdrop to so many of the photographs, and to so many famine travelogues by European and American missionaries and journalists, was the sheer dryness of the land. In 1899, the _Times of India_ 's correspondent in the princely state of Kathiawar, in Gujarat, suggested that even a photograph might not be enough to convey the absence of water:\n\nWere I an artist of the impressionist school and did I wish to represent the scene, I should dash in yellowish grey, a long diminishing streak, which would be the road throwing up the heat that made the distance shimmering and indistinct; a great splash of reddy-brown on either side would indicate the land where the crops should be; and above all a liberal dash of blue from the horizon to the top of my canvas would be the sky. I do not think I ever hated blue before; but I do now.\n\nVaughan Nash (1861\u20131932), a British journalist and correspondent for the _Manchester Guardian,_ described \"tracts of dismal sun-cracked desert,\" and \"brown wilderness spreading to right and left\"\u2014there was \"no water in the wells, no water in the rivers,\" and the people he met at famine camps had their \"lips and throats too parched for speech,\" so much that \"the silence is unbroken.\" The famine camps offered a bare minimum. At a famine camp outside Poona, he wondered \"whether the people can subsist on this penal allowance without ripening for cholera and other famine diseases.\" \"There must be something wrong with India,\" he concluded, \"when one finds a collapse like this.\"\n\nThe \"collapse\" was not as severe as it had been in the 1870s. The Famine Codes had taken effect in 1883\u2014each province had its own, modeled on the template proposed by the 1880 famine commission. Once a district officially declared that it had crossed from \"scarcity\" into \"famine,\" the codes' machinery started up: public works were initiated to provide employment to boost local incomes, combined with relief for those not able to work. However, local governments worked under enduring, sometimes intolerable, pressure to economize; there was a clear incentive for district officials not to declare famines, and many waited until it was too late in 1897 and again in 1899. Nash pointed out that India's Famine Codes were \"excellent on paper,\" but in reality local governments were \"short of administrators, short of doctors, short of medical assistants, short of material.\" The infrastructure of relief was creaky, but it was extensive. At the peak of the famine of 1896\u20131897, 6.5 million people were receiving public relief. The monsoon failures of the 1890s were more severe than those of the 1870s\u20141899 saw the greatest shortfall\u2014but mortality was lower. Nevertheless, at the very least a million people died.\n\nThe more concerted response to famine in the 1890s cannot be ascribed to imperial benevolence, though there is no doubting the good intentions of many local officials. Rather the colonial state was newly aware of pressure from Indian civil society\u2014from journalists, lawyers, industrialists, and activists who came together in a growing number of associations: professional associations, caste associations, religious associations, reformist associations. They met in study clubs and book rooms, in university halls and public parks; they expressed their views in an expanding universe of print, in multiple Indian languages as well as in English. If the British were quick to see the malign influence of \"agitators\" behind every criticism of their rule, they could not avoid growing public scrutiny of their actions\u2014or their failure to act. The Poona Sarvajanik Sabha, which had played such an active role in documenting the 1876 famine, adopted a more confrontational approach under the leadership of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who took over in 1890. When before they petitioned government, now the Sabha convened large public meetings, speaking directly to _kisans_ (farmers) about their rights to relief. The Sabha's local informants produced reports that contradicted official statistics and fueled criticism. Unable to trust government to intervene, Indian civic leaders took famine relief into their own hands, often working with charities overseas. The private charity of wealthy families had always played a vital role in providing food to the hungry. Arguably it mattered more, for most of Indian history, than government policy; very often it was religiously motivated. But indigenous charity organized itself on a larger scale in the 1890s, mirroring as well as challenging state infrastructures. The two most prominent Hindu reformist movements of the age\u2014the Arya Samaj and the Ramakrishna Mission\u2014undertook large-scale charity work for the first time during the famines of the 1890s. The famines of the late nineteenth century spurred the development of pan-Indian political anger and activism.\n\n# IV\n\nMore than a century after the great famines, the question of responsibility still haunts us. For Mike Davis, author of a path-breaking global history of the famines, the answer is present even in his title, _Late Victorian Holocausts_. \"Imperial policies towards starving 'subjects' were often the exact moral equivalent of bombs dropped from 18,000 feet,\" Davis writes; the millions who died during the late Victorian famines were \"murdered... by the theological application of the sacred principles of Smith, Bentham and Mill.\" Yes, the rains failed on a colossal scale; but what turned drought into disaster was imperial policy: in the long term, by undermining the resilience of rural communities in the process of dragging India into modern capitalism; in the short term, by denying relief to starving people because of an unflinching refusal to interfere with \"free\" markets. Far from alleviating famine, the railways encouraged speculation, sucked food out of regions where it was needed most, and hastened the spread of epidemics.\n\nWithout absolving colonial high officials of callousness, other writers paint a more ambivalent picture. They point to how life and livelihood in rural India had long been acutely dependent on rainfall; as long as India's infrastructure remained patchy, this would continue to be the case. \"Famines were frequent and devastating\" in colonial India, writes geographer Sanjoy Chakravorty, \"but were they more frequent or more devastating than famines in pre-colonial regimes? Very doubtful.\" Economists continue to believe that \"railroads dramatically mitigated the scope for famine in India\" and made Indian lives \"less risky,\" but they point out that it took until the early twentieth century for these effects to be widely felt.\n\nIn his global history of the nineteenth century, J\u00fcrgen Osterhammel draws a contrast between the Indian and Chinese famines of the 1870s. Osterhammel calls the Indian famine a \"crisis of modernization,\" which is to say, it was a crisis brought on by the uneven impact of global markets on the Indian countryside. The Chinese famine, by contrast, he called more a \"crisis of production than a crisis of distribution.\" The affected parts of North China were already under strain; they inhabited an \"ecologically precarious niche, where for centuries state intervention had been able to ward off the worst consequences of disastrous weather conditions.\" Still reeling from the massive rebellions that rocked China in the 1850s and 1860s\u2014the Taiping Rebellion the largest of them\u2014and under pressure from European encroachment, the Qing state was much less capable than it was in the past of responding to the crisis. Osterhammel is cautious in his assessment of the historical consequences of the great famines of the 1870s. They brought no real change, he argues. In China there was \"no really significant increase in political or social protest\"; in India, British rule \"held firm.\"\n\nBut beyond the immense suffering they caused, there is a sense in which the famines were profoundly consequential for the future. The catastrophes of the late nineteenth century left many people\u2014Indian economists and British administrators, water engineers and humanitarian reformers\u2014with an acute anxiety about climate and water. To borrow a phrase from an earlier work of Davis's\u2014a book about California and not India\u2014climate was at the heart of a new \"ecology of fear.\"\n\n# FOUR\n\n# THE AQUEOUS ATMOSPHERE\n\nIN OCTOBER 1876, JUST AS ALARM SPREAD ACROSS MADRAS OVER THE failure of the rains, India's eastern seaboard was struck by the worst cyclones ever recorded. Two storms followed in rapid succession: the first hit Vishakapatnam on the Orissa coast; the second inundated the Meghna delta in eastern Bengal. The loss of life was incalculable\u2014the greatest toll was taken by the storm surge that accompanied the cyclone as it hit eastern Bengal. The commissioner of Dacca division, surveying the devastation, wrote of one locality that \"not a single hut and hardly a post was left standing\"; it was, he said, \"too soon to attempt to compute with anything like accuracy the loss of life which has occurred.\" In district after district, local people estimated that 40 or 50 percent of the local inhabitants had died. In another village on his journey the commissioner listed the victims not by their names but by their positions: \"Moonsif, rural sub-registrar, native doctor, post-master, court sub-inspector, abkaree darogah, two abkaree burkundauzes, seven constables, a mohurir of the moonsif's court, and a post-office peon.\"\n\nJohn Eliot, meteorologist of Bengal, set out to archive the storm. He relied on the usual combination of ships' logs and eyewitness accounts, supplemented now by records from the many land-based observatories that had been established over the preceding decade. Eliot conveyed the ferocity of the storm as it built over the Bay of Bengal: \"This piled-up mass of water advanced under the pressure of the acting forces towards the head of the Bay\" at twenty miles an hour. He estimated that the storm contained latent energy from the evaporation of water over the Bay of Bengal \"equal to the continuous working power of 800,000 steam-engines of 1,000 horse-power.\" Eliot proceeded to narrate an epic battle of forces between the storm wave rushing in from the ocean, and the Himalayan rivers\u2014the combined power of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra\u2014seeking an outlet to the sea. \"These two vast and accumulating masses of water opposed each other over the shallows of the estuary,\" he wrote; their \"struggle and contention for mastery\" brought death and destruction to millions of people. Eventually, the \"larger and more powerful mass of water forming the storm-wave\" overcame the river waters. It deluged the islands at the mouth of the Meghna, one of three rivers that constitutes the Ganges delta; the islands were themselves \"formed chiefly from the _detritus_ of the Himalayas deposited over the area in which the tidal and river waters wage incessant warfare.\"\n\nThis was a vision of India's climate shaped by water in every dimension: the descent of water from the Himalayan rivers and the ascent of water vapor from the Bay of Bengal and the winds stirring the ocean surface and transporting clouds to shore. On what scale should the climate of India be understood? The problem, Eliot noted, was that \"so little is known of the action and independent motion of the aqueous vapour in the atmosphere, and of its relations to the atmosphere of dry air.\" Tracking alongside the story of the disastrous famines, this chapter charts the quest to understand the monsoon that unfolded in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Famine spurred the development of Indian meteorology. As knowledge of the monsoons grew, so, too, did awareness that India's climate was shaped by distant influences. As India's boundaries hardened, it mattered more to understand the rivers that crossed them. New knowledge of water raised new questions about India's place in Asia\u2014and uncomfortable questions about how far science could conquer nature.\n\n# I\n\nMeteorology was an international science by the 1870s: the telegraph had allowed the world's weather to be tracked with unprecedented immediacy. In 1873, the United States and a number of European countries agreed to form the International Meteorological Organisation (IMO). Like many international associations at the time, the IMO was a voluntary initiative, founded on an aspiration for greater cooperation between national weather services in the sharing of information. Like many international associations at the time, its concerns were dominated by those of industrialized, imperial powers. Britain claimed predominance in international meteorology because it represented a vast empire of climatic variation.\n\nAmong the priorities of the new international meteorology was to devise a common and standardized language in which to describe the weather anywhere in the world. Especially daunting was the challenge of finding words to describe clouds in all of their variety, in their mutability and evanescence, in all of their profoundly local manifestations. The tools of Linnaean classification struggled to capture the texture of the skies. The basic cloud types that we still use\u2014the puffy white _cumulus;_ the gray blanket of _stratus;_ the wispy _cirrus;_ the dark rain cloud, _nimbus_ \u2014date from the early nineteenth century, in the parallel but independent work of Luke Howard in England and of the French statistician Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. The midcentury advent of photography was a fillip to cloud watchers, giving them the tool to capture clouds in a fleeting instant. Under the leadership of Swedish meteorologist Hugo Hildebrandsson, director of the Uppsala observatory, the IMO published its first international cloud atlas in 1892. The atlas aimed to standardize the cloud observations that professional and amateur meteorologists and cloud-watchers were compiling the world over. Hildebrandsson and colleagues illustrated their atlas primarily with photographs, each illustrating a typical instance of a particular cloud form, even if each individual cloud that had been photographed would have changed shape moments later. As historian of science Lorraine Daston observes, long after the effort to standardize observations, knowledge of clouds and weather remained a profoundly local affair.\n\nMeteorologists in the nineteenth century studied the genesis of storm systems in the Indian Ocean. CREDIT: Illustration by Matilde Grimaldi\n\nFormal classification could not always capture the nuance of clouds in different climates. In agrarian societies (and so across much of Asia) the mutability of clouds had an immediate bearing on people's fortunes and the sky was a series of signs to be read, or warnings to be heeded. Every Indian language contains a rich lexicon to describe clouds, capturing their relation to the seasons and to the landscape. In Tamil, _mazhaichaaral_ invokes the drizzle from clouds that gather atop hills; _aadi karu_ are the dark clouds that gather in the month of _aadi,_ promising a good harvest to come. Notwithstanding the promise of meteorological advances, British officials in India often turned to local, or what they called \"folk\" knowledge, when they wanted to understand how the weather shaped the harvest. Historian Shahid Amin found in the local archive of Gorakhpur district, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, a handwritten account from 1870, penned by a British district officer, compiling local aphorisms about the seasons. The sayings take the form of instructions to farmers issued by each season, personified by its name in the Sanskrit calendar. The hot summer season of \"Jeth\" (in May and June) says: \"Be undaunted by the heat of the season. Make ready your threshing flood; work hard and gather the produce before the rains set in.\" The winter season of \"Magh\" warns farmers to \"leave your cane mill and drive the water full into your fields. If God be pleased to give you rain you will be truly blessed.\" Other regional traditions across India had their own stores of wisdom about the clouds and the rains. In the words of a Tamil proverb, \"If clouds withhold their gifts and grant no rain, the treasures fail across the ocean's wide domain\"\u2014local wisdom conveyed an awareness of the connectedness of the weather across large areas. Cultivators searched the skies for signs of foreboding. \"Oh farmer!\" another proverb pleads, \"get out of the field with the young seedlings in your hand, should you see the first crescent moon in [the month of] _Arpisi_.\" Right up to the 1930s, alongside the development of meteorology, local governments in British India collected and published proverbs about climate and weather and cultivation.\n\nBut the monsoon failures of the 1870s were so total, so devastating, that new answers were sought from the new science of climate.\n\n# II\n\nFaced with the total failure of the rains in 1876 and 1877, India's meteorologists sought an explanation. Leading the quest was Henry Blanford, the geologist-turned-meteorologist who had risen to prominence with his study of the Calcutta cyclone of 1864, and who was now director of the Indian Meteorological Office. In his regular report on India's climate and rainfall for the year 1876\u2014written with factual detachment in the midst of disaster\u2014Blanford ascribed the drought to the \"remarkable and unseasonable persistence of dry northwest winds\"\u2014winds he had studied a few years earlier. Blanford observed two abnormal forces at work: the first was exceptionally high pressure across northern and western India; the second was a sharper than normal temperature contrast between northwestern and eastern India. He concluded that \"some cooling influence more potent than usual was at work, probably in the Punjab and on the northern mountain zone.\" The following year, again, Blanford reported that \"the land winds have been so persistent in the upper provinces and on the plateau south of the Ganges, as to cause an almost complete failure of the summer rains in that region.\" As he sought to understand what had happened, what Blanford needed above all was data.\n\nBy the time of the famine commission report in 1880, India had more than one hundred meteorological observation centers. In the decade that followed, Madras, for instance, maintained eighteen observatories under the directorship of Elizabeth Isis Pogson. She was the daughter of Norman Pogson, an astronomer who was director of the Madras Observatory for decades. Isis was taken on in 1873 in the role of \"computer,\" earning the salary of a \"cook or a coachman.\" The family grew up in poverty, and Isis was forced to work, as well as looking after her siblings upon her mother's death. By the 1880s, as meteorology developed as a branch of science separate from astronomy, she was placed in charge of Madras's network of monitoring stations.\n\nPogson was zealous, inspecting regularly as many of the rain monitoring stations as she could. Her reports exposed the shaky edifice upon which India's weather data were based. Weather observatories tended to be built on hospital grounds, under the responsibility of the local medical officer; some were more enthusiastic than others about this addition to their duties. At Cochin, Pogson found that the local station needed better fencing, \"to prevent stray cattle straying into the shed\"; she personally arranged for supplies from Oakes and Company of Madras. She battled vandals as much as cattle. In Cuddapah, \"the grass minimum thermometer had only been in use for six days when it was... found broken outside the hospital compound, evidently done out of sheer mischief.\" From Kurnool, she had to report that the data were \"perfectly useless\" because of the positioning of the apparatus. There, the local postmaster had to double as the meteorological assistant, and he struggled with the job. \"He was very willing and anxious to learn,\" Pogson wrote, \"but... could not possibly undertake to record\" the data \"as his combined duties as Postal and Telegraph Master were too much.\"\n\nThe traces she has left in the archive are filtered through the technical language of meteorology and contained within columns and tables of official forms. As far as I know she left no personal papers\u2014we can only speculate about how Isis Pogson experienced being a rare woman within the scientific apparatus of British India. As a young science struggling for legitimacy meteorology was likely more open, a little freer from prevailing hierarchies, than more established fields. Meteorology was among the \"field sciences\" that, as historian Kapil Raj shows, were more open to local knowledge than the laboratory sciences. But the obstacles Pogson faced getting her due recognition as a pioneer of global meteorology are telling. In 1886, she was nominated for membership of the Royal Astronomical Society; she was turned down after the council decided that the use of the masculine pronoun throughout the Society's charter meant that women could not be admitted as fellows. She finally became a member only in 1920, after she had returned to England, leaving India and meteorology behind.\n\nThe Indian staff of the meteorological department, too, found a degree of openness they would not have encountered elsewhere in the bureaucracy of the Raj, though this was always weighed down by the knowledge that they could never rise beyond a subordinate position. Much was left in their hands by an institution that was young, understaffed, and underfunded. The most senior Indian meteorologist under Blanford, Lala Ruchi Ram Sahni, wrote a memoir in the 1930s, by which time he had risen to prominence as a patriot and a social reformer in Punjab; his recollections give us a rare insight into everyday life in the cockpit of monsoon science. Ruchi Ram recalled the global reach of Indian meteorology even at that early stage; Blanford would invite him home regularly to sit down and discuss the latest research findings \"made in Russia, America, or somewhere else.\" Blanford's emphasis was always \"on the interdependence of the weather in different parts of the world.\" Ruchi Ram recalled that this \"made a deep impression on me in its widest implications.\"\n\nBut Ruchi Ram concluded his account of the meteorological department on a more personal note. He suggested that \"if all Englishmen were like Mr Blanford, the social and political relations between the two races [British and Indian]... would have been quite different from what, unfortunately, we find today.\" He absolved Blanford of any sense of racial arrogance. Ruchi Ram's most powerful memory was \"trifling,\" but revealing. Most British officials in those days, he recalled, would bark orders at their subordinates, keeping them waiting, and standing\u2014but not Blanford. Blanford, Ruchi Ram wrote, \"never once shouted to me from his chair, or even sent for me through the _chaprasi_.\" Instead, \"the old man would get up from his seat, and opening the door that separated our rooms, would say gently, 'Lala Ruchi Ram.'\"\n\nLooking forward, it is surprising to note how many Indian intellectuals spent time working in the meteorological department in the early twentieth century. They included Chintamani Ghosh, founder of the influential nationalist periodical _The Modern Review,_ and Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, a master statistician who would play a leading role in making economic policy in independent India. In part, this may have been down to the way meteorology posed a daunting challenge of statistical analysis, which attracted many of India's brightest minds; in part, it may have come from a sense that understanding the monsoon was of vital importance to India's future. And perhaps the Meteorological Department also left them freer from restrictions and pressures. On that count, Ruchi Ram learned one important lesson from Blanford: \"He would ask me not to do this or that work myself, but got it done by one of the clerks so as to find [me] more time for self-study.\" But that is to get ahead of the story.\n\nAS RECORDS OF THE MONSOON ACCUMULATED, METEOROLOGISTS looked to capture its \"normal\" characteristics. In the late 1870s, Henry Blanford described the monsoon as a self-contained system; a climatological force that shaped and demarcated the Indian subcontinent: \"India, together with the circumadjacent seas, is, in the main, a secluded and independent area of atmospheric action.\" In Blanford's vision, the monsoons were an active force\u2014he saw that \"the goal of the monsoon, the place of low barometer to which its course is directed, is constantly changing.\" Blanford viewed the monsoon as driven by the \"primary contrast of land and water.\" He confirmed what was by then well known, that the driving force of the monsoon was the difference in solar heat received by the land surface of India at different points in the year, and its contrast with the relative heating or cooling of the Indian Ocean. But Blanford was able, now, to introduce new complexities to the science of the monsoon. He showed that the monsoon was not, as many had believed, \"one current flowing alternately to and from Central Asia,\" but rather that it was formed from the intersection of \"several currents, each having its own land centre.\" He described an alternate opening and closing of the Indian subcontinent to wider atmospheric forces. In the periods of transition, as the winds reversed\u2014between March and May, and again in October and November\u2014Blanford observed that \"the interchange of air currents between land and sea is, in a great measure, restricted to India and its two seas.\" But once the southwest and northeast monsoons had set in, they connected the Indian \"wind system,\" as Blanford called it, with \"those of the Sunda Islands and Australia, and, at one season, the trade winds of the South Indian Ocean.\"\n\nDriven by clear laws, Blanford believed that the monsoons were strongly predictable. \"Order and regularity are as prominent characteristics of our atmospheric phenomena,\" he wrote, \"as are apparent caprice and uncertainty those of their European counterparts.\" Beneath this broad predictability, however, the monsoon was characterized by its unevenness. Within any given monsoon season, Blanford observed, rains were not \"persistent and unvarying\"; rainfall was subject to \"prolonged periods of suspension\" as well as \"regular interruptions known as 'breaks.'\" Even more striking was the monsoon's spatial unevenness: meteorologists found \"a great diversity of rainfall\" in different parts of India. \"No country in the world,\" Blanford insisted, \"furnishes such contrasts.\" Even as the broad contours of the monsoon seemed amenable to prediction, uncertainty was a defining climatic feature in many parts of the country, and \"those provinces which have the lowest rainfall are also those in which it is most precarious.\"\n\nMeteorological anxiety about the unevenness of India's rainfall shaped perceptions of the land itself. In the most lyrical passage in his guide to India's weather, Blanford contrasted tropical with temperate landscapes:\n\nInstead of feeding perennial springs, and nourishing an absorbent cushion of green herbage, the greater part flows off the surface and fills the dry beds of drains and watercourses with temporary torrents. In uncultivated tracts, where jungle fires have destroyed the withered grass and bushy undergrowth, and have laid bare the soil and hardened its surface, this action is greatly enhanced;... not only is water lost for any useful purpose, but by producing floods, becomes an agent of destruction. Under any circumstances, the character of the rainfall is hardly compatible with economical storage and expenditure in any high degree; and much more, therefore, than in temperate regions is it incumbent on us to safeguard such provident arrangements as nature has furnished for the purpose.\n\nThe rhythms governing the distribution of rainfall proved an enduring mystery. Indian meteorologists pored over the correlations of monsoon failure across different parts of the country. Blanford observed the \"curious relations in the way in which certain provinces are prone to vary alike,\" suffering drought or excessive rainfall simultaneously, \"while others vary in the opposite direction.\" The 1880 famine commission observed that on five occasions over a century, severe droughts on the Indian Peninsula were followed, a year later, by drought on the plains of North India. The causal mechanisms at work eluded meteorology until well into the twentieth century. Much uncertainty still remains.\n\nAs clues mounted, Blanford looked back at his annual reports for 1876 and 1877, and he grasped the significance of two tentative observations he had made at the time. The first was that the years of the great drought had also seen unusually heavy snowfall over the Himalayas, later than usual in the winter. Blanford investigated this puzzle over the years that followed. By 1884, he was convinced that the \"extent and thickness of the Himalayan snows exercise a great and prolonged influence on the climatic conditions and weather of the plains of North-Western India.\" He suggested that keeping a close watch on Himalayan snowfall might hold the key to predicting the strength of the summer's monsoon to follow. But he was also quick to acknowledge that the forces at work might be far larger. Between 1876 and 1878, he wrote, \"excessive pressure was shown to affect so extensive a region, that it would be unreasonable to attribute it to the condition of any tract so limited as a portion of the Himalayan chain,\" vast though the mountains were. Blanford's calculations showed that high pressure had prevailed across \"extra-tropical Asia... and in Australia.\"\n\nWeather scientists across the British empire sought to pool their expertise and their information. Isis Pogson's detailed account of her library's holdings in Madras gives us a glimpse of these global connections. It included the proceedings of the First International Meteorological Congress in Vienna and reports from observatories in Batavia and Singapore and Manila. The development of monsoon science probably owed more to imperial and interimperial networks within Asia and Oceania than to wider international ones. As Blanford pursued his intuition about the great drought, he relied heavily on \"private correspondence\" with district officials in the Himalayas, and with meteorologists across the British Empire. He wrote to his counterparts at other stations across the Indian and Pacific oceans asking them to furnish him with data on atmospheric pressure from 1876 to 1878. Charles Todd, chief meteorologist of South Australia, was quick to respond with records from South Australia and the Northern Territories. Todd and Blanford both saw that their data correlated. By 1888, Todd concluded that \"there can be little or no doubt that severe droughts occur as a rule simultaneously\" over India and Australia. Information filtered in to Blanford from island observatories, too, which had long been central to British and French ecological investigations: Mauritius, Reunion, the Seychelles, and Ceylon. It was clear, by the 1880s, that the scale of influences on India's climate reached far beyond India's shores.\n\nThe famine commission of 1880 had expressed hope that the development of meteorology may provide some advance warning of monsoon failure. In 1881, Blanford was asked to come up with concrete proposals to implement the famine commission's recommendations for the development of India's meteorological infrastructure. His priority was the establishment of more monitoring stations. But he also looked to the more systematic collection of data from ships: a strengthening of the earliest maritime roots of meteorology. Information from ships was \"urgently required\" not only to track storms, but also \"to throw light on the causes of the variations of the south-west monsoon rainfall.\" From 1881, data was collected systematically from every ship entering the port of Calcutta.\n\nIn 1882, Blanford began to produce his first, tentative monsoon forecasts. A long-range monsoon forecast was a fundamentally different enterprise from the storm warnings that had dominated the concerns of Indian meteorologists. Especially with the aid of the telegraph, the approach of storms was now immediately visible. Cyclones were dramatic; their impact was urgent. Forecasting a year's monsoon, by contrast, required a more fundamental understanding of climate and climatic variation, founded on the slow analysis of a wide range of parameters on longer timescales. Despite his own awareness that India's climate was subject to oceanic or even planetary influences\u2014a phenomenon that we now know as \"teleconnection\"\u2014Blanford chose to base his forecasts on one primary indicator: snowfall in the Himalayas. From 1885, the Indian Meteorological Office's annual monsoon forecasts were published in the _Gazette of India_ \u2014and for the first few years, they proved accurate, at least as a broad-brush indication of whether monsoon rainfall was likely to be normal, excessive, or deficient.\n\n# III\n\nThe investigation of the oceanic and planetary influences on India's climate became an enduring concern for John Eliot (1839\u20131908), Henry Blanford's successor as director of the Indian Meteorological Office. The son of a schoolmaster and a graduate of Cambridge, Eliot began his career in India lecturing at the engineering college in Roorkee, which Proby Cautley had established at the head of the Ganges Canal; he moved on to Muir College in Allahabad, where he also served as director of the local meteorological observatory. In 1874, he took up a position as professor of physical science at Presidency College, Calcutta, where Blanford had also taught\u2014and Eliot took over Blanford's role as meteorological reporter to the government of Bengal. In 1886, Eliot again succeeded Blanford, now as the meteorological reporter to the government of India\u2014effectively the head of India's meteorological service\u2014and held that position until 1903. Tall and heavy-set and prone to bouts of illness, Eliot was also an \"accomplished musician\" on the piano and organ. In contrast with Blanford, Eliot was known, by his Bengali staff, as \"the native hater.\" Blanford's most senior Indian officer, Lala Ruchi Ram Sahni, decided he would rather quit his job and move to the Punjab Education Department than work for the irascible and prejudiced Eliot.\n\nLike Blanford, Eliot first served in Bengal. Like Blanford, his early work was on the cyclones that threatened the Indian coast. Even as prolonged drought stalked the land, sudden tropical storms continued to pose a recurrent threat, as Eliot had seen during the cyclones of 1876. Eliot pursued simultaneously the two strands of Indian meteorology that Blanford handed on to him: the study of extreme weather events, and the quest to forecast each year's monsoon. The first proved easier than the second to achieve.\n\nEliot's greatest influence on the field came from his understanding of cyclones. A few years after taking over as chief meteorologist of British India, Eliot published his _Handbook of Cyclonic Storms in the Bay of Bengal_. The nautical roots of monsoon science remained evident: Eliot's book was, above all, a practical guide for seafarers. It gained readers across Asia. Among those who learned from Eliot's book\u2014calling it both \"masterful\" and instructive\"\u2014was Father Jos\u00e9 Algu\u00e9 (1856\u20131930), a Spanish Jesuit meteorologist who led the Manila Observatory and stayed on after the 1898 American conquest of the Philippines to head the weather bureau. From a network of observatories across the western Pacific, local weather watchers grappled with the power and the unpredictability of tropical storms known as \"typhoons\" in the Chinese-speaking world: storms identical in nature to the cyclones of the Indian Ocean and the hurricanes of the Atlantic. The Japanese government invested in a centralized system of weather observation in keeping with its modernizing thrust after the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Elsewhere private bodies took the initiative\u2014particularly the Jesuits, who founded a series of meteorological observatories across and beyond the Spanish empire: at the Real Colegio de Bel\u00e9m in Havana (in 1857), at Ateneo Municipal de Manila (in 1865), and at Zikawei (Xujiahui) on the outskirts of Shanghai (in 1872). From 1869, the British-run Chinese Maritime Customs Service developed a network of meteorological observation. As in India, the practical value of storm forecasts for mariners provided the spark. Robert Hart, director of the Chinese customs, wrote of his hope of \"throwing light on natural laws and... bringing within the reach of scientific men facts and figures from a quarter of the globe which, rich in phenomena, has heretofore yielded so few data for systematic generalisation.\" These observatories exchanged information and developed a network of observation across the Pacific coast of Asia; but this remained walled off from the Indian Ocean, even as data began to reveal the connectedness of Asia's climate across its whole expanse. Algu\u00e9 was a towering figure, and he found much in Eliot's work on the Bay of Bengal to echo his own studies on the Philippine archipelago.\n\nIn his 1904 treatise on _The Cyclones of the Far East,_ a revised English version of a Spanish text written in 1897 (penned under the \"roar of the cannon and the rumors of war\" that \"rob the mind of the calmness which is so necessary in a work of this kind\"), Algu\u00e9 insisted that \"there is no tropical storm which is developed or felt in the sea or on the coasts of China which has not exercised some influence upon this Archipelago.\" The Manila Observatory built weather monitoring stations across the Philippines, staffed by Filipino volunteers and a growing cadre of trained local technicians. Algu\u00e9 aimed to educate the public about the tropical storms that posed a recurrent threat to their lives and livelihoods. But just like Blanford and Eliot in India, Algu\u00e9 imagined a broader climatic region. The telegraph allowed for the transmission of instantaneous weather information. The Manila Observatory could now warn the China coast of approaching storms; meteorologists could \"watch\" storms developing in the Pacific. A French journalist wrote admiringly of the \"completeness with which the Asiatic continent, from Cape St. James to the mouth of the Amur river, is safeguarded against surprises thanks to the meteorological services of Japan and the Philippines.\" \"Owing to the opening up of the Far East in recent years,\" Algu\u00e9 wrote, he had revised his work on the Philippines to give it \"a greater compass.\" That \"compass\" reached beyond the South China Sea and toward the Bay of Bengal.\n\nPart of Algu\u00e9's book was devoted to an account of \"two very remarkable storms\" described by Eliot. In a feat of meteorological detection, Algu\u00e9 matched up Eliot's accounts of the Port Blair cyclone that hit the Andaman Islands in November 1891, and the Chittagong cyclone of October 1897, with his own records in Manila. Of the storm of 1891, Eliot had simply written that there was an \"absence of information\" on the cyclone's origins in the South China Sea. Algu\u00e9 found a small item in the _Bulletin_ of the Manila Observatory for October 1891 that might provide the missing context: \"Very probably the typhoon which was felt on the 30th and 31st in Singora and other cities,\" Manila's meteorologists wrote, \"then traversed the Peninsula of Malaca after running through the Gulf of Siam, to obtain new strength in the Bay of Bengal.\" Ships' logs allowed observers in the Philippines to track the path of the storm down the South China Sea, until they lost sight of it in the Gulf of Siam\u2014which is precisely where Eliot began his account. Eliot picked up the storm in Siam, where on November 1, 1891, a storm wave flooded Chaiya, and \"387 religious buildings and 4,238 other buildings were more or less completely destroyed.\" It moved out over the Andaman Sea causing devastation in Port Blair, and fizzled out over the east coast of India.\n\nAlgu\u00e9 reconstructed the Chittagong cyclone of 1897 with equal precision. There, too, Eliot began his account of the storm on the Malay Peninsula, but Algu\u00e9 traced it back to the seas around the Philippine archipelago. He combed through accounts from Jesuit observers in the Philippines; he tracked the storm's path through the logs of the German steamer _Sachsen,_ heading from Singapore to Hong Kong, and the British ship _Faichiow,_ traveling from Bangkok to Hong Kong.\n\nAlgu\u00e9's account reveals how little communication there was at the time between weather observatories in the South China Sea and those in the Indian Ocean. Each body of water seemed a closed system, each with its own characteristic storms\u2014the typhoon seas and the cyclone seas. The expansion of telegraphic communication allowed for a new sense of scale to emerge, a new way of envisaging weather in time and space. Algu\u00e9's map of the two \"remarkable storms\" presents a different Asia: an Asia of storm tracks that traversed sea and land, crossing imperial borders; a coastal rim from the Philippines in the east to India in the west that shared risks to an extent previously unimagined.\n\n\"Two Remarkable Cyclones\": a map from Algu\u00e9's study of typhoons and cyclones. CREDIT: Rev. Jos\u00e9 Algu\u00e9, _The Cyclones of the Far East_ (Manila: Bureau of Public Printing, 1904)\n\nBut where Eliot succeeded in illuminating the nature and the threat of cyclones, his long-range forecasts of the South Asian monsoon fared less well. The number of weather monitoring stations in India grew from 135 in 1887 to 230 in 1901. By the turn of the twentieth century, the meteorological office issued five daily weather reports\u2014one for India as a whole, and one for each major region (including one for the Bay of Bengal). Eliot's most significant innovation was to introduce what he called an \"extra-Indian\" dimension to his forecasts. He incorporated into his forecasts data from the southern Indian Ocean; he was particularly convinced of a correlation between pressure in Mauritius and monsoon rainfall in India. Eliot's forecasts grew increasingly elaborate through the 1890s as they \"extended to thirty printed foolscap pages.\"\n\nHowever, Eliot's forecasts failed to warn of the climatic disasters that arrived in India in 1896\u20131897, and again in 1899\u20131900. Both, later research would show, were strong El Ni\u00f1o years; both droughts reached beyond India to affect China, Southeast Asia, and Australia. In 1899, Eliot's forecast predicted that monsoon rainfall would be \"on the average of the whole area... slightly above the normal.\" As it proved that year the shortfall from \"the normal\" was worse than ever before. But even had Eliot predicted the drought accurately, it is unlikely that the British colonial government would have had the willingness or the drive to intervene on the scale that would have been necessary to avert starvation.\n\n# IV\n\nWhat did it imply to think of Asia as an integrated climatic system? According to the evolving understanding of storms and monsoons, Asia appeared as an expanse of depth and altitude put in motion by the circulation of air. It was a land- and seascape defined by nature rather than by empires, its boundaries dictated by the winds and the mountains. But as soon as this picture of climate was translated into two-dimensional maps, the weight of political boundaries became evident. The first _Climatological Atlas of India,_ compiled by John Eliot after his retirement from India, began with a map of winds and pressure across an interlinked oceanic and continental system. It showed how the climate of India was shaped by the transfer of heat and energy between the Eurasian continent and the vastness of the Indian Ocean. This was in keeping with Eliot's own, evolving understanding of India's monsoon. But the flurry of maps in the atlas\u2014monthly maps of temperature and humidity and rainfall, cloud cover and wind direction and wind speed\u2014confined themselves to the territorial expanse of British India. In map after map, the territory of British India was shaded a different color from the surrounding mass in order to stand out; even the arrows showing wind speed are limited to the subcontinent, as though the winds were self-contained. Only the map of storm tracks stretches out toward the Bay of Bengal, as if the ocean were but an external source of weather as it affects the land.\n\nClimate science was forced into contact with geopolitics. Ideas about India's climate echoed, and informed, broader debates about India's place in the world. The networks of storm warnings along the coastal crescent from India to China mirrored Asia's maritime geography. The names of the stations that broadcast telegraph reports were the names of the great ports; the tracks of the tropical cyclones they monitored were the tracks of busy shipping lanes. Research on the longer-term regularities of India's _climate,_ as opposed to episodic weather, pointed in a different direction. India's climatology emphasized its distinctiveness, even its isolation. As Blanford put it, the monsoon system rendered India \"a secluded and independent area of atmospheric action.\" Ideas about climate coincided with new understandings of both geology and geopolitics. Blanford had begun life as a geologist, and in the late nineteenth century others in that field delved deeper into India's natural history. They argued that India was a breakaway fragment of the lost supercontinent of Gondwana that had collided with Eurasia in what was, on a geological timescale, the recent past. In the realm of geopolitics, at the same time, British strategists were increasingly worried by threats to their dominance that came not from sea, but from land, through the mountains of Central Asia\u2014the threat from Russia above all. These arguments about India\u2014each of them depicted visually in the form of maps\u2014came together to produce a \"subcontinental\" as opposed to what had been essentially a maritime view of India. The use of the term \"the Indian subcontinent\" dates from the early twentieth century. The Himalayas were crucial to this vision of India. They came more clearly into view in the last two decades of the nineteenth century: their role in India's climate, their place as the source of India's rivers, their strategic importance to India's security.\n\nThe official compendium of India's history and geography, the _Imperial Gazetteer_ \u2014edited by William Wilson Hunter, a keen meteorologist as well as an ethnographer, and published in eight volumes in 1881\u2014insisted that \"by India we now imply not merely the wide continent which stretches southward from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, but also the vast entourage of mountainous plateaux and lofty ranges.\" India, Hunter insisted, \"can no longer be considered apart from that wide hinterland of uplands.\" This was a political as much as a geographical imperative. \"India,\" he wrote, \"must be held to include those outlying territories over which the Indian administration extends its control, even to the eastern and southern limits of Persia, Russia, Tibet, and China.\" It was overland, across the mountain passes from the northwest, that every invading force\u2014save the British\u2014had arrived in India. India's imperial rulers continued to fear a resurgent threat from their rivals among landed Eurasian empires. But Hunter's concern was with the future as much as with a repetition of the past. In \"a future of railways developments,\" with a \"rush of motor traffic,\" it was possible that \"the land approaches to India\" would \"rival those of the sea\"\u2014\"then will some of these again become the highways of the eastern world.\" By that time, \"we shall take out tickets in London for Herat, and change at Kandahar for Kabul or Karachi.\" Among these frontiers, the least explored but one \"potentially destined to play an important part in Indian history\" was \"the great highway of the Brahmaputra valley from the plateau of Tibet to the plains of Assam.\"\n\nHunter drew two conclusions. The first was that \"the material wealth of India largely depends\" on its \"capacity for the storage of that water supply which carried fertility to its broad plains.\" The other was that British India's security depended on \"guarding the gateways and portals of the hills,\" preventing \"those landward irruptions\" that had reshaped Indian history on many occasions in the past. These propositions would endure; they would outlast the British Empire that Hunter and his contemporaries wanted above all to preserve. And here is the contradiction at their heart: envisioning India through its rivers encouraged a far-reaching consideration of its connections with distant places, of \"world highways\" (or potential \"highways\") that situated India in relation to the flow of goods, people, money, and water to and from China, Tibet, and the expanse of Central Asia. By contrast, to see the Himalayas as a natural barrier, one always under threat of breach, was to advocate for a vision of India as a bounded place, an \"amphitheater\" sealed off from the rest of Asia. Natural frontiers became synonymous with the security of the realm. Hunter's concern with the economic value of water to Indian agriculture reinforced this bounded view. Water was a resource to be stored, possessed, harnessed, and put to work: the essence of India's \"material wealth.\"\n\nHunter's was a view moving up to the mountains, and away from the ocean. The last part of the nineteenth century saw a final push of Himalayan exploration, which had begun a century earlier. When Trelawney Saunders drew his map of India's mountains and river basins in 1870, he noted that Tibet was still _terra incognita;_ Arthur Cotton argued the same when he dreamed of a canal link between India and China. Locating the source of Asia's great rivers was the final frontier in the spate of expeditions undertaken by European explorers in the nineteenth century. It was not until his expedition of 1905\u20131908 that the Swede Sven Hedin finally discovered the source of both the Indus and the Brahmaputra on the Tibetan Plateau. Describing his first sight of the Brahmaputra, Hedin fell into rapture. \"Above the dark-grey ridge rises a world of mountains which seems to belong to the heavens rather than the earth,\" he wrote of the northern Himalayas, \"between them and the dark grey crest, comparatively near to us, yawns an abyss, a huge fissure on the earth's crust, the valley of the Brahmaputra or the Tsangpo.\" He described the water: \"Bluish-green and almost perfectly transparent, it flows slowly and noiselessly in a single bed to the east, while here and there fishes are seen rising.\"\n\nA decade after Frederick Jackson Turner's famous address to the American Historical Association, on the \"closing\" of the American frontier, the British imperial geographer and strategist Halford Mackinder made the point on a much larger scale. In 1904, just the year before Hedin's expedition, Mackinder argued that \"geographical exploration is nearly over.\" There were no \"blank spaces\" left on the map of the world. In Asia, he witnessed \"the last moves of the game first played by the horsemen of Yermak the Cossack and the Shipmen of Vasco da Gama.\" Mackinder foresaw that the heartland of Eurasia would, again, become the pivot of global power. \"A generation ago steam and the Suez Canal appeared to have increased the mobility of sea-power relatively to land-power,\" he declared, but now transcontinental railways were \"transmuting the conditions of land-power.\" In this light the mountainous frontier of the Himalayas still appeared remote and forbidding. But it was now clear that they might contain vast water resources\u2014resources to be captured for the development and security of the plains.\n\nAnd here we have the paradox that deepened in these years: water and climate were boundless. Their boundlessness became clearer with every advance in the technologies of measurement. Yet, as the next chapter will show, they came under ever tighter but more fragmented territorial control. We turn now to the fevered quest for water that gripped India, and most of Asia, in the early decades of the twentieth century.\n\n# FIVE\n\n# THE STRUGGLE FOR WATER\n\nIN _I NVISIBLE CITIES_, HIS TALE OF AN IMAGINED ENCOUNTER BETWEEN the Italian explorer Marco Polo and the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan, Italian novelist Italo Calvino describes the fictional city of Isaura like this:\n\nIsaura, city of the thousand wells, is said to rise over a deep, subterranean lake. On all sides, wherever the inhabitants dig vertical holes in the ground, they succeed in drawing up water, as far as the city extends, and no farther. Its green border repeats the dark outline of the buried lake; an invisible landscape conditions the visible one; everything that moves in the sunlight is driven by the lapping wave enclosed beneath the rock's calcerous sky.\n\nCalvino's exquisite depiction of \"Isaura\" distills the themes of this chapter, which is concerned with the search for new sources of water in India. At the turn of the twentieth century, India still reeled from the famines of the 1870s and the 1890s. Advances in meteorological science had pointed to the awesome power of the monsoon climate, and sketched its continental span. Indian economists and British administrators, water engineers and industrialists joined in a search for water to secure India from climatic vulnerability. They looked for water underground. They built dams to harness the power of rivers. They explored new ways to store rainwater. Across India, water formed \"invisible landscapes\" that shaped \"the visible one.\" In trying to exploit water more intensively, administrators and engineers came to see it as a bounded resource. Control was their aim, but it proved an elusive goal. For in those same decades, climate science pointed in the opposite direction: it threw up the enormity of the scale on which nature worked. The study of the monsoon became ever more spectacularly global. Understanding that the climate of any given part of Asia was subject to remote oceanic and atmospheric influences still too complex fully to comprehend, meteorology called into question the confidence with which many believed nature could be conquered.\n\n# I\n\nIn almost any account of modern Indian history, the last two decades of the nineteenth century appear as a moment of political awakening. The formation of the Indian National Congress in 1885 represents, in most textbooks, the beginning of organized nationalism, albeit a tentative nationalism still dominated by an urban and professional elite, still outwardly loyal to the empire. The famines of the last quarter of the nineteenth century catalyzed criticism of colonial rule. They made brutally evident the insecurity of life endured by most of India's people; they called into question the effectiveness of the colonial government; above all, they laid bare whose interests the British had in mind when they governed India. \"Britain has appropriated thousands of millions of India's wealth for building up and maintaining her vast British Indian Empire... [and] has thereby reduced the bulk of the Indian population to extreme poverty, destitution, and degradation,\" said Dadabhai Naoroji, an early proponent of economic nationalism in India, and the first Indian to be elected to the British Parliament, in a speech at the Plumstead Radical Club in London in 1900. Naoroji argued that it was Britain's \"bounden duty in common justice and humanity to pay from her own exchequer the costs of all famines and diseases caused by such impoverishment.\" The experience of drought and famine gave rise to new ways of thinking about state and economy, nature and climate. The material consequences of those ways of seeing continue to shape our world.\n\nBy the 1890s, many Indian economists saw the monsoon as a limiting condition on India's future development. Mahadev Govind Ranade\u2014social reformer and High Court judge and early leader of the reformist Poona Sarvajanik Sabha\u2014declared in 1890 that in many parts of the country \"the last margin has been reached, and millions die or starve when a single monsoon fails.\" Ranade believed that only a complete transformation of land and water could protect India from future disasters. He lamented the \"ruralizing\" of India\u2014the destruction of local industries as a result of Lancashire textiles flooding the market. Ranade felt that only an industrial future, with some measure of protection for local industries from foreign competition, would free India from its vulnerability, which arose, he believed, from the country's acute dependence on agriculture. He wrote admiringly of the Cultivation System in the Dutch East Indies, a coercive Dutch colonial policy that forced cultivators to set aside a portion of their lands for the production of export crops. Whether or not Ranade was aware of the system's harshness, which provoked protest and resistance in Java, he saw it as a welcome alternative to the British worship of free trade and even as a boost to Indonesian industry.\n\nRomesh Chander Dutt\u2014Bengali economist and poet, civil servant, and translator of Hindu epics\u2014went further than Ranade in pinpointing responsibility for India's famines. In 1901 Dutt began his open letter to the viceroy, Lord Curzon, with the \"melancholy\" observation that 15 million people had died in famines in India within Dutt's own lifetime. He dismissed British observers' fixation on the predatory moneylender as the chief cause of distress to Indian cultivators in times of drought. \"The money-lender is the result, not the cause, of the poverty of the cultivators,\" Dutt wrote, suggesting that Indian farmers fell back on credit only because their earnings were insufficient to cover the heavy burden of taxation. Turning to Malthusian fears about India's population growth, Dutt pointed out that India's population grew more slowly in the nineteenth century than England's. The \"immediate cause of famines in almost every instance is the failure of the rains,\" he said, and the threat of famine would persist \"until we have a more extensive system of irrigation.\" But he distinguished the \"immediate\" cause of famine from the root cause\u2014the reason why a failure of the rains should bring so many to the brink of starvation. That root cause was the \"chronic poverty of the cultivators, caused by the over-assessment of the soil.\" Developing the argument that Naoroji had made earlier, Dutt argued that the weight of the land tax\u2014used to finance the \"most expensive foreign government on earth,\" bloated by its imperial adventures beyond India's shores\u2014was the main cause of India's poverty. In 1903 Dutt published his masterpiece, an economic history of India in two volumes. Written with flair and backed by reams of statistics, Dutt's book argued that Britain had \"drained\" India of its wealth and contributed to the devastation of its industries. In his catalog of misguided colonial policies, however, Dutt expressed his great admiration for Arthur Cotton, whom he thought to possess \"a reputation higher than that of any other engineer who has ever worked in India.\" Dutt agreed with Cotton that India's salvation lay in irrigation. The problem, Dutt discerned, was that colonial administrators had ignored Cotton; they \"returned again and again to the narrower view, based on the immediate financial return of works constructed.\" The British government of India was so concerned with avoiding unnecessary expense that it was trapped in a short-term view of India's economic development, unwilling to invest in expensive infrastructure that might, in time, have paid off.\n\nAT THE BEGINNING OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, THE INDIAN Irrigation Commission undertook a grand tour of India's water. Famine was a raw and recent memory. Colonial officials and Indian critics alike believed that irrigation was essential to protect India from a recurrence of the horror. The viceroy, Lord Curzon, appointed Scotsman Colin Scott-Moncrieff to lead the investigation. Scott-Moncrieff was famous for directing the hydraulic transformation of the Nile in the 1880s through a restoration of the Nile Barrage, but he had started his career with the Bengal Engineers and had served as Burma's chief engineer in the 1870s. Twenty years later, he returned to India. His brief was as simple as it was daunting\u2014to determine how far irrigation could protect India from the vagaries of its climate.\n\nThe British colonial government of India has been described as \"ethnographic\": it collected obsessively information about every aspect of life within its domain; it classified India's people by caste and faith; it published reports of \"moral and material progress.\" In the first three decades of the twentieth century, four commissions of inquiry\u2014on irrigation, agriculture, banking, and labor\u2014cemented the state's knowledge of its territory and its population. This vast enterprise of information-gathering generated authoritative tomes, divided by province, backed with appendices. To read them now is to leap into the minutiae of economic life in India, village by village. The commissions published extensive volumes of testimony, both oral and written, which are in turn prosaic and lyrical, combative and dull. It is easy to forget how small these commissions were, how dependent they were on knowledge provided by others. Scott-Moncrieff was joined by Thomas Higham, India's chief inspector of irrigation; by Denzil Ibbetson, chief commissioner of the Central Provinces; by John Muir-Mackenzie, chief secretary to the government of Bombay; and by a sole Indian, Rajaratna Mudaliar, a member of the Madras Legislative Council. The five men met in Lahore, and over two periods of six months each, in 1901 and 1902, they traveled together across India. They covered more than five thousand miles; they interviewed 425 witnesses in 91 sittings. \"This is pretty hard work,\" Scott-Moncrieff wrote to a relative in England, \"listening to witnesses and asking questions for six hours is, I can assure you, rather fatiguing\"; but he conceded that \"we travel very luxuriously, generally in special trains\" and, at every stop, \"we are most hospitably entertained in the generous old Indian fashion.\"\n\nFinally they settled in Lucknow, by the banks of the Ganges, and wrote their report surrounded by meteorological charts, statements, petitions, and two years' worth of impressions.\n\nOnce again, they began with the rains: \"Not only a main factor in determining the value of irrigation\" but also \"the primary source of all means of supplying it.\" The irrigation commissioners went back to Henry Blanford's writings, their main source on India's struggle with the monsoon. They drew attention to water's \"unequal distribution throughout the seasons, its still more irregular distribution over the surface of the country, and its liability to failure or serious deficiency.\" They turned, then, to India's geology, which had been Blanford's original concern. Each of India's main geological regions, the expanse of alluvial and crystalline soils, offered possibilities, and challenges, for irrigation. The commission's data showed that 20 percent of the cultivable land of British India was under irrigation by the turn of the twentieth century, from the large canals of the Gangetic plain to the 626,000 wells watering Madras Presidency.\n\nThey concluded that India offered \"a wide but not unlimited field\" for ambitious engineers. They listed the many obstacles, from the topography of the landscape to the cost of irrigation works. The British government retained the fixation on parsimony that had driven famine policy in the 1870s. In hundreds of pages of testimony to the irrigation commission, witnesses were asked, again and again, about whether investment in irrigation would ever pay for itself. The commissioners dreamed of a time when farmers would pay for water \"what it is really worth\"; they searched for ways to justify irrigation expenditure to the state, ever anxious about the charge of extravagance. They also saw as a problem water's very expanse, in relation to the lines of jurisdiction that ran through India. \"The manner in which the various states and territories are intermingled,\" they wrote, were an \"obstacle\" to their visions. The commissioners expressed fulsome thanks to the princely rulers that had hosted them on their tour, but the patchwork of sovereignty that interspersed regions of direct British control with princely territories caused anxiety. The problem was enduring: the \"only suitable site for a storage work,\" they observed, \"may lie in a territory whose people would not only derive no benefit, but might even be put to considerable loss.\" They had diagnosed a source of hydraulic inequality that would sharpen over the century ahead.\n\nAmong the resources the irrigation commissioners looked to was India's ocean of water under the ground. By the late nineteenth century the quest for subterranean water had attained new fervor. A breakthrough in technology brought with it a sense of untapped possibility: engine-driven pumps promised to reach much deeper underground than the manual ways that were little changed from Babur's time. After the famines of the 1870s, agricultural officials in the most arid districts encouraged the construction of wells by landowners. \"The main difficulty... in well construction is not the discovery of water,\" wrote W. C. Bennett, director of agriculture in the Northwest Provinces, \"the water level is known locally all over the Provinces.\" The problem was to determine where the soil could support deep wells, given the \"extreme capriciousness and uncertainty\" of the clay stratum beneath the surface.\n\nFrom the start, and in contrast with government-built canals, wells were in private hands; \"policy,\" such as it was, involved encouraging landowners to dig wells. The government's role, if it had any, was limited to providing credit and information. Already by the 1880s, Bennett estimated that almost 58 percent of the irrigated area in the province he administered was under well irrigation; canals, which received infinitely more money and attention, accounted for only 24 percent. To his mind the importance of wells could not be overstated. They usually held enough water \"to carry the people through one season of failure of the rains\"\u2014though he cautioned that if the rains should fail two years running, as they had in 1876 and 1877, the wells would run dry. Water prospectors began to imagine the map of India with an added dimension\u2014the underground. As well as roads and railways, wrote an engineer from the Bombay Deccan, it would help if maps could show the \" _water_ levels as well as showing depth of spring levels below the surface.\"\n\nBy the early twentieth century, Madras was at the forefront of a water-mining boom. A keen observer of this economic revolution was Alfred Chatterton, a British engineer who had made his career in the Madras government. He served as superintendent of industrial education and insisted on the development of a department of industry in the province to encourage local manufacturing. He was quietly sympathetic to _swadeshi_ initiatives to support local producers and boycott imports. To that end he opened a government pencil factory in Kurukkupet, which promised to boost local industry.\n\nIrrigation was among Chatterton's main interests as an engineer. He was the author of a book on lift irrigation (the extraction of water from wells), and the possibilities he saw before him, as he surveyed the Madras countryside, seemed limitless. On a tour of Trichinopoly he reported that there had been a \"very large number of applications\" for government loans for the purchase of engines and pumps. He appended a list of all of the firms supplying oil engines in Madras, a total of 125 in the province; the largest dealer was Massey & Co., which in 1904 supplied ninety-one engines of a total of 869 horsepower. Chatterton was impressed: \"It is obvious from this that the oil-engine has come to stay in the Madras Presidency and that it is suited to the conditions of the country,\" he wrote. \"I am sanguine enough to think that this is merely the beginning of things and that in the next year or two the use of oil-engines will increase very rapidly for irrigation work.\"\n\nThat year, the northeast monsoon had brought scanty rainfall; the new technology was put immediately to the test. \"The engine was started 568 times,\" reported an agricultural station at Melrosepatnam, \"and ran for 2074 hours.\" Most of the engines ran on liquid fuel\u2014that is to say, petroleum\u2014which was half or even a quarter the price of kerosene oil. The main source of supply was from the Borneo oil fields, imported by Best and Company and held in a four-thousand-ton storage tank in Madras. In Borneo, as in the fields of the Burmah Oil Company, a new era had begun.\n\nIndia tumbled into the embrace of fossil fuels. Very early in the twentieth century, oil unleashed a vision of plenitude based on the extraction of water\u2014a vision that continues to shape contemporary India. \"The oil engine and pump do work,\" Chatterton observed, \"[utilizing] to an extent absolutely unknown previously the quantity of water available for irrigation.\" The abundance of water beneath the soil lay in \"a succession of spring channels, one below the other.\" Their exploitation had once relied on a vast corps of voluntary or _corv\u00e9e_ labor, but now \"much larger quantities of water could be abstracted from the river-beds by means of engines and pumps.\" Already there were three-quarters of a million wells scattered across Madras. Most of them were in the hands of small landowners. The potential for further development seemed vast. Chatterton evoked a terrain with \"many deep old furrows filled with sand which mark the ancient course of river-beds\" that were \"full of water.\" Water engineers imagined a whole country underground\u2014a network of vanished rivers still running with water, waiting to be forced to the surface. On this view, the \"problem of subterranean water\" was part of a broader problem of energy: its extraction depended on \"distributing power cheaply... by wire ropes, compressed air or electricity.\"\n\n# II\n\nNowhere in India was the quest for water more transformative than in Punjab. In a remarkably short time, Punjab rivaled the Gangetic plains and the river valleys of the southern peninsula as India's agrarian heartland. The impetus for the change came from British attempts to bring water to what they claimed as \"wastelands\" in western Punjab\u2014a land at the limits of the monsoon, described by James Douie, an experienced district official in the province, as \"in reality part of the great desert extending from the western Sahara to Manchuria.\" Here, \"irrigation was not designed to assist agriculture and diminish the losses from seasonal vagaries, but to create [agriculture] where it did not exist.\"\n\nBetween 1885 and 1940, the colonial government built nine Canal Colonies\u2014townships of settlement each built around an irrigation canal\u2014through a stretch of western Punjab between the Beas and Sutlej rivers and the Jhelum, covering an area of 13 million acres. The largest of them was the Chenab settlement, started in 1892; the most challenging for the engineers was the massive Triple Canal project, completed in 1915 through difficult terrain. More than a million people moved voluntarily to these new colonies from the more densely populated lands of eastern Punjab; they inaugurated a revolution in the production of wheat, cotton, and sugar. The Canal Colonies attempted to create a new landscape\u2014and a new society. They were among the first of their kind, establishing a pattern that would become common throughout the world in the twentieth century: a state-financed and state-directed resettlement of people in the service of agricultural \"development.\" The British officials who envisaged the project in the 1880s were ambitious. They sought to create a new sort of Indian village, populated by cultivators carefully selected for their vigor and ability, providing a new dynamo for agrarian capitalism.\n\nSpeaking to an audience at London's Royal Society of the Arts in 1914, James Douie\u2014a career civil servant who had spent thirty-five years in Punjab, his roles including chief secretary to the government, and settlement commissioner\u2014lauded the achievements of Punjab's engineers. In his mind, the \"colonization\" of \"waste\" land in the Punjab was part of a global process. \"When one speaks of colonization the mind turns at once to new countries,\" he conceded: \"the prairies of the United States, or the pampas of Argentina.\" Many of those large movements of people, too, had involved the search for new sources of water to make arid lands productive. And in Punjab a similar movement was underway. Douie's account made clear how fully the Canal Colonies were the product of an engineer's vision backed by the power of the state\u2014right down to \"allotting land in complete squares.\" People \"who love the irregular fields of the homeland, with their hedges of black and white thorn or wilding rose, may think these unenclosed rectangular fields dull,\" he admitted\u2014but they were designed for utility. In a society where the rules of inheritance allotted an equal share of land to every son, \"twenty-five equal rectangular fields can be divided, accurately, easily, and cheaply.\"\n\nThe state reserved the power to decree not only the shape of each parcel of land but also the composition of its population. The language of science lent authority to ideas about physical capacity and heredity\u2014many British officials were obsessed with categorizing India's people according to the size of their skulls. The impetus to conflate physical appearance with innate character was especially strong in Punjab, which had become the prime recruiting ground for the British army in the aftermath of the 1857 rebellion. To make this strategic shift appear natural, army recruiters, high officials, and a number of their local allies proffered an enduring myth that Sikhs\u2014alongside the Gurkhas of Nepal and in contrast with \"effeminate\" Bengalis\u2014were a \"martial race.\" Relating how he had made his choice of future colonists from among the large number of applicants in any given village, Douie was straightforward: \"I looked at their chests,\" he said, as he proceeded to show his audience in London a series of slides of unclothed Punjabi bodies. One of his fellow officers had focused on the applicants' hands.\n\nThe British gamble paid off. By 1915, the financial commissioner of Punjab wrote of Chenab district that \"the land revenue of this tract... exceeds any other district in India.\" Punjab became the engine of agrarian growth in India. By 1931, 46 percent of all canal-irrigated land in British India was in Punjab; Madras came a distant second. Prosperity from cultivation spurred local industrialization with the rise of cotton ginning factories. With land grants to families who had served in the army, the British shored up loyal support in the region. Many local men saw themselves as protagonists in what one of them called \"man's conquest over nature.\" But social transformation was never free from tension. In 1907 protest erupted in the Canal Colonies against legislation giving the government sweeping new powers to regulate settlement and land use. Colonists complained about the inadequate supply of irrigation water to their fields; they chafed against a lower-level bureaucracy that accumulated arbitrary power; they objected to the infringement of customary rights in the name of scientific management.\n\nBRITISH OFFICIALS LIKE DOUIE SAW PUNJAB'S CANAL COLONIES IN light of a worldwide process of frontier colonization. He referred repeatedly to Saskatchewan and Manitoba, to Australia and the American prairie. He could just as well have looked across to China. In China's far northeast, a comparable process of peasant colonization was underway. It dwarfed the movement in Punjab. Between 28 and 33 million Chinese migrants moved to Manchuria after 1850; the movement accelerated in 1890, simultaneous with the development of Punjab's Canal Colonies. Many went to work in mines and on the railways, but most Chinese migrants to Manchuria went as cultivators. By the 1920s, the soybean made up 80 percent of the region's exports. A relatively small proportion of the migrants owned land on a freehold basis; many more leased their land or worked as sharecroppers. Expanses of Manchuria were owned by Chinese official organizations, or by private and semiprivate companies. Large landowners accumulated holdings. And if the Chinese state did not play as active a role in encouraging migration as did the British colonial government in northwestern India, it was far from absent.\n\nAs in Punjab, family was the \"engine of migration\" to Manchuria. Families in Shandong and Hebei sent young men to Manchuria as part of a diversified strategy for family survival. But there the expectation of return was almost universal, unlike in Punjab, where families moved permanently to new settlements and over shorter distances than their Chinese counterparts destined for Manchuria. As in Punjab, most Chinese migrants to Manchuria moved in small groups of kinsmen or fellow villagers. They went where uncles, cousins, or others from their villages had blazed a trail. The railway and the steamship made their journeys more affordable, and took them to places previously inaccessible. When this happened on a large enough scale, whole \"villages across the sea\" emerged, each resembling a northern Chinese village transplanted to Manchuria. In historical perspective, these movements represent the final closing of a global frontier\u2014the crescendo of a process of migration, settlement, and colonization that had begun a few centuries earlier. From Punjab to the American West, colonization depended on water; in Manchuria, too, irrigation was vital to the expansion of settlement and production. Everywhere, colonization displaced communities of people\u2014often pastoralists\u2014who were already there. Their livelihoods and their cultural habits were disregarded as these \"empty\" lands were settled in the name of agriculture and civilization.\n\nThe very designation of western Punjab as \"waste\" stripped local pastoralists of their claim to the land: this was no neutral description of a landscape, but rather a justification for what administrators and engineers wished to create. Pastoralists in western Punjab soon found their livelihoods under threat. Where once they knew the landscape intimately, now British engineers and new settlers had captured the water. In the words of a local official, many local people were \"driven to migrate by the gradual impoverishment of their villages.\" Many other \"calamities for future generations,\" as Alexander von Humboldt had called them, lay in store. One was malaria\u2014changes in the hydrology of the land created conditions ripe for its spread. A local petitioner complained that the Canal Colonies had \"injuriously modified the climate\" so that \"malaria always prevails there.\" Another enduring problem that emerged from Punjab's great experiment was waterlogging so severe that it made some lands impossible to cultivate.\n\n# III\n\nThe transformation of India's waters went far beyond Punjab. Bombay, Madras, and the United Provinces were all sites of intervention and experiment spurred by the recent memory of famine. Hydraulic engineers built on the nineteenth-century schemes like the dams designed by Arthur Cotton along the Krishna, Godavari, and Kaveri rivers of southern India. In Punjab, the land allocated to the Canal Colonies was already in government hands. Elsewhere, a prolonged process of land acquisition was underway, facilitated by 1894 legislation making it easier for the government to take over private land for \"public\" purposes. While the 1894 Land Acquisition Act aimed to ease railway construction, it came into force just as water engineering projects proliferated across India. By the early twentieth century a long and painful process was underway, displacing families and whole communities to make way for water infrastructure projects\u2014it continues to unfold to this day.\n\nSitting in the Maharashtra Archives in Mumbai, housed in the decaying Gothic splendor of Elphinstone College, I saw thick files full of petitions and disputes over land, water, and compensation. \"Attempts were made to acquire the land amicably but the owners refuse reasonable terms,\" an official notice of 1889 read, and so it would be seized: \"Permission may be granted to take possession of the land on the expiration of 15 days from the publication of this notice.\" That was just the beginning; just how much land was taken over this way, piece by piece? Some years later, in 1903, Sakharam Balaji, a farmer who stood to lose his lands, wrote in anguish to the local government office. He had lent support to the construction of a local dam by supplying it with materials, \"straining my every nerve\" in the process. He was then stunned to find out that the dam would drown his two hundred acres of land. \"Money given to me by the Government in light of compensation will not suffice,\" he declared, for where else could he go? \"Land if properly cultivated and repaired will last long,\" he said, and he had invested handsomely in his own. The archival file is complete with crossings-out and handwritten insertions as Sakharam (or perhaps his scribe) sought the right words. \"My occupation is nothing but husbandry,\" he argued, \"and my maintenance is solely dependent on this husbandry.\" His concern was well founded. Displacement meant more than the loss of land\u2014it was a loss of livelihood, an uprooting of life. Sakharam was fortunate. The local government ruled in his favor and resituated the dam. But many others would suffer irreparable loss.\n\nGroups of landowners came together to protest their dispossession. The residents of Belgaum district in Bombay Presidency\u2014\"the most loyal and dutiful, but at the same time the poorest, subjects of His Majesty\"\u2014feared that a dam, linked to a series of canals, would \"inundate almost all the lands of our valleys causing the residents to shift themselves for their lives to some other distant tract not yet known.\" They made a powerful claim, couched in the language of justice; they challenged the government on its own terms: \"The inhabitants of the above-named villages have equal rights to secure the advantages of benign rule of British Government, as the villages which are to be profited by this canal.\" The petition ends with more than a hundred signatures in Marathi.\n\nTHE PEOPLE OF BELGAUM WERE DISPLACED, IN PART, BECAUSE OF A cascade of new demands for water from India's growing cities. Whereas the decades from the 1840s to the 1880s had seen India reduced to a \"colonial\" economy\u2014focused on the export of raw materials, and the import of manufactured goods\u2014the tide had started to shift by the 1890s. While factories in India were concentrated in a handful of cities\u2014Bombay, Ahmedabad, Kanpur, Coimbatore\u2014Indian industrial capitalism hit its stride in the early decades of the twentieth century, boosted by the suspension of imports and the voracious military consumption of manufactured goods during the First World War. The French geographer Jules Sion observed after the war: \"In Bombay, almost all the factories have Indian owners, directors, engineers. The country's capitalists compete with foreigners for mining concessions. Many vast plantations of tea and coffee are managed entirely by locals. This economic nationalism faces an obstacle in the entrenched habits and ignorance of the masses,\" he observed, \"But it has already proved its vitality.\"\n\nWith urbanization came new demands on water. Bombay was the first city in British India to have a municipal water supply, which started operation in 1860. But the city's growth quickly outstripped the scheme's capacity. In 1885, the Tansa project aimed to augment urban water supply; when it opened in 1892, it supplied the city with 77 million liters of water a day, though this still reached only a small proportion of its residents. The project came with unwanted consequences. Water supply in the absence of adequate drainage led to waterlogging in many neighborhoods of the city, contributing to the conditions that allowed the bubonic plague epidemic of 1896 to spread. As the city of Bombay grew\u2014its population reached 1.2 million by 1920\u2014its tentacles reached ever further into the countryside of Maharashtra in search of water for its residents.\n\nAs industrialists grew more prominent, both within the colonial government and within the nationalist movement, their voices grew louder. Among their most pressing needs: water and power. The use of water for irrigation was \"well understood,\" the Indian Industrial Commission reported in 1918, but now water had a \"double object\"\u2014irrigation and electricity generation. The era of \"white gold,\" as hydroelectric power had come to be known in Europe and America, came to India.\n\nIndia's first hydroelectric plant was built outside the Raj, in the princely state of Mysore, in 1903. The Sivasamudram Dam along the Kaveri River was built to supply electricity to the Kolar gold mines nearby, which were India's largest. India's biggest industrial firm, Tata and Sons, followed closely behind. Having made a fortune exporting opium to China in the first half of the nineteenth century, the Tatas were among the earliest to move into the cotton industry. Perennially in need of electricity to power their factories in Bombay, the Tatas looked to harness the heavy monsoon rains that fell on the Western Ghats mountain range. Theirs was already a self-consciously global enterprise. The Tatas' close ties with the United States meant that American models and expertise were foremost on their minds when they decided to build a hydroelectric plant of their own at Khopoli, in the Western Ghats, completed in 1915. Within three years, the plant was supplying Bombay's cotton mills with forty-two thousand horsepower of electricity, for twelve hours a day.\n\nOne of the enduring heroes of India's attempt to transform its waters was an engineer named Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya. Visvesvaraya was born to a poor Brahmin family in the princely state of Mysore in 1860. He studied engineering in Pune's College of Science, and served the government of Bombay for twenty-five years as an engineer in the Department of Public Works. Visvesvaraya was ascetic in his habits, a firm believer in hard work and self-help. His first big achievement was the construction of a new water pipeline in the town of Nasik. In the course of redesigning the water supply of the much larger city of Pune, Visvesvaraya patented a new system of automatic sluice gates, which remained in use for decades afterward; in keeping with his dedication to public service, he gave up any claim to royalties. From the outset, Visvesvaraya was obsessed with the \"waste\" of water. He grappled with \"how to bring under control the irregular distribution of water to crops... and its wasteful use by cultivators.\" He found that \"the cultivators were unaccustomed to control\" by engineers and wise administrators. To assert that \"control\" over water would be a lifelong battle for Visvesvaraya.\n\nVisvesvaraya's horizons expanded in the first decade of the twentieth century, when he began to travel the world. His first trip abroad was to the country that impressed him more than any other: Japan. Visvesvaraya spent three months in Japan in 1898. He wrote a book based on his impressions, but \"did not... think the time was opportune to publish it\"; he was a civil servant, and not one for overt political confrontation. Yet seeing Japan had led him to conclude just how little the British were doing, in comparison, for the development of India. \"Since all industrial progress in Japan has been achieved in comparatively recent years,\" he wrote, \"she offers to India the most direct and valuable lessons obtainable in material advancement and reconstruction.\" The greatest lesson, he thought, was that the Japanese state had taken a direct and interventionist role in fostering economic development.\n\nVisvesvaraya's career took him to West as well as to East Asia. In 1906, the government of Bombay deputed him to the British protectorate of Aden, to investigate the city's water supply. Poring over the city's sanitary records, he found an alarmingly high death rate; he was quick to conclude that \"a system of pipe sewers is the only satisfactory method.\" The authorities accepted his recommendation that a series of wells be dug to supply the city from the River Lahex. Upon retirement from government service\u2014and perhaps frustrated by the racial glass ceiling of the Raj, which meant that he could never become chief engineer of Bombay\u2014Visvesvaraya toured the world. He visited western Italy, Russia, and North America to study dams and irrigation techniques. Arriving in New York, he found \"an association of Indian traders and businessmen there, men of energy, vitality and ambition.\"\n\nAfter a year of roving consultancy, Visvesvaraya was persuaded in 1909 to take up the position of chief engineer of Mysore. Among the princely states, Mysore was self-consciously progressive; a succession of dewans (prime ministers) had, with the Maharaja's encouragement, instituted educational and infrastructural reforms. A few years after his appointment as chief engineer, Visvesvaraya assumed the role of Dewan: he made primary education compulsory; he invested in infrastructure and sanitation. Given free rein and a generous budget, Visvesvaraya scaled up his ambitions. He dreamt his masterpiece: the Krishnarajasagar Dam along the Kaveri River. It was Visvesvaraya's plan for a \"multi-purpose\" project\u2014the dam would irrigate one hundred acres of land, it would provide power to the Kolar gold fields, and it would electrify the city of Bangalore. The problem, as we will see, is that the British had their own plans for the same river.\n\nCHANNELING RIVERS AND RAINS, PUMPING WATER FROM UNDERGROUND\u2014there was a third frontier in view at the turn of the twentieth century: the ocean. Frederick Nicholson joined the Madras civil service in 1869, aged twenty-three and fresh from Oxford. Over the next three decades he would serve as collector of Tinevelly (Tirunelveli), Madras, and Coimbatore; he witnessed the great famines of the 1870s, which shaped his view of the world; he fell in love with the Nilgiri hills, where eventually he retired and lived until his death in 1936. At the turn of the twentieth century, Nicholson turned his attention to the fisheries of Madras. He wrote in 1899 that \"when we despair of food independent of climate for a rapidly-increasing population, of industries for non-agriculturists, of manure for deteriorating soils, we may thank God that we have yet got the fisheries to develop.\" \"Food independent of climate\" was precisely what India's quest for water sought to bring about\u2014Nicholson saw this more starkly than most. \"The sea yields its harvests in enormous quantities wholly irrespective of droughts and seasonal catastrophes,\" Nicholson wrote, \"and the food, being highly nitrogenous and concentrated, is of extreme value.\" As insurance against a fickle monsoon, the fisheries were hard to beat. He told the Lahore Industrial Conference in 1909 that, when he had first arrived in India, \"the time was not ripe for devising for the distant and vague harvest of the sea what was barely coming into contemplation for the harvest of the soil under foot\"; but now, the time was ripe for \"adding the harvest of the sea to the harvest of the soil.\" Nicholson made a crucial distinction: the government's interest in fisheries was purely as a source of food, and not as a source of revenue\u2014which is how the British had treated India's land from the earliest days of the East India Company's rule.\n\nNicholson traveled to Japan and to Denmark, seeking inspiration for the development of the fisheries of Madras. Like Visvesvaraya, Nicholson thought that Japan's example was most apposite for Madras. There, an \"ancient\" fishing industry had been transformed by \"scientific foresight,\" backed by an energetic government and generous investment; Nicholson suggested that India's fishing industry in 1907 was where Japan's had been before the Meiji Restoration of 1867. Nicholson created the Madras Department of Fisheries in 1907 and served as its honorary director. His genuine sympathy for poor fishing communities melded with a widely shared view that held \"poor,\" \"ignorant,\" and caste-bound hereditary fishers culturally inferior to landed cultivators. The result was a policy of gradualism. Nicholson doubted whether the rapid advance of fishing technology was possible in India; he preferred to build incrementally on existing practices using existing social structures; he was an enthusiast for cooperative societies as a way to foster a stronger sense of collective action among fishers.\n\nNicholson's successor, James Hornell (1865\u20131949), devoted years of his life to understanding the fisheries of India's eastern coast. At the turn of the twentieth century, after a decade working on the isle of Jersey, Hornell traveled to Ceylon to survey the marine fisheries there. From 1908 to 1924, he played a leading role in running the Madras Fisheries Department; he undertook detailed studies of coastal fisheries, on the economy of fishing and the changing composition of the catch; he developed a particular fascination with indigenous fishing vessels along the coasts of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, on which he published over a hundred articles in his lifetime. More than Nicholson, Hornell's caution about the wholesale technological transformation of India's fisheries was based on respect for fishers' traditions and their ways of life. In 1917, Hornell described the daily scene on the shore at Tuticorin, long a center of India's pearl fishing industry. \"There is no wholesale fish market except the beach, there are no companies or large owners controlling each a number of boats, and while there are certainly some fish salesmen and traders, these men seldom or never keep any accounts,\" he reported. \"The catch is usually thrown in a heap on the beach and the 'lot' as it lies is sold by auction\u2014the buyers must appraise its value by eye, and make their bids accordingly.\" But change was on the horizon; at sea, as on land, new technology and new commercial ambitions strained against the limits that British policies, and British interests, had placed upon them.\n\n# IV\n\nThe quest for water altered India's economic balance. For centuries, it had been a matter of common sense that India's wealth lay in its river valleys\u2014they were the most densely settled, the most intensively cultivated, the most prosperous regions. They had always been the core regions of political power. Wealth and poverty, it so often seemed, were a function of geography. The meteorological divisions of India mapped onto the standard of living. \"The most densely populated, and therefore the most fertile regions are those of silt deposit, the population becoming most dense towards the river deltas,\" wrote agricultural hydrologist Edward Buck in 1907. It appeared an immutable fact of nature\u2014but even by the time Buck was writing, the link between population density and agricultural productivity was no longer so clear. By the 1910s, the largest of Punjab's Canal Colonies brought more revenue to the government than any other district in India.\n\nArtificial irrigation sparked an agricultural boom in the drier regions of India's west and south: a boom focused on the production of high value crops for export. Public investment in irrigation poured into regions and crops most likely to bring the state revenue and to bring farmers profit. Punjab and Sind in the northwest, parts of Gujarat and Bombay Presidency in the west, and some parts of Madras\u2014the western region, around Coimbatore, and coastal Andhra in particular\u2014flourished. Those regions still remain India's most prosperous. The gap in productivity between these favored regions and the rest of the country has grown more marked in the second half of the twentieth century, but the roots of a fundamental reversal in India's economic geography lie in the water boom of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.\n\nThe \"ancient\" zones benefited far less than the irrigated areas from new markets and new technologies. Riverine Bengal, the fabled wealth of which had drawn in the East India Company in the seventeenth century, now saw a protracted decline in its relative economic position within India. Agricultural productivity in the valleys of Tamil Nadu declined precipitously. A \"tide of indebtedness\" consumed smallholders in both regions, and also along the Gangetic valley. In both the boom regions and those left behind, the control of water as well as the control of credit concentrated land in fewer hands. Dry regions that had not benefited from irrigation did worst of all. By the 1920s, most agricultural land in India was still not irrigated, it was rain-fed. Already by the early twentieth century, irrigated lands produced four times as much as those that depended on rainfall. A recent survey by economic historians emphasizes the point: for most of India, most of the time, rainfall was the most important factor shaping agricultural output, and yields were probably among the lowest in the world.\n\nTwo large commissions of inquiry in the 1920s\u2014the Royal Commission on Agriculture in India, and the Banking Enquiry Commission, both on the model of the 1901 irrigation commission but on an even larger scale\u2014revealed Indian cultivators' continuing vulnerability to climatic fluctuations. Irrigation had advanced rapidly, but most Indian farmers did not benefit from it. \"Except in the north-west,\" the report on agriculture maintained, \"the whole country is dependent on the monsoon and all major agricultural operations are fixed and timed by this phenomenon.\"\n\nThe main response of Indian cultivators to this vulnerability was to borrow money. The scale of rural indebtedness in India emerged from the inquiry into India's banking system, a colossal exercise in information-gathering that went province by province, reporting its results in 1930 in dozens of thick volumes. \"From the sowing of the seed to the sale of the products,\" one of hundreds of witnesses in the United Provinces of North India testified, \"it is the indigenous moneylenders and bankers who enable the produce of the villages to be brought to the market.\" The monsoon shaped the rhythms of the money market. Cultivators' need for credit converged on certain crucial times in the season: credit for seed and manure in October and November, after the rains; credit to pay agricultural labor at harvest time. In many parts of rural India there was \"an exaggerated alternation of over-work and unemployment.\" Account after account from rural India made the same point. \"The annual rainfall is scanty and uncertain and irrigation is nominal,\" wrote a local official from Meerut district in the United Provinces; and \"a peasant proprietor once entrapped by the _mahajan_ [moneylender] can never extricate himself.\" Many borrowers faced 24 percent compound interest. \"Ninety-five per cent of the agricultural classes are in debt,\" wrote an administrator in Mathura district, \"due to successive failures of crops in this district.\" Only a few respondents disagreed. The collector of Kaira district in Bombay Presidency told the agricultural inquiry that monsoon failure was not one of the main causes of indebtedness: \"The frequency of very bad seasons in which the cultivator would be left completely insolvent is not very great,\" he noted.\n\nThe most creative response to the fact that most Indians still depended on the rains for their livelihoods came from J. S. Chakravarti, who worked for years in Mysore. He was a colleague of the great engineer Visvesvaraya; Chakravarti, too, flourished in the southern Indian princely state that was bolder than any part of British-ruled India in its approach to the problems of water. Chakravarti worked for Mysore's State Insurance Committee for many years, and in the 1910s rose to the position of controller and financial secretary to the government of Mysore. He advocated a system of drought insurance in preference over generalized crop insurance: while the failure of a particular crop could be down to bad practice or neglect on the part of individual farmers, a failure in the rains affected everybody. Where rainfall dipped below a certain proportion, say 35 percent, of average, cultivators would receive a payout. Chakravarti saw rainfall insurance as \"intimately connected with three sciences, _viz._ economics, meteorology, and agriculture.\" His starting point was that \"Indian agriculture is dependent almost entirely on rainfall\" and that the \"quantity of rain during the year and its distribution as regards time are almost the only essential factors\" in determining the incomes of farmers; absence (or excess) of rain at certain critical periods in the growing season could be devastating. And what Chakravarti called the \"rainfall factor\" was \"uncontrollable by human exertions.\" Only the state could carry out an insurance scheme on the scale he envisaged, though he hoped that private providers might eventually enter the market. The case for insurance was clear. \"Agricultural insurance will also be famine insurance,\" Chakravarti declared, for \"under the present circumstances, a famine in India does not generally mean grain-famine, but money-famine, due to enforced unemployment of the agriculturist.\" Chakravarti's scheme gathered dust; one Indian commentator observed toward the end of the twentieth century that Chakravarti's scheme was far in advance of what the World Bank had come up with by the early 1990s. The primary reason for this neglect is that a very different approach to mitigating climatic risk emerged in mid-twentieth century India\u2014an approach that emphasized technological solutions to the problem of water.\n\nReflecting on the state of India's development, the members of the Indian Industrial Commission wrote confidently in 1918 that \"the terrible calamities which from time to time depopulated wide stretches of country need no longer be feared.\" In a monsoon climate, \"failure of the rains must always mean privation and hardship,\" but it no longer need lead to \"wholesale starvation and loss of life.\" This conveyed a strong sense that something fundamental had changed in India over the first two decades of the twentieth century. The risk posed by climate had been mitigated by both policy (the early-warning system of the Famine Codes) and by technology (railways and irrigation). As long as India remained predominantly agrarian, some level of risk would remain, but the commissioners envisaged a future in which industrialization would provide new employment and greater security, as India's population moved from the countryside to the cities. In the 1870s, the idea that famine was inevitable in India prevailed among British administrators. By the 1920s, most observers believed that India had conquered famine. But anxieties about water did not go away.\n\n# V\n\nIndia's engineers fought to assert their sovereignty over the monsoon; climate science demonstrated, in those same years, that the monsoon moved to planetary rhythms\u2014rhythms far beyond human control. The pioneer of Indian monsoon meteorology in the early twentieth century was a brilliant mathematician and a modest man: \"kindly, liberal minded, wide of interest, and a very perfect gentleman.\"\n\nGilbert Thomas Walker was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, in 1868, the fourth child in a family of eight. He grew up in Croydon, just outside London, where his father was the borough's chief engineer. Gilbert received a scholarship to the elite St. Paul's School in 1881, and went on to a distinguished undergraduate career in mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge. His talents were idiosyncratic. At Trinity he left behind him \"the legend of his prowess in throwing boomerangs on the Cambridge Backs\"\u2014his study of their aerodynamics marked the beginning of his fascination with the physics of the atmosphere; he acquired the nickname \"Boomerang Walker.\" In 1890, Walker suffered a breakdown in his health; he spent three summers recovering in Switzerland, where he developed a passion for skating. In time, both hobbies would nourish his insights into the world's weather. Returning to Trinity as a fellow in mathematics, Walker's work focused on electromagnetism. Formalizing his fascination with boomerangs, he also wrote an essay on the aerodynamics of sports and games. There was little in his background or experience to suggest that within a few years, he would be director of the Indian Meteorological Department.\n\nJohn Eliot was approaching retirement. His models for monsoon forecasts had grown more complex during his years in charge of the Indian weather service, but they were erratic in accuracy and had failed to predict the droughts of 1899 and 1900. Convinced, still, that he was on to something, Eliot searched for an able statistician as his successor, someone who could make sense of the profusion of pressure, temperature, and wind readings dispatched from observatories across the Indian and Pacific oceans. Walker's reputation reached Eliot's notice, perhaps through shared Cambridge networks; the chance to develop a new field of inquiry, in an unfamiliar land, was attractive to the younger man. Before sailing for India, Walker toured meteorological observatories in Europe and the United States: this was his crash course in the science of weather. Visiting field stations in the Midwest, Walker was especially impressed by the sophisticated techniques deployed by the US Weather Bureau.\n\nWalker arrived in India just three years after the last major famine. Eliot's failures had dented public and official confidence in meteorology. In 1904, Walker took over as chief. He kept a low profile for the next four years: marshaling resources, recruiting staff, bolstering a skeletal meteorological department. In those early years in Simla\u2014the Himalayan summer capital of the Raj, where British officials rushed to escape the pre-monsoon heat\u2014Walker found time for his two beloved hobbies. He was often spotted flinging boomerangs on Annandale, the only stretch of flat ground in Simla. He designed a low canvas screen to keep the ice cold on Simla's skating rink\u2014it was so effective that, by January, \"the ice was too hard to be skated on with pleasure,\" and the rink's owner asked him to remove it. Walker's mind leapt to make new connections. Many years later he revealed that his experience with the ice rink had led him to understand the \"extreme transparency of the air to heat radiated from the ground during the very dry winter periods\" over North India.\n\nFrom these beginnings came a vital breakthrough in climate science.\n\nWALKER'S APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING AND PREDICTING THE monsoon was resolutely empirical. He relied on a vast \"human computer\"\u2014that is, on the labor of his Indian staff led by Hem Raj\u2014to process the numbers. \"The relations between weather over earth are so complex,\" Walker felt, that \"it seems useless to try to derive them from theoretical considerations\"\u2014the monsoon was too complex. Rather, Walker sought to amass and analyze as much weather data as he could, from all over the world. This had been Blanford's challenge: to determine how far the monsoon's causes as well as its effects were confined to \"India and its seas.\" Blanford's first forecasts relied on Himalayan snowfall; while he was increasingly aware of remote influences on India's climate, he assumed a closed system. Eliot moved to incorporate influences from across the Indian Ocean into his model, but he misunderstood the relationships at work. Walker, with more statistical tools (and more staff) at his disposal, broadened his parameters. His team processed a quantity of data that would have been inconceivable a generation earlier. The numbers told a clear and a new story: they suggested that \"the monsoon system extended to a pan-oceanic,\" even planetary, scale.\n\nWalker took aim, first, at the desiccationists. He showed that there was little evidence to support their claim that human activity, and particularly deforestation, had modified India's climate in the nineteenth century. However much the denudation of forests may affect the climate and the soil moisture of a particular locality, the scale of the monsoon system far outstripped such local influences. As his thoughts turned to monsoon prediction, Walker looked west of India. The Nile had long been on the minds of India's hydraulic engineers, as comparison, inspiration, or competition; Walker turned his attention to the annual Nile flood for different reasons. \"Inasmuch as the Nile flood is determined by the monsoon rainfall of Abyssinia,\" he wrote, \"and as the moist winds which provide this rainfall travel in the earlier portion of their movement side by side with those which ultimately reach the north of the Arabian Sea\" so there was a \"tolerably close correspondence\" between the extent of the Nile flood and the strength of the Indian monsoon. This was \"seasonal foreshadowing\" at work\u2014a term Walker preferred to the more confident \"forecasting.\"\n\nWalker's statistical prowess paved the way for his most startling discovery. Mining data from across the world, Walker noticed that \"there is a swaying of pressure on a big scale backwards and forwards between the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean, there are swayings, on a much smaller scale, between the Azores and Iceland, and between the areas of high and low pressure in the North Pacific.\" The \"Southern Oscillation,\" as Walker named it, had a \"much greater\" influence on \"world weather\" than the other two. He called these pivotal areas of high and low pressure \"centers of action.\" Walker had identified an inverse relationship of atmospheric pressure at sea level across the Pacific Ocean, measured by readings from stations at Darwin and Tahiti. The usual pattern was for high pressure in Tahiti and low pressure in Darwin, driving the winds from east to west. The pressure contrast across the Pacific drove the storied westerly \"trade winds\"; but they were prone to periodic reversals that could last for one or two seasons. This was the mystery at the heart of Walker's findings. Changes in the location and intensity of the \"centers of action\" shaped the world's climate\u2014but what prompted these changes?\n\nWalker's immediate challenge, as head of the Indian weather service, was to determine how these \"centers of action\" affected India. The broad contours of the picture were clear by the early 1920s. \"Abundant Indian rains,\" he wrote,\n\n... tend to be associated with low pressure in India, Java, Australia and S. Africa; with high pressure in the central Pacific Ocean (Samoa and Honolulu) and South America (Chile and the Argentine); with previously scanty rainfall in Java, Zanzibar, Seychelles and South Rhodesia; and with low temperature in the Aleutian islands.\n\nHe sought correlations in time as well as in space; there were \"foreshadowings\"\u2014in Zanzibar or in the Aleutian Islands\u2014of dearth or plenty in India; Walker probed the \"lags\" of a season, or two, in the relationships he discovered. But the forces at work proved elusive: \"I cannot help believing that we shall gradually find out the physical mechanism by which these [oscillations] are maintained,\" Walker said in 1918. A few years later he told the audience at his presidential address to the Royal Meteorological Society that \"variations in activity of the general oceanic circulation\" would likely be \"far reaching and important.\" It would take another forty years for it to become clear just how \"far reaching and important\" the oceanic dimension really is.\n\nThe role of official meteorologist had left Walker little time for basic research; he took what opportunities he could. The First World War brought new challenges. The meteorological office had always scrabbled for resources; during the war, Walker's deputies were transferred out. G. C. Simpson and Charles Normand were sent to Mesopotamia in 1916, where Normand took charge of military meteorology. Their expertise formed part of a wider infusion of British Indian personnel into Iraq to accompany an even larger number of troops: hydraulic engineers and entomologists, together with a great many vessels built in Indian shipyards. In their absence, it fell to Hem Raj to keep Indian meteorology running. A veteran Indian officer in the department with a \"photographic memory\" for weather charts, Hem Raj oversaw the department's day-to-day operations. Walker later paid warm tribute to \"R.B. Hem Raj, who sacrificed his life in the cause of the allies by concealing a serious illness in order that he might continue his important assistance in an under-staffed office.\" Even as research ground to a halt in Walker's office, the war brought significant advances in global meteorological understanding, thanks primarily to the work of Vilhelm Bjerknes in Bergen\u2014together with his son Jacob and Halvor Solberg\u2014on the development of midlatitude cyclones. Bjerknes and his team brought a metaphor from the battlefields to their understanding of weather \"fronts,\" as they illuminated the dynamic interaction of warm and humid air currents with polar currents. It would be Jacob, five decades later, who finally identified the El Ni\u00f1o phenomenon, expanding on Gilbert Walker's insights.\n\nHowever wide he cast his statistical net, Walker remained a keen observer of his surroundings. He developed an interest in the flight of vultures and kites, which he watched through a telescope in Simla. He noticed that the birds knew where to look for updrafts, allowing them to ascend to up to two thousand feet without flapping their wings. This insight inspired Walker to take an interest in the physics of cloud formation; he even wanted to take up gliding upon his return to England, and was sad to find that \"at 65 his reactions were too slow to allow him to be a successful glider pilot.\" Walker left India in 1924, twenty years after taking over the Meteorological Department. He became professor of meteorology at Imperial College, London. Freed from the practical responsibilities of the Indian weather service, Walker turned his attention in the 1920s to developing his understanding of what he called \"world-weather\"\u2014to which he saw the Southern Oscillation as crucial. Walker remained eclectic in his interests and his methods. In 1927 he warned of the danger of over-specialization: \"There is, to-day, always a risk that specialists in two subjects, using languages full of words that are unintelligible without study,\" he wrote, \"will grow up not only, without knowledge of each other's work, but also will ignore the problems which require mutual assistance.\" There is a hint, here, of the quest to defend meteorology as a science, against those who would see it as mere observation. However global his perspective became, Walker never left the monsoon behind. One of his successors as director of Indian meteorology, Charles Normand, explained many years later why this was. \"The Indian Monsoon,\" Normand wrote, describing Walker's work, \"stands out as an active and not a passive feature in world weather.\" India, on this view, was a driving force in the world's climate. The irony was that \"Walker's worldwide survey ended by offering a promise for the prediction of events in regions other than India,\" since India's experience seemed \"more efficient as a broadcasting tool than an event to be forecast.\"\n\nSoon after the war, the advent of long-distance flights between Europe and Asia in the 1920s shed new light on atmospheric dynamics while demanding more comprehensive forecasts for aviators. From an observatory in Agra, the Indian weather service could now send balloons up to twenty thousand feet, which returned measurements of upper air conditions. Flight through clouds was giving scientists \"insight into cloud formation\"; aerial photography provided a new perspective on the vertical dimension of the weather\u2014\"we see how different a cloudscape seen from above is from one viewed from the ground.\"\n\nEVEN BEFORE THE WAR'S END, THE PROSPECT OF POLITICAL CHANGE was in the air in India. Under pressure from the eruption of mass political protest in India, to which we will return in the next chapter, the reforms enacted under the Government of India Act of 1919 devolved many responsibilities to the provincial level\u2014a system known as \"dyarchy.\" It expanded representative government, though electorates remained small. In parallel to this, a change in personnel began to be felt across the colonial administration\u2014a process of \"Indianization,\" as it was called, in the bureaucracy. Lower-level judges and immigration officials, health inspectors and government scientists were more likely, after 1920, to be Indian rather than British men\u2014but men they mostly remained. And there were limits to how high Indians could rise, which in turn fueled middle-class support for the nationalist movement.\n\nMeteorology moved in the same direction. In the early 1920s, new Indian officers were hired to senior positions in the Meteorological Department: G. Chatterjee, of Presidency College, Calcutta, took over the Upper Air Observatory in Agra; S. K. Banerjee, a noted mathematician, joined the department in Simla\u2014he would go on to become the first director of the Indian Meteorological Department after independence. In Bengal, a young statistician called Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, fresh from Cambridge, was hired to work at the observatory in Calcutta; his impact on the path of India's economic development would be immense. In 1921, Gilbert Walker wrote to Delhi, insisting that \"it is natural for the government to insist that a serious attempt be made to find and train Indians who shall be capable of carrying out the work of the Department,\" noting that there was little to distinguish the abilities of British from Indian staff. \"On political grounds,\" he noted, \"it is obvious that this policy of Indianization must be loyally accepted.\" J. H. Field, Walker's successor, went further. In 1925, Field pleaded for more resources\u2014he wanted six new posts, and a more energetic program of research. He justified his demands by insisting on the talent of Indian meteorologists, and by pointing to the new demands that would arise from air links between Europe and Asia. \"India has now for the first time an opportunity to show what an Indianised department can do,\" he declared. \"The opportunity is magnificent and unique: if the controlling department of the government will only rise to the height of this occasion and give me what I ask, it is to be expected that my Indian staff will justify demands as an outstanding example of efficiency in running their own concern.\" In an age of austerity Field did not secure the resources he had asked for, but the \"Indianization\" of the meteorology department was underway. The Indian officials who joined the department in the 1920s were \"nationalists to the core,\" writes D. R. Sikka, director of the Indian Meteorological Department in the late twentieth century. This did not prevent them from being \"loyal to the department,\" believing it to stand above politics. But in the 1920s and 1930s India's rainfall became ever more deeply political.\n\nIN HIS ACCOUNT OF ISAURA, ITALO CALVINO WROTE THAT THE city's water gods inhabited the whole vertical expanse of water. They lived, he wrote,\n\nin the buckets that rise, suspended from a cable, as they appear over the edge of the wells, in revolving pulleys, in the windlasses of the norias, in the pump handles, in the blades of the windmills that draw the water up from the drillings in the trestles that support the twisting probes, in the reservoirs perched on stilts over the roofs, in the slender arches of the aqueducts, all the columns of water, the vertical pipes, the plungers, the drains, all the way up to the weathercocks that surmount the airy scaffoldings of Isaura, a city that moves entirely upward.\n\nThe fictional Isaura is timeless, its waters unchanging. In early twentieth-century India, technology transformed water in every dimension. Electric pumps extracted water from the depths and balloons measured the moisture of the upper atmosphere; big dams harnessed the descent of rivers, for irrigation and flood control and to generate electricity. A vision of India that \"moves entirely upward\" sat alongside the older (and flatter) maritime conception of India at the heart of an imperial web of sea-lanes. The next chapter will turn to the story of how struggles for water were intensified by Asian nationalisms in the 1930s.\n\n# SIX\n\n# WATER AND FREEDOM\n\nAN ANCIENT DICTUM\u2014THAT THE CONTROL OF WATER CONFERRED political power\u2014acquired new meaning, and new urgency, in an age of nationalism. From India to China, water was at the heart of programs for political renewal and national development in the 1920s and 1930s. The rising generation of leaders in Asia included engineers, architects, and physicists, alongside lawyers and schoolteachers. Many of them felt that the conquest of nature in the early twentieth century had not gone far or fast enough. For inspiration they looked to the world's rising powers. They studied the New Deal in the United States. American technological modernity was epitomized by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which gathered together previously disparate approaches to flood control, river navigation, electricity generation, soil conservation, irrigation, and public health. Asian nationalists drew lessons from the breakneck industrialization and the colossal engineering schemes of the Soviet Union, not least because the Soviet Union was also a major Asian country that had attempted to reengineer landscapes that resembled those of China's and India's northwestern reaches, and has done so at a pace unprecedented in global history.\n\nIn India, in China, across Southeast Asia, nationalist movements were unstable social coalitions. Their leaders struggled to create a sense of unity and purpose, while acknowledging the fractures of social and economic inequality and addressing regional disparities. Many divisions emerged over the control and sharing of resources\u2014among which water was often the most vital. The 1920s and 1930s were characterized by deepening contacts and solidarities among anticolonial and revolutionary movements across and beyond Asia. But when it came to tangible material questions, like sharing water, they began to draw firm lines around their respective domains. In these decades between the world wars, the seeds were sown for water conflicts that would intensify in the second half of the twentieth century after Asian nations won their freedom from colonial rule.\n\n# I\n\nAs we saw in the last chapter, India's landscape was reshaped by the quest for water in the first two decades of the twentieth century. In the accounts of engineers the construction of canals and dams, and the pumping of underground water were purely a technical process, outside politics. Few of them, British or Indian, departed from the assumption that the British colonial government would lead the charge. But the rise of nationalism raised new questions about who would benefit from these changes in India's land and water.\n\nIndian nationalism emerged as a powerful mobilizing force in the first decade of the twentieth century. The Swadeshi movement arose in protest against a 1905 British plan to partition the province of Bengal, ostensibly for economic reasons, but also to divide what the colonial government perceived to be a threatening locus of political organization. \"Swadeshi,\" meaning \"home-made,\" began with the boycott of British goods in favor of locally produced products, but it burgeoned into a diverse movement that included those\u2014branded \"terrorists\" by the British\u2014who advocated the violent overthrow of the colonial government. The protesters achieved their immediate goal: the British revoked their decision to break up the province. But the Swadeshi mobilization was transient and fragile; it splintered into mutually hostile factions. It was largely confined to the province of Bengal, and even there, it was dominated by elite Hindus to the exclusion of Muslims. The Swadeshi movement mirrored similar uprisings elsewhere. Across Asia, the early twentieth century saw a wave of boycotts and demonstrations and strikes. The same year the Swadeshi movement began, Shanghai witnessed a widespread boycott of American goods in response to the wave of violence and discriminatory legislation directed against Chinese immigrants in the United States in the early twentieth century. By the 1910s, these stirrings of unrest had turned into mass movements.\n\nIn India, the most effective and visible political leader was a lawyer named Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Born to a merchant family in Porbandar, a port town in Gujarat on India's western coast, Gandhi spent decades outside India. He studied law in London between 1888 and 1891. There he came under the influence of the spiritualist Theosophy movement; he discovered vegetarianism; he experienced a political and spiritual awakening that led him to the study of Indian philosophy and religion. In 1893, Gandhi took up an offer of a job as a lawyer in South Africa. He quickly came to lead protests against the race-based exclusions and restrictions faced by the Indian community in South Africa\u2014a diverse group that included Gujarati merchants and traders, concentrated in Durban and Johannesburg, as well as indentured workers from Tamil Nadu and Bihar, who worked on the sugar plantations of Natal. Gandhi, like most of South Africa's Indian community, supported the British in the South African War, a brutal contest between English and Afrikaner settlers. Hopes that the British would reward Indian support after the war proved short-lived. The rapprochement between the English and the Afrikaners in the postwar settlement led to a tightening of restrictions on the Indian community, including a requirement for them to carry identity cards (\"passes\")\u2014though, always, the colony's African majority faced discrimination that was far worse. Immersed in reading Tolstoy and Thoreau, Gandhi experimented with communal living at a settlement named Phoenix. He started a printing press. He honed his political tactics\u2014a form of nonviolent civil disobedience that he dubbed _satyagraha_ (\"struggle for truth.\")\n\nDuring his South African years, Gandhi developed a critical account of British rule in India. He published _Hind Swaraj_ in 1909, a treatise that took the form of a dialogue with an imagined reader. Gandhi took aim not only at the violence and tyranny that underpinned British rule in India but also, more radically, at its material effects. \"India's salvation consists of unlearning what she has learnt during the past fifty years or so,\" he wrote. \"The railways, telegraphs, hospitals, lawyers, doctors and such like have all to go, and the so-called upper class have to learn to live consciously and religiously and deliberately the simple life of a peasant.\" Gandhi concluded that \"machinery is the main symbol of modern civilization; it represents a great sin.\" In rejecting \"telegraphs, hospitals, lawyers [and] doctors,\" Gandhi was being provocative; he aimed to shock his readers into asking questions about the ultimate ends of India's embrace of industrial modernity.\n\nGandhi's analysis stood at odds with the rush to secure India against vulnerability to nature\u2014a process which, we have seen, involved many Indians alongside British water engineers and administrators. Over the years, Gandhi developed further the idea that India's freedom lay in living with the rhythms of nature. He was repulsed by India's cities, though his vision of the country as an agglomeration of \"village republics\" was largely a myth drawn from the writings of British orientalists like Henry Maine. As a symbolic figure, as a tactician, Gandhi was unrivaled within the Indian nationalist movement. His economic ideas remained marginal. They stood as a quiet counterpoint to the powerful tune of more technology, more control, more progress. Most of Gandhi's associates and many of his followers had a different view of what India needed\u2014the \"simple life of the peasant\" was precisely what they aimed to relegate to the past.\n\nWhen Gandhi returned to India in 1915, he hurled himself into political activity. He had already acquired the honorific \"Mahatma\" (\"great soul\"); his reputation as an effective organizer and powerful speaker had traveled with him from South Africa. He began on a small scale, interceding on behalf of indigo workers in Champaran, Bihar, who were protesting their exploitative working conditions. By 1917, Gandhi was India's preeminent politician. He jolted the Indian National Congress to life, expanded its membership, forged a coalition of rural and urban supporters. Gandhi rejected the class-based mobilization of the left in favor of an emphasis on conciliation; among his supporters were India's largest industrialists, including the Birla family. Gandhi launched his mass Non-Cooperation Movement in 1919, in protest against the slow pace of political reform in British India and directed in particular against the prolongation of the state's wartime emergency powers. A campaign of protests and boycotts, fasts and vigils, lasted until 1922, when Gandhi called it off following an act of violence in the small town of Chauri Chaura, where Congress supporters had attacked a police station. A cycle of repression and concession would unfold over the subsequent two decades. The British government of India locked Gandhi and his lieutenants up in prison on many occasions, interspersed with periods of negotiation.\n\nThe nationalist upsurge spanned Asia. The Non-Cooperation Movement in India raged at the same time that China saw an outpouring of social and political protest against the territorial concessions that Japan, victorious on the Allied side, had gained in China after the First World War. A wide coalition of youth and students and activists came together in a loose grouping known as the May Fourth Movement. In Vietnam and in Indonesia, too, the 1920s saw the rise of new political and social movements directed, respectively, against French and Dutch colonial rule. In all three countries, unlike in India, communism emerged among the most powerful and most compelling of political movements.\n\nAsia's nationalist movements spoke the language of freedom and sovereignty, and it is on the richness and multiplicity of these concepts that historians have focused their attentions. But there was always a strong material underpinning to the ambitions of Asia's nationalists. It is here that the history of nationalism intersects with the battle to bring unruly waters under control. Nationalist leaders needed water, mineral resources, and fossil fuels to realize their plans for industrialization, to make good on their promises of an end to hunger and poverty. A new sense of confidence crept into visions of Asia's future. Consider this contrast: In 1909, the imperial finance minister of India had characterized each of his budgets as a \"gamble on the rains,\" conveying a sense of fatalism about the power of nature over economy and society. Twenty years later, Jawaharlal Nehru\u2014Cambridge-educated lawyer and scion of an elite Allahabad family, son of pioneering nationalist Motilal Nehru, and by the 1920s Gandhi's most trusted younger colleague, and one of India's most influential and charismatic politicians\u2014declared that \"modern science claims to have curbed to a large extent the tyranny and the vagaries of nature.\" Nehru was clear about the material urgency behind every vision of freedom. \"Our desire for freedom is a thing more of the mind than the body,\" Nehru said, but most Indians suffered \"hunger and deepest poverty, and empty stomach and a bare back.\" For the masses, \"freedom is a vital bodily necessity.\"\n\nIn China, as in India, water was a vital ingredient of freedom. The control of water was essential to China's emergence from a century of humiliation at the hands of imperial powers, which had culminated in 1911 with the collapse of the Qing dynasty. Sun Yat-sen, architect of China's republican revolution, applied himself to the problem of China's development, even as rival regional polities tore China apart. In _The International Development of China,_ Sun set forth an expansive vision of China as what he called an \"economic ocean\" for the world. His book was replete with maps of rivers diverted, maps of rail lines laid, maps of ports dredged and electricity generated. Water was at the heart of his vision. Sun told a meeting in Guangdong in 1924: \"If we could utilize the water power in the Yangtze and Yellow rivers to generate one hundred million horsepower of electrical energy, we would be putting twenty-four hundred million men to work!\" Sun predicted that \"when that time comes, we shall have enough power to supply railways, motor cars, fertilizer factories and all kinds of manufacturing establishments.\"\n\nIn contrast with India, where the focus had long been on irrigation, Chinese river engineering in the early twentieth century focused on flood control. Though China, too, had suffered from the great droughts of the 1870s and 1890s, it had also experienced disastrous river flooding on a scale unknown in India. By the 1920s, the Yellow River, famously silt-laden, posed a particular challenge\u2014a challenge embraced by an international corps of engineers. Two Americans, John Freeman and O. J. Todd, played a central role; their Chinese prot\u00e9g\u00e9s included Li Yizhi (1882\u20131938), whose stature in China was akin to Visvesvaraya's in India. Li studied in Berlin and then visited hydraulic projects across Europe; he was aided in his work by a new cadre of Chinese graduates from MIT and other leading American institutions. \"To manufacture cotton into yarn, to grind grain into flour, to light cities and otherwise modernize this part of Shansi,\" Todd wrote, \"will be part of the benefit that these Yellow River Falls may confer on the nearby country.\" His ambition found many echoes across China, in India, and in other parts of the colonized world. But beneath that ambition was an enduring sense of fragility.\n\nTO HARVEST WATER WAS TO REDRESS THE INEQUALITIES OF nature\u2014to even out the uneven reach of the monsoon, to ensure against the particular unpredictability of the rains in the places that needed it most. But water was also an engine of inequality between people, between classes and castes, between city and country, between regions. The command of water underpinned the accumulation of land. The control of water was a source of power; its absence, a source of enduring exclusion. In the first three decades of the twentieth century, water was at the material heart of many struggles for freedom\u2014but freedom for whom?\n\nThe question arose forcefully in the western Indian town of Mahad, near Poona, in March 1927. The local Dalit community\u2014those excluded from the Hindu caste system, once known as Untouchables, whose daily lives were marred by residential and occupational segregation as well as by violence and material deprivation\u2014were denied access by upper-caste Hindus to a local tank containing drinking water. Although a court had ruled that this exclusion was illegal, it continued\u2014as it did in countless towns and villages across India, as it still does today. Dalit leader Bhimrao Ambedkar\u2014a brilliant lawyer from a poor family in western India, who had received scholarships to study at the London School of Economics and Columbia University\u2014led a march to the tank. He drank a symbolic cup of water from the reservoir. The retaliation from local caste Hindus, who felt their social dominance under threat, was brutal and immediate. Dalits were attacked; many lost their jobs. \"We now want to go to the Tank only to prove that, like others, we are also human beings,\" Ambedkar declared, as he launched a _satyagraha_ with four thousand volunteers. At the last minute, he called off the movement, trusting in the courts to deliver justice for his community. It took a decade for Ambedkar's trust to be vindicated, when a further ruling insisted the tank be opened to all\u2014contradicting the caste Hindus' claim that it was private property, and therefore that they were free to exclude whomever they chose from the tank's waters.\n\nIn the broadest terms there remained a tension at the heart of the Indian nationalist movement. As one political theorist has described it, it was a tension between, on the one hand, \"social freedom from caste domination,\" and, on the other hand, an overriding emphasis on the immediacy of \"political freedom from colonial rule,\" deferring or subsuming those other struggles. Ambedkar and Gandhi would find themselves on opposite sides of that debate, coming into conflict in the 1930s over whether Dalits should have separate representation in the legislative councils of British India, which India's Muslims already had. It is no coincidence that both leaders invoked the symbolic as well as material power of water. For his part, one of Gandhi's most effective and iconic campaigns was the \"salt march\" to the sea at Dandi, in 1930. Choosing the British salt tax as the symbolic focus of his _satyagraha,_ Gandhi observed that \"next to air and water, salt is perhaps the greatest necessity of life.\" The vital properties of salt linked the coastal ecosystem with the lives of millions inland. Gandhi's was an argument about climate and society\u2014the poorest, who labored outdoors in the heat, were most in need of salt. Where Ambedkar's march on the tank had drawn attention to water as an indicator of profound social inequality, Gandhi used it as a symbol of unity. Within and beyond India, competing claims on water and resources escalated in the 1930s.\n\n# II\n\nHow far could Asia's environmental inheritance be molded? What was the potential of technology to transform Asia, to make use of water and to make water available to all? Contending answers to these questions played out in the decades between the two world wars. Iron confidence in the conquest of nature, expressed by engineers and scientists and nationalists, alternated with a sense of vulnerability before nature's power and its unpredictability. As new knowledge of the monsoon became more widely known, climate itself provided a new way to think about Asia, its boundaries\u2014and its future.\n\n\"I wish to treat the monsoon as a way of life,\" wrote Japanese philosopher Watsuji Tetsuro (1889\u20131960) in the late 1920s; this was \"something that a hygrometer cannot do.\" And so the fullest expression of the idea that the monsoon constituted the essence of India came not from a European but a Japanese observer. Watsuji was a scholar of Japanese ethics and aesthetics. He translated the works of S\u00f8ren Kierkegaard into Japanese. He traveled to Germany in 1927 to study with Martin Heidegger. His journey took him by way of Southeast Asia, India, and the Middle East. During and after his journey he wrote _F\u016bdo,_ loosely translated as \"climate\"; it was Watsuji's response to Heidegger's _Sein und Zeit_ (Being and Time). _F\u016bdo_ was not translated into English until 1961. It is unlikely that the book was widely known in India. But India was central to the book's argument that climate shaped culture, society, and history. _F\u016bdo_ is unusual in contrasting India's climate not primarily with Western Europe's, but with Japan's and China's. Watsuji's work was part of a larger intellectual and political movement in Japan to think about Asian societies\u2014their similarities and contrasts\u2014in light of European domination of the world, and in light of Japanese ambitions for regional supremacy.\n\nThe humidity of a monsoon climate, Watsuji believed, \"does not arouse within man any sense of a struggle against nature,\" unlike in desert lands. The \"distinctive character... of human nature in the monsoon zone,\" he insisted, \"can be understood as submissive and resignatory.\" This was in part because of the monsoon climate's doubleness: it \"typifies the violence of nature\" with its huge storms, \"the power is so vast that man is obliged to abandon all hope of resistance\"; but this is \"a threat filled with power\u2014a power capable of giving life.\" In Watsuji's eyes India represented the most extreme manifestation of a monsoon climate. \"It is the rainy season, brought by the monsoon, that has done most to create the resignation of the Indian,\" he noted. He observed that \"over two-thirds of India's 320 millions (a fifth of the world's population) are farmers and grow their crops thanks to the monsoon\" and so \"whether it is late, whether it lasts its due time\" are \"matters of great moment.\" India's masses, Watsuji argued, had \"no means of resistance against nature.\" There was \"no escape for India's people from such insecurity of life.\" This insecurity brought about \"a lack of historical awareness, a fullness of feeling and a relaxation of will power.\"\n\nThis was a familiar pattern of argument: a familiar set of stereotypes about Indians as lazy and emotional. Nineteenth-century British liberals claimed that Indians lacked the rationality for self-government. They were too close to nature. Watsuji drew on this intellectual tradition; but in his writing we also see a distinct sense of Japan's historic mission to \"save\" Asia from European domination and from its own backwardness. \"The people of the South Seas have never made any appreciable cultural progress,\" he declared, but \"there would be startling advances if some way were found to break this mold and set this teeming power in motion.\" The resignation of Indians, he wrote, \"prompts in us and draws out from us all our own aggressive and masterful characteristics.\" It was \"on such grounds that the visitor to India is made to wish impulsively that the Indian would take up his struggle for independence.\" A struggle, by implication of this circular reasoning, that could only be guided by peoples whose climates had endowed them with different traits. Watsuji implied that the Japanese were better placed to lead this charge than Europeans. Westerners could never truly understand the monsoon, whereas Japan had its own experience of tropical climates on the southern fringes of the archipelago, and on its model colony of Taiwan. Watsuji was not alone. Between the wars, many Asian students, scientists, and political leaders contemplated the relationship between nature and power, between nature and empire, between nature and nation. Watsuji Tetsuro concluded that for India's future, \"change depends upon the conquest of climate.\" Stripped of its moral, even spiritual, connotations, that conquest was, ultimately, a question of technology.\n\nA less abstract perspective, but one that shared Watsuji's concern with how climate and ecology shaped culture, came from the Bengali sociologist and economist Radhakamal Mukerjee, a professor at Lucknow University who devoted much time and many pages in the 1920s and 1930s to the problems of rural India. Mukerjee was deeply concerned with water. In recent years the eccentric and eclectic Mukerjee has been recovered by historians as a prophet of an ecologically sensitive and localist approach to development\u2014but he cuts an ambiguous figure. He was a committed eugenicist; he absorbed the racial and environmental determinism of his time and then inverted it, calling, for instance, for _lebensraum_ for the \"teeming millions\" of India and China. Nevertheless, his was a rare voice of concern about India's environmental balance at a time of rapid development\u2014and his concerns were more tangible and specific than, say, Gandhi's. \"Man, tree, and water cannot be regarded as separate and independent,\" Mukerjee wrote; he decried \"crimes\" against nature that would in turn \"[let] loose destructive forces.\" Wise development, Mukerjee argued, would pay heed to the \"natural balance of man with the organic and inorganic world around him.\" Only in that balance could human society find \"security, well-being, and progress.\"\n\nMukerjee's prescription for India's future came from his close study of the riverine landscape of his native Bengal. Drawing on the work of the Russian anarchist geographer L\u00e9on Metchnikoff, who in 1889 published a wide-ranging history of riverine civilizations (including the Ganges valley), Mukerjee thought of river basins as living entities. Each river was \"a synthesis or epitome of all the possible environmental variations and influences\"; each river's \"properties, colorations and varied taste,\" as well as its \"plastic or destructive power,\" was a product of climate and geology. Mukerjee's diagnosis was that the vital force of Bengal's rivers had been eviscerated by more than a century of British rule. He observed the deterioration of soil quality from overintensive cultivation. Others had observed this worrying trend, and ascribed it to the pressure of population. But the root problem, as Mukerjee saw it, was that \"agriculture comes to be influenced rather [more] by the state of the market than by an arranged succession of crops which may replenish the soil.\" Pressing on the ecology of land and water, the demands of the colonial state and capitalists for the products of the soil had left the Bengal delta \"moribund.\" But where did the roots of its revival lie? For Mukerjee, as also for the British hydraulic engineer William Willcocks\u2014famous as the architect of the first Aswan Dam on the Nile River\u2014part of the answer lay in recovering and reviving local traditions of irrigation and water management. For others, as we will see, only the wholesale transformation of nature by technology would match the scale of the challenge.\n\nAnother part of Mukerjee's concern echoed the debate of the early twentieth century about India's place in the world\u2014a debate that ranged across many fields of science and politics\u2014over whether India was better seen as a bounded territory or as part of an oceanic realm. Of all of the ways that human beings had \"gained a gradual mastery of the waters,\" he argued, \"by far the most significant development is trade by sea.\" India's maritime connections, Mukerjee observed, \"usher[ed] in an oceanic civilization superseding the fluvial.\" The resources of the river valleys were \"narrow and limited\" in comparison with oceanic commerce, which \"extends as wide as the world.\" The more that traffic on the sea-lanes sucked up the produce of the river valleys, the sharper their decline became. Demand from distant markets upset what Mukerjee called \"ecological balance.\" But he was optimistic. He felt that the excesses of \"oceanic civilization\" were now apparent; he looked forward to the moment when \"man becomes more agriculturally inclined than ever before and atones for his past neglect.\" He was to prove prescient\u2014though the motive force of a return to agriculture, and a revival of the river valleys, was not atonement so much as necessity.\n\nIF THE INTEGRATION OF INDIA WITH REGIONAL AND GLOBAL MARKETS had placed new demands upon soil and water, the collapse of those markets in the 1930s created new dilemmas. For the first two decades of the twentieth century, many rural communities in India had relied on resources from overseas to survive\u2014exports from the rice fields of Burma, and the remittances that came back to India from the wages of migrant workers in Burma, Malaya, and Ceylon. This was the key to a puzzle that historian Christopher Baker confronted in a brilliant and neglected 1981 essay on the economic integration and subsequent disintegration of Asia. In India, as in China and Java, the 1920s marked the \"critical point\" when \"land ran out,\" Baker wrote. What demographers have struggled to explain is that, despite dire warnings in the 1920s, no Malthusian crisis ensued. To the contrary, population growth gathered pace even as agricultural yields declined year after year. The answer, Baker saw, lay in the interconnected regional economy that provided a lifeline for the densely settled agrarian heartlands of southeastern India or southern China, providing new opportunities for long-distance migration for their young men and a smaller but still significant number of young women. The expansion of rice cultivation along the Irrawaddy, Mekong, and Chao Phraya river basins after 1870 added around 14 million acres of new rice-growing lands in fifty years. The opening of this final frontier of cultivation was accompanied by vast migration from India and China to Southeast Asia. More than 20 million passenger journeys traversed the Bay of Bengal, and a similar number the South China Sea, in the half century after 1870. Migrants went to work on the rubber plantations and tin mines of Malaya, on the tobacco fields of Sumatra, on the docks and in the mills and factories and on the streets of the growing port towns of Singapore and Rangoon, Penang and Surabaya. Many of these journeys were temporary, their pattern circular. Violence was never far from the experience of migrant workers; they traveled under a variety of arrangements and agreements, founded on debt. But Southeast Asia provided a horizon of opportunity, however fragile; year after year, the number of new arrivals in Southeast Asia outstripped the number of people heading back home.\n\nThe global economic depression of the 1930s changed everything as it disconnected the regional economies of South and Southeast Asia. The depression made the inequalities of colonial capitalism starkly visible. Frustration about rising unemployment and intolerable debt found an outlet in anti-immigrant sentiment; mass political movements began to speak of redistribution. The collapse of global commodity markets led to a reversal of the flows of migration that had become entrenched over sixty years. The number of Indians departing Burma and Malaya exceeded the number of arrivals between 1930 and 1933; the same was true of the Chinese throughout Southeast Asia, despite the fact that China in those years suffered both from civil strife and from escalating Japanese military intervention. More than six hundred thousand people left Malaya between 1930 and 1933. They had to fend for themselves when they returned home. The Indian government's agent in Malaya noted that repatriation to India in times of distress \"is proving less and less effective as a remedy against unemployment.\" Tamil workers in Malaya received no relief, and \"their suffering is merely transferred from Malaya to South India.\" John Furnivall, Burma-based British scholar, administrator, and Fabian socialist, wrote with prescience in 1939 that \"we can already see that 1930 marks the... close of a period of sixty years, beginning with the opening of the Suez Canal, and, although less definitely, the close of a period of four hundred years from the first landing of Vasco da Gama in Calicut.\"\n\n# III\n\nWhen the colonial government of Madras opened the Mettur Dam along the Kaveri River in 1934, it was for a brief moment the largest dam in the world. It had been in the works for almost two decades. The dam could \"boast of controlling works that leave those at Assouan [Aswan] well behind,\" one newspaper report declared, revealing how far water engineering had become a global endeavor. Mettur was three times the Aswan dam's length, standing 5,300 feet long, 176 feet high, 171 wide, and boasting a sixteen-foot roadway on top. The idea invoked, again and again, was control. \"Rivers in India are not all tidy instruments,\" the columnist observed. India's rivers had a will of their own: \"not many of them are content just with carrying water from mountain to sea,\" he wrote, \"they love to spill it on the way... to damage while they enrich the lands they flow through.\" He drew a clear lesson: \"They do not restrain themselves, and must be restrained.\" Not all observers were so sanguine. In a handwritten note on a file in the Tamil Nadu archives in Chennai, a civil servant who signed off as \"SA\" took a dim view of what seemed to be the hubris behind the Mettur Dam:\n\nThe Superintending Engineer's report is too self satisfied, or takes too much for granted, the infallibility of the officers of the department and the rank ignorance and prejudice of the ryots [farmers]. I do not think the position in Tanjore district is quite so very simple as the... report makes it out to be. While I am behind no one else in my admiration of the skill of our engineers who have built the great dam at Mettur and have succeeded in opening out the possibility of providing efficient irrigation facilities for large tracts of Country, the problem in Tanjore district has yet to be studied with sympathy and local knowledge.\n\nBut SA's was the voice of a minority. The \"restraint\" of water, more than any other single solution, promised to address so many of the problems that came together to create a sense of agrarian crisis. Declining soil fertility, falling crop yields, the closing of overseas frontiers for migration and the depression's shock to trade\u2014all of these combined with a broader sense of the enduring unpredictability of a monsoon climate. But every scheme to control water had the potential to create conflict between users upstream and downstream, between beneficiaries and losers. Since those unequal benefits often fell on either side of a political boundary, attempts to control water sharpened awareness of borders. Everywhere, as claims multiplied on river water for irrigation and power, so too did efforts to claim water as territory. The Mettur Dam had run into just this problem\u2014that is why it was so long in the making. The Kaveri River flowed through both Madras Presidency and the princely state of Mysore. Mysore was quicker than Madras to attempt to harness the river, thanks in large part to the work of the engineer M. Visvesvaraya. But if Visvesvaraya's plans for his Krishnarajasagar Dam were realized, the British claimed, Mettur would not have enough water. The tangle that ensued became the first, and certainly not the last, territorial dispute over water in modern India. The first treaty between the governments of India and Mysore over water dated back to 1892; at that time of agricultural intensification, it was already clear that conflict might lie ahead. Unable to reconcile their dispute over Krishnarajasagar, both sides went to arbitration by the imperial government of India and agreed upon a technical solution: the tribunal decided on the exact quantities of water that Mysore and Madras were entitled to. Neither side was entirely satisfied, but they signed an agreement in 1924. The distribution of Kaveri water has continued to haunt the Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka since 1947\u2014a point of recurrent conflict, both within and outside of the courts.\n\nMany of Asia's leaders believed that centralized planning would balance the needs of different constituencies. Planning would address the conflicts that arose between regions and communities; it would distribute resources in the most equitable and efficient way. Water resource planning took its place alongside economic planning in China as well as in India. In 1933, and in the aftermath of disastrous floods two years earlier, Chiang Kai-shek, who was by that time in command of a large part of China, assembled the Yellow River Conservancy Commission. Just as Indian engineers started to imagine the uses of water beyond irrigation, so China's planners too moved toward multipurpose water projects. Foreign engineers were drawn to the challenge that the Yellow River's control posed. Eminent German hydrologist Hubert Engels set up a Yellow River research center in Dresden; the League of Nations, too, lent its support and expertise to the Yellow River commission. China was an independent republic in the 1930s but faced a growing threat from the territorial expansion of the Japanese empire. In India, the Congress party\u2014which won large majorities in the elections of 1937, held under an expanded franchise\u2014began to think about India after British rule, even if the arrival of freedom seemed to lie in the distant future. The Congress party's National Planning Committee, convened in 1938 by Jawaharlal Nehru, brought together a coalition of left-leaning nationalists, Gandhian thinkers, industrialists, and scientists including Radhakamal Mukerjee. It saw itself as a state-in-waiting. The group formed several subcommittees, of which one dealt with \"River Training and Irrigation,\" chaired by Nawab Ali Nawaz Jung, chief engineer of the princely state of Hyderabad. The committee reported that \"it is important that our rivers should be developed to the greatest possible extent and effectively utilised.\" It was a task that could not wait: \"Conservation of water by storage,\" they concluded, \"has become a matter vital to the future\" of India.\n\nTHROUGHOUT THE 1930S, INDIAN AND CHINESE PLANS TO CONTROL water proceeded with each oblivious to the other\u2014and Chinese plans were soon consumed by the crisis of war with Japan. It would be a long time before their river engineering projects put them on a collision course. But there were portents of trouble to come. In the early 1930s, there was a flare-up of tension on the fringes of British and Chinese control\u2014on the border between Burma, still ruled as part of British India, and Yunnan. A secret British intelligence file went into great detail on \"Chinese Claims to the Irrawaddy Triangle\"; it was filled with correspondence and translated pamphlets and newspaper articles, all deployed as evidence that the Chinese state was making a \"fantastic claim... to the whole of Burma north of latitude 25\u02da35N, right up to the Assam border.\" On the Chinese side, William Credner, a geographer sympathetic to Chinese nationalism and based at Sun Yat-sen University, undertook an expedition to the Irrawaddy triangle along with three Chinese officials in 1930. They sought to address the \"long-outstanding question of the undemarcated northern and southern sections of the Yunnan-Burma boundary,\" left undefined in a treaty of 1894. They protested successive British military expeditions in the area, which the British justified on the grounds of suppressing a local slave trade. The Chinese party \"advanced far into the uncivilized and remote districts,\" he wrote, and undertook the \"plentiful collection of information\"\u2014not only on the \"boundary question,\" but also on the \"topography of the region.\" For now, the border was important as a symbolic marker of Chinese sovereignty: \"It is hoped that Yunnanese of all classes will unite in striving to prevent the territory from being treated as a British colony again,\" an intercepted Chinese memorandum declared. But there was also a hint, in the close attention to landscape and the flow of rivers, that frontier regions would become vital for other reasons, too: for their water and their mineral riches.\n\nThe question of borders arose, in a different sense, in India's fisheries. By the 1930s, V. Sundara Raj had succeeded James Hornell as the first Indian director of the Madras Fisheries Department. Unlike his predecessors, he looked forward to the wholesale transformation of India's fisheries by technology. Writing at the height of the Depression, as the regional economy had contracted and patterns of inter-regional migration had reversed, Sundara Raj worried that the Ceylon government had begun \"deep-sea fishing experiments\" with a trawler, in what he saw as water belonging to Madras. He pointed to Malaya, too, and the \"great awakening in these sister states\"; his concern was that \"other Governments will exploit the Madras fishing grounds.\" He repeated his request, denied the first time around, for a trawler and a cutter, to commence his own deep-sea exploration. Sundara Raj saw \"intensive ocean research and exploration of ocean grounds\" as a global trend\u2014he cited examples from Japan, Canada, and the United States.\n\n# IV\n\nFrom the late 1930s Asia was embroiled in war. China's experience of war was most prolonged, and most traumatic. Beginning with the annexation of the northeastern Chinese region of Manchuria in 1931, the Japanese empire advanced, propelled by the actions of local military commanders. Japan's rulers eyed China's mineral resources, its strategic position, and its territorial expanse. General Chiang Kai-shek's very success in gaining control over China presented a threat to Japanese ambitions, which had been well served by China's internecine strife in the 1920s. In 1937, simmering conflict erupted into full-scale war. Under pressure of conflict, the best laid plans for the development of water resources went awry, with catastrophic effects. In June 1938, retreating Chinese troops breached the Yellow River dikes in Huangyuankou, in Henan Province, to stop the Japanese advance on the Nationalist stronghold of Wuhan. It was, in the words of one historian, \"the single most environmentally damaging act of warfare in world history.\" Its dikes breached, the Yellow River rushed southeast, spilling into the Huai River system and drowning tracts of flat land on its way. More than eight hundred thousand people were killed, and 4 million displaced, by this desperate act of hydraulic sabotage.\n\nThe war in Asia spread in December 1941, when Japanese forces simultaneously attacked Pearl Harbor and swept through Southeast Asia. Within a year, the Japanese empire had absorbed a region that had, since the nineteenth century, been divided among imperial powers. They conquered British-ruled Malaya and Burma, the Dutch East Indies, French Indochina, and the American-ruled Philippines. The fall of Burma brought the threat of a Japanese invasion to India's borders.\n\nThough Indian territory saw little fighting, it became a vast supply base and center of operations for the Allied war effort in Asia\u2014and Indian troops constituted a sizeable contingent of Allied forces in every theater of war. The war also transformed Indian politics. Incensed that the British government had declared war on India's behalf without consulting Indian politicians, the Congress party resigned from the provincial governments it had controlled since the elections of 1937. After the failure of negotiations with a British delegation led by Labour politician Sir Stafford Cripps in August 1942, Gandhi launched another mass campaign of civil disobedience\u2014the Quit India Movement. Parts of North India became ungovernable. The British responded by dropping bombs on civilians to quell the revolt. In their search for support as Congress party leaders languished in prison, the British turned elsewhere. The war boosted the power and the standing of the Muslim League and its leader, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who had in 1940 passed the \"Pakistan resolution,\" calling for the establishment of a homeland for India's Muslims\u2014though how, where, and when were questions left deliberately unclear. The British were forced to concede that India would gain freedom, in some shape or form, after the war.\n\nAS HISTORIAN SRINATH RAGHAVAN HAS SHOWN, THE WAR LED TO A vastly expanded role for the state in the economy, laying the groundwork for the apparatus of planning in independent India.\n\nAmong other fields, the war gave a boost to meteorology, as India became a hub of military aviation. The Indian Meteorological Department grew fast: its budget trebled between 1939 and 1944, and it established a new base of operations on a thirty-acre campus along Delhi's Lodhi Road. It proved difficult to find and train enough staff to keep pace with the expansion of facilities. Some of India's leading meteorologists suffered loss and hardship during the war. Most of the staff of the Burma Meteorological Department were Indian; and when Japanese bombing raids began on Rangoon, they joined the exodus of up to a half-million Indian refugees\u2014most of whom walked back to India, through jungle and mountains, into Assam. The director of Burma's weather service, S. C. Roy, walked from Rangoon to Imphal. One of his deputies, S. N. Ghosh, survived the long trek only to be killed in a Japanese bombing raid on the Indian border. The war saw the recruitment of a new cadre of meteorologists in India\u2014the generation that would staff India's weather service after independence. The meteorology department had three times as many staff by the end of the war as it did at the start. In 1944, Charles Normand retired as its director after thirty-one years working for the department; his successor, S. K. Banerji, was the first Indian to head the meteorological service. The war saw the beginning of aircraft weather reconnaissance over the Bay of Bengal, through a series of flights between Madras and the Andaman Islands. It also witnessed a breakthrough in communications technology. The India Meteorological Broadcast Center was established at the Royal Air Force base in Nagpur, in central India. The Royal Air Force and the United States Air Force installed the first teleprinters in India for the transmission of weather data.\n\nThe development of meteorology was oriented by military needs. In weather forecasting as in medicine, civilian applications for the new technologies were a low priority. However much the new technologies promised, India's experience of the war shattered the complacent assumption, pervasive by the 1930s, that nature had been conquered.\n\nWHEN THE JAPANESE INVADED BURMA IN 1942, BRITISH INDIA lost 15 percent of its total rice supply. In some areas that took large imports of Burmese rice, like Madras, the shortfall was overcome by local production. But in Bengal a long-term decline in the rural economy came together with natural disaster, compounded by wartime political bungling, to cause a catastrophic famine\u2014the first in India since the early twentieth century. The return of starvation to Bengal came as a traumatic shock. From the time of the Indian Industrial Commission in 1918, most observers took for granted that famine had been confined to India's past. In the 1920s and 1930s, nutritional scientists and health officials began to think about food as a way to enhance life rather than simply to sustain it\u2014their concern moved from absolute starvation to malnutrition. \"The days when we could cast the blame on the gods for all our ills are past,\" Nehru had written in 1929.\n\nDuring the winter monsoon of 1942, a fearsome cyclone struck eastern Bengal, flooding fields and destroying crops. \"In violence and devastation it surpassed any other natural calamity that befell this country,\" one contemporary account observed, \"it forced from the Bay a high tidal wave\" that reached 140 miles per hour. The cyclone \"swept the standing crops, blew off the roofs, uprooted most of the trees, demolished the huts\"; the floods that followed \"washed away nearly [three quarters] of the livestock, and some 40,000 human beings.\" Unnerved by the prospect of a Japanese invasion from Arakan, local officials imposed a scorched-earth policy, denying local cultivators the boats they used to transport rice. Internal divisions paralyzed the Bengal government. Driven by Winston Churchill's animus toward India, the British cabinet ignored every warning. They continued to export Indian rice to feed troops in other theaters of war. They refused to deploy Allied ships to send relief to Bengal. As shortages intensified, the most vulnerable people\u2014landless laborers, fishers, women, and children\u2014starved. Calcutta's relative wealth sucked in from rural Bengal rice that could have fed those in dire need.\n\nThe vulnerability of Bengal's poor, like their debts, had compounded over decades. During the Depression, smallholders unable to repay loans had lost much of their land. The productivity of Bengal's lands had declined in the twentieth century as railway embankments stemmed the flow of rivers and invasive water hyacinth choked streams. By 1942, the crisis was acute. As scarcity closed in, patrons deserted their sharecroppers, choosing to pay them in cash rather than in kind just when inflation made rice unaffordable. Families abandoned their weaker members. Hit by the successive blows of a loss of imports, \"boat denial\" by the state, a devastating cyclone, and a lack of relief, the economy and society of Bengal collapsed.\n\nEven the conservative _Statesman_ newspaper of Calcutta published photographs of starving children and abandoned corpses\u2014scenes reminiscent of the 1870s and the 1890s when the great El Ni\u00f1o droughts had combined with the churning effects of capitalism to deliver disaster. These images met with stony-faced inaction by the British government. This time, Indian observers held the British government directly responsible for starvation. \"It was a man-made famine which could have been foreseen and avoided,\" Jawaharlal Nehru wrote from Ahmednagar jail. He was sure that \"in any democratic or semi-democratic country, such a calamity would have swept away all the governments concerned with it.\" But just as disturbing was the callousness of wealthy Indians. Nehru expressed disgust at the \"dancing and feasting and a flaunting of luxury\" in Calcutta while millions starved. S. G. Sardesai, a Communist activist, decried the \"unbridled profiteering\" of hoarders and speculators, and argued that \"total mobilization means vigorous and just procurement of the genuine surplus from rural areas, vigorous price controls, and total rationing in cities.\" When they finally secured London's commitment to relief in the autumn of 1943, Indian officials had to raise the alarm that Bengal's continued starvation could endanger the war effort.\n\nWhen the Stanford University economists V. D. Wickizer and M. K. Bennett examined Asia's rice economies in 1941, they surveyed the wreck of what had once been an integrated system. In their analysis, they used the term \"Monsoon Asia\" as \"a convenient designation for a specific group of countries in which monsoonal climatic conditions profoundly influence both agriculture and economic life.\" \"Monsoon Asia\" was bound together by climate, by the direction of the winds, and by the trade in rice, but divided by empires. Wickizer and Bennett witnessed \"Monsoon Asia\" splintering further as a result of depression and now war. They wrote of their hope for \"a reversal of the recent trend towards economic nationalism.\" Their recipe for regional sustainability was for a return to the free commerce in rice, augmented by capital investment. But their projection of \"unfavorable\" conditions proved much closer to the eventual outcome. \"If peace should come with important territorial changes in Monsoon Asia,\" they argued, \"changes in the political composition of Monsoon Asia following the termination of present wars might readily result in a rather sudden shift and re-orientation, completely reversing the tendencies of the past decade or more.\"\n\nThe most enduring political consequence of the Bengal famine was the decisive rejection of any postwar return to the old ways of unregulated markets and inter-regional trade in rice. Indian planners and politicians, technocrats and populists, all emphasized the need for self-sufficiency in the future. Water was vital to their plans. Starvation's return to India scarred Nehru's generation of leaders. Having asserted that national sovereignty would alleviate the problem of starvation, Nehru and his contemporaries were haunted by the prospect of failure. \"We live continually on the verge of disaster in India, and indeed disaster sometimes overwhelms us,\" Nehru wrote. The same year, Patna University economist and demographer Gyan Chand declared that \"ours is a death-ridden country. We might very well adopt the human skull as our national emblem.\"\n\nAS THE WAR APPROACHED ITS END, THE EXPERIENCE OF FAMINE IN India\u2014and also in China and Vietnam\u2014came together with the force of rising expectations. In the eyes of many Asian observers, only the wholehearted embrace of state planning, wedded to powerful technology and under the control of nationalist rather than colonial forces, would address the colossal vulnerability of Asia's people to privation and starvation, both of which the war had laid bare.\n\nEven British planners began to contemplate large schemes to transform water. The Bhakra Dam, in Punjab, was first proposed in 1944. It was a monument to British plans for India's postwar reconstruction at a time when few believed the Raj would collapse so quickly after the war's end. The project had its skeptics. \"For advertisement reasons some authorities in India have published optimistic forecasts of the time in which they propose to construct high dams,\" one official scrawled in an archival note. \"There is sound opinion, unbiased by connection with these projects, which considers these forecasts fantastic.\" But speed and scale were what Indian nationalists wanted.\n\nOne of the voices in favor of a planned conquest of India's rivers was the scientist Meghnad Saha. Saha was born in 1893 in an East Bengal village, to a lower-caste family without education or resources, and with several children to feed. His scientific aptitude was evident from childhood; he won a series of scholarships that led him to Calcutta University in the 1910s. He studied in England and then in Germany, returning to a position at Allahabad University, one of India's most distinguished institutions. Saha's pioneering contributions to astrophysics gained him widespread recognition, notably for his paper on \"Ionisation in the Solar Chromosphere.\" By the 1930s he was no longer content to confine his work to the laboratory. He founded the journal _Science and Culture_ to reach a wider public; he became a missionary for scientific development, and a strident critic of Mahatma Gandhi's suspicion of modern technology. \"We do not for a moment believe that better and happier conditions of life,\" he wrote, can be secured by \"reverting back to the spinning wheel, the loin cloth, and the bullock cart.\" One of Saha's central concerns was with water, and his dreams of water were grand.\n\nSaha's essay on \"Flood,\" published in _Science and Culture_ in 1943, at the height of the war, envisaged wholesale environmental transformation. He described the decline of the Damodar River: diverted by railway embankments, its course had moved toward Calcutta, and now it threatened to inundate the city. Drawing on a global range of examples and references\u2014the 1913 floods in the Miami valley, and, above all, the Tennessee Valley Authority\u2014Saha argued that the key lay in a \"radical solution\" to make the Damodar \"a perennial\" rather than a seasonal river: that is, to \"liberate\" it from the monsoon. He argued for the adaptation of the American approach: \"to regard the whole river basin as a unitary area, and coordinate plans of flood control with those of irrigation, development of backward agricultural areas, development of hydroelectric power, and improvement of navigation.\" Elaborating on his plans in another article the following year, written together with his colleague Kamalesh Ray, Saha expressed optimism: \"Nature, vested interests and thoughtless managements made a once prosperous valley a wilderness, but Nature, Man and Science can again make it a smiling garden,\" they wrote. Saha was scathing in response to those, like Radhakamal Mukerjee, who had argued that restoring forests and local efforts at soil conservation would strip the Damodar of its destructive power. Saha called the claim that deforestation affected rainfall \"absurd\"\u2014a claim for which there was \"not a single iota of positive proof.\" If changes in forest cover and land use had any effect at all on local climate, Saha argued, they \"must be extremely small compared to the huge monsoon currents which are responsible for the precipitation on the Damodar Valley.\" Working at the cutting edge of planetary science, Saha was well aware of new work on the monsoons, and their integration with other parts of Earth's climate. The scale of India's climate was so vast as to render any local modifications in the water cycle trivial in importance. Saha pointed out that rainfall in the Damodar valley was determined by \"atmospheric conditions in the Bay of Bengal... which are generally thousands of feet in depth\", \"local conditions\" could have little effect upon them.\n\nRainfall was beyond human intervention. But human intervention to transform the landscape could neutralize the threat posed by uncertain rainfall, securing rivers from the alternating lack and excess of water. And here, Saha was confident about the future. \"We are fortunate to live at a time when the large scale experience of thousands of dams constructed in the USA since 1915 are at our disposal,\" he said; he believed that the global circulation of ideas and technology, a process of learning, would come to India's aid. In valorizing the American and Soviet models, Saha indicated that his dreams for India extended beyond anything the sluggish British colonial state could carry out. He envisaged the construction of dams in eastern India that would last for \"hundreds of years.\"\n\nIN THE 1920S AND 1930S, WATER BOTH CONNECTED AND DIVIDED Asia. A new awareness of the dynamics of climate made clear the extent to which Asia's coastal arc shared vulnerability to powerful cyclones that crisscrossed its seas. In the fields of geography and climatology, the idea of \"monsoon Asia\" arose to highlight the common rhythms of rural life governed by extreme seasonality. To think of Asia as bound together by water in every dimension\u2014the rains, rivers, and seas\u2014was to suggest that material conditions transcended the borders between empires. But those borders hardened in the decades between the wars. The depression of the 1930s broke many links in the chain that held monsoon Asia together: barriers to movement proliferated and migration patterns were overturned; commodity markets collapsed and the trade in rice declined. These reversals made the question of who controlled water all the more important.\n\nThe Second World War provided new tools and revived old fears. The trauma of famine and social breakdown met a newfound confidence in the power of state planning and big technology to reshape economy, society, and the environment. The next chapter turns to the struggles waged by India and by other independent Asian nation-states to understand and conquer water.\n\n# SEVEN\n\n# RIVERS DIVIDED, RIVERS DAMMED\n\nBETWEEN 1945 AND 1950 THE MAP OF ASIA WAS REDRAWN. THE war overturned imperial rule in Asia. The prestige of European powers in South and Southeast Asia never recovered from their rapid collapse before the Japanese advance in 1942. Economically ruined by the war, European empires could not afford to hold on to their colonial territories by force without American backing\u2014which was forthcoming only when it furthered US interests in the deepening Cold War. Most importantly, emboldened and militarized Asian leaders refused to contemplate any return to the old order.\n\nIn the war's aftermath, new states were forged from the ruins of empires. In 1947, British India was divided into the independent states of India and Pakistan: a bloody partition along religious lines that cost millions of lives and ruined millions more. In 1948, Burma and Ceylon gained their independence from the British in mostly peaceful transfers of power\u2014but Burma immediately faced multiple internal revolts, by Communist guerrillas and by the Karen and Kachin ethnic minorities. The Dutch tried to hold Indonesia by force. They were driven out by Sukarno's nationalist forces in 1949 after a protracted anticolonial war that also saw failed uprisings by Communist, Islamic, and regional secessionist forces. In Vietnam, the Communist leader Ho Chi Minh declared independence in 1945, moving into the vacuum left by the sudden surrender of the Japanese at the end of the war. But the French were determined to return to Vietnam, and with growing American support they waged war against the Viet Minh until Ho's victory at the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. In East Asia, too, the war's end brought revolutionary change. The civil war between Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist forces and Mao Zedong's Communist army culminated in Mao's victory and the foundation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, together with a de facto Nationalist state on the island of Taiwan.\n\nThe partition of India in 1947, showing the division of the Indus and Ganges basins.\n\nThe borderland between India and China, showing the Brahmaputra\/Yarlung Tsangpo river.\n\nAsia's political transformation was so rapid, so dramatic, so violent, that few at the time gave any thought to its environmental consequences. With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that those consequences were profound. The impact of these midcentury partitions and borders on Asia's waters are a vital, and neglected, part of any history of the second half of the twentieth century. We have hardly begun to reckon with their effects, both positive and negative, on the lives of a significant proportion of humanity.\n\nDam building, more than any other project, epitomized Asia's new leaders' confidence in their ability to tame nature. India had fewer than three hundred large dams at independence; by 1980, it had more than four thousand. Dams were the single largest form of public investment in modern India, swallowing considerably more government expenditure than health care or education. Dams promised to liberate India from the capricious monsoon; they promised finally to free it from the specter of famine that had struck so often, and so harshly, in the colonial era. India was not alone: the enthusiasm for dam building was global. Under Mao, China built large dams on a scale that eclipsed India's efforts: an estimated twenty-two thousand after 1949, almost half of all the large dams in the world. Along the Mekong River, dams formed part of the American strategy to shore up the anti-Communist state of South Vietnam following the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu.\n\nThese projects proceeded in parallel; by the 1960s they came into contention. Dams tried to make rivers conform to political borders by impounding their waters and diverting them to serve the needs of national development. But as multiple projects and competing ambitions arose, upstream and downstream, dams made tangible the material interdependence that transcended borders. At the time of independence, few in India had thought much about the fact that many of India's rivers originated in Chinese territory. Only when both sides' ambitions for river development swelled did the cross-border flow of rivers appear as a threat.\n\nIn the postcolonial age, large dams carried enormous symbolic weight. They epitomized dreams of development. More than any other technology, they promised the mastery of nature. In the global history of dam building, India played a pivotal role. India's experience exemplified the scale of the challenge facing the Third World, but also the scale of ambition that new states upheld. Because of the unevenness of the monsoon, India's rulers were obsessed with water. So, too, were the legions of foreign experts who arrived to help India's quest. Unlike China, India benefited from aid from both sides in the Cold War: India's developmental plans were a terrain for competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. India's water engineers received advice from around the world, and in turn they shared their expertise through the United Nations and other international bodies. The broader influence of India's addiction to large dams was cultural as much as it was political, as Indian cinema captured the imagination of viewers across Asia and Africa. Some of the most iconic Hindi films of the age were set against a backdrop of India's struggles for water; their stories resonated far beyond India.\n\nThe conquest of water by concrete behemoths came at enormous cost. Some of those costs were evident from the outset\u2014the displacement of people from their homes, the flooding of villages and forests by new reservoirs. Others became clearer with time. Few in the 1950s or 1960s could see just how fundamentally dams would transform Asia's ecology of water. It was in that era that Asia's states and peoples started on a collision course toward the water-related crises they face today.\n\n# I\n\nPartition was a particular kind of British decolonization, which came about as an attempt to engineer, in an extremely compressed period, nation-states with clear and decisive ethnic majorities out of previously heterogeneous colonial territories. It was implemented first in Ireland, and then twice in the 1940s: on the Indian subcontinent, and in Palestine. While political tensions between the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League ran high in the 1930s, it was only after the end of the Second World War that it became likely that India's future would be a divided one. Until then, the League's claim to represent all of India's Muslims\u2014divided by language and region, by class and politics\u2014rang hollow. In the aftermath of war, a spiral of violence supercharged political negotiations, and accelerated the timetable for independence. The British, fearing entanglement in an Indian civil war, and reeling from economic crisis, sought to leave as quickly as possible, no matter what the cost. Last-ditch negotiations failed when the Congress leadership were unwilling to concede to Muslim League leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah's demand for a weak federal government with power resting in provincial hands. On June 3, 1947, British prime minister Clement Attlee announced the plan to partition the subcontinent into India and Pakistan. Lord Louis Mountbatten was appointed the last viceroy of India, charged with overseeing the division. The job of drawing the border fell to Cyril Radcliffe, a lawyer with no prior experience of India. Closeted with a small boundary commission, supplied with maps and census returns, his task was to draw a line to carve off the Muslim-majority areas of Punjab and Bengal from the rest of British India, thereby creating the western and eastern wings of Pakistan\u2014divided by more than one thousand miles of Indian territory. The location of the border was not announced until the day after independence, on August 15, 1947.\n\nNobody had predicted the colossal scale of upheaval that followed. In just over a month, between September and October 1947, more than 849,000 refugees entered India on foot. A further 2.3 million crossed the Punjab border by train. Trains were attacked by armed mobs on both sides of the border\u2014their packed carriages became chambers of death. The Indian and Pakistani armies, by mutual consent, crossed the frontier into each other's territory to lead convoys of refugees back to safety. Arriving refugees were settled in what had been deemed \"evacuee property\"\u2014many who had sought temporary refuge from the violence returned to find that their homes had been seized, their departure construed as an intention to emigrate. South Asia's cities swelled with new arrivals, Delhi and Karachi and Calcutta above all. Around 20 million refugees crossed Radcliffe's border, more than half of them in Punjab.\n\nTHE SIFTING OF INDIA'S RELIGIOUS MAJORITIES AND MINORITIES IN 1947 was also, as one historian describes it, a \"division of nature.\" Radcliffe himself was aware of the problem in Punjab: his border, he recorded, was \"complicated by the existence of canal systems, so vital to the life of Punjab but developed only under the conception of a single administration.\" His solution pleased nobody. Canals were severed from their headworks. In Punjab, Partition broke the carefully planned canal network laid down over a half century. Bengal had no need of the intricate irrigation systems of arid Punjab, watered as it was by the monsoon and by the Himalayan rivers. But there, the border tried to contain a naturally volatile waterscape. As the geologists and bridge builders of the nineteenth century had found, Bengal's rivers changed course suddenly; _chars,_ or sandbanks, emerged with the deposit of silt and vanished with the coming of floods. The _chars_ were so fertile as to be desirable land for cultivation\u2014if they arose along the riverine borders, were they now part of India or Pakistan? For those who inhabited this braided landscape of land and water, the answer had vital consequences. The Bengal border ran through the sacred Ganges and the turbulent Brahmaputra. In 1947 there was little infrastructure to stem the flow of this water, but there were many plans in place. What would happen in the future, when engineers on both sides eyed new ways of harnessing the waters?\n\nFor some, the unity of nature was set against the human divisiveness of Partition. The socialist Rammanohar Lohia wrote of his astonishment that Nehru was willing to divide India's great river basins out of political expediency. Saadat Hasan Manto, the most incisive and enduring chronicler of Partition in fiction, turned to the problem of water in his 1951 short story \"Yazid.\" The story's opening image is almost shocking: \"The riots of 1947 came and went. In much the same way as spells of bad weather come and go every season.\" In his first two sentences, Manto evokes the indifference of nature to human suffering; he signals the insignificance of human folly faced with the cycle of the seasons; he also draws the suggestion that Partition's violence may have been as \"natural\" as the rains\u2014a message colored with irony, since it runs counter to so much of Manto's fiction, which depicts Partition as the monumental consequence of petty and all-too-human decisions. The most memorable exchange in the story takes place between the sage village midwife, Bakhto, and Jeena, wife of the protagonist, Karimdad. One day Bakhto arrives with news that \"the Indians were going to 'close' the river.\" Jeena is nonplussed: \"What do you mean by closing the river?\" When Bakhto replies, plainly, \"they will close the river that waters our crops,\" Jeena laughs in disbelief: \"You talk like a mad woman... who can close a river; it's a river, not a drain.\"\n\nPARTITION AFFECTED EVERY PART OF GOVERNMENT, EVERY INSTITUTION. The Indian Meteorological Department, too, was divided in 1947. One of the pressing tasks for the partition of Indian meteorology was the exchange of observational data\u2014all original records relating to the weather of Pakistan, wherever in (undivided) India they were held, were transferred to the new Pakistani meteorological service. Both sides held that climatological data were \"records of common interest,\" as if to acknowledge that the monsoons respected no human frontiers. They supplied each other with duplicate copies. And then there was the question of the instruments upon which weather science rested. These, too, were divided: the Indian Meteorological Department reported that \"out of the stock of instruments and stores held at [headquarters in] Poona and Delhi, stocks between 20 to 25% of each item were to be given to Pakistan.\" A simple list conveys a deep rupture:\n\nAs a result of the partition, 2 type A Forecast Centres, 1 type C Forecast Centre, 5 Auxiliary Centres, 8 Aerodrome reporting stations, 3 Radio-sonde stations, 14 Pilot Balloon Observatories, 82 surface observatories, and 1 seismological station were transferred to the Pakistan Meteorological Service.\n\nIncidentally, the list also conveys how dense the infrastructure of meteorology in British India had become by the end of the war. There is a poignant sense of how hard meteorologists fought to keep doing their work, regardless of the chaos and violence around them. \"Interim arrangements were made,\" they noted, \"for the issue of storm warnings, etc. for certain regions falling in Pakistan.\"\n\nLike meteorologists, engineers and economists looked at the material knots tying the two new states together and many of them believed that a future of cross-border cooperation was inevitable. Just a year after the event, C. N. Vakil, a professor of economics at Bombay University, wrote a pamphlet on _The Economic Consequences of Partition_. It was prosaic in the face of colossal upheaval. The facts, he thought, made it \"easy to appreciate the need for an agreed economic policy between the two Dominions now and in the future\"\u2014that both states formally remained Dominions within the British Empire until 1950 provided a measure of political cover for negotiations to take place. Against \"the atmosphere of communal bitterness as well as increasing mistrust,\" Vakil believed that \"fundamental economic forces in the two Dominions are likely to work in the direction of mutual inter-dependence.\" But he acknowledged the real possibility that \"political forces\" would win out; he saw that India and Pakistan could end up in a state of \"economic warfare.\" The darker edge to his pamphlet came in his wish to inform \"the layman\" of the economic \"weapons\" at India's disposal if \"warfare\" it was to be.\n\nIMMEDIATELY AFTER PARTITION ENGINEERS ON BOTH SIDES MUDDLED through. In the midst of crisis they kept the water running. In December 1947, the chief engineers of East and West Punjab signed a Standstill Agreement to maintain supplies to the Bari Doab, one of the Indus River canals ruptured by the border: the headworks fell on the Indian side of the border and most of the canal in Pakistan. When Punjab's Canal Colonies were built they had been conceived as a unitary system, its hydraulic parts each useless in isolation; now the engineers had to improvise. And then the water stopped. On April 1, 1948, the day the makeshift agreement expired, India shut off the water supply to the canal. The fears that Manto depicted in his fiction mirrored historical events\u2014\"it's a river, not a drain.\" But the rivers, too, were national now.\n\nThe sudden stoppage raised alarm on the Pakistani side. In the midst of the spring sowing season, the waters to the Upper Bari Doab and Dibalpur canals stopped, disrupting cultivation and threatening the harvest. Residents of Lahore saw the canal that bisected their city empty of water: before their eyes was a visceral sign of Pakistan's vulnerability. East Punjab's engineers, on the Indian side, shut off the canal water to Pakistan without the approval of the central government in Delhi; Nehru himself worried that \"this act will injure us greatly in the world's eyes.\"\n\nThe conflict over Indus waters joined the territorial conflict between India and Pakistan over the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, whose Hindu ruler had chosen to join India rather than Pakistan under considerable pressure from the Indian side, and against the wishes of the territory's predominantly Muslim population. The tussle over Kashmir erupted into military conflict within months of Partition, following the invasion of the territory by Pathan militia from the northwest with covert support from the Pakistani state. Upon Kashmir both India and Pakistan projected their anxious sense of truncation, in the sense that both sides ended up with less territory than they thought they ought to have, as a result of a hasty partition that satisfied nobody. Both sides came to see control over Kashmir as a vindication of their founding ideologies: for India, the extension of a secular and democratic polity; for Pakistan, the achievement of a Muslim homeland in South Asia. The views of Kashmiris, then as now, were ignored. But the Kashmir dispute also had a hydraulic dimension: of the five tributaries of the Indus River, one, the Jhelum, originates in the Kashmir valley; another, the Chenab, flows through Jammu. Gnawing at India and Pakistan, through their inability to find a solution in Kashmir, was a quest to control the state's water.\n\nPakistan and India each made their case before a global audience. The dispute over the Indus attracted international attention because it seemed like just the sort of water conflict that many others could face as the map of the world was redrawn. Pakistan's delegation to the United Nations declared in 1950 that \"the withholding of water essential to an arid region to the survival of millions of its inhabitants\" was \"an international wrong and a peculiarly compelling use of force contrary to the obligations of membership in the United Nations.\" The Indian argument, by contrast, was that India \"has the right under the Partition, as also in equity, over the waters of rivers flowing through her territory.\" India's lawyers also advised that the provisions of international law were ill-suited to \"the case of two countries, which have come into existence from the partition of a previously existing national unit\"\u2014which rested on the idea that British India was a \"national unit,\" a strange claim for Indian nationalists to make just a year after independence.\n\nBoth sides used Partition to bolster their arguments. India insisted that Radcliffe's line had given Punjab's richest agricultural lands to Pakistan, including the Canal Colonies\u2014lands farmed mostly by Sikh and Hindu cultivators who now found themselves uprooted as refugees in India. Partition had \"disrupted [a] unitary system of canal irrigation and therefore the entire economy of the area,\" executed with \"complete disregard of physical or economic factors.\" In this light, the Indians argued, it was their prerogative to make best use of the water resources that remained. India's advocates portrayed eastern Punjab as the victim of a partition that had been imposed upon it \"to satisfy the ideology of Mr. Jinnah and his Muslim League.\" With little warning, East Punjab \"found itself an economic unit, and a very much underdeveloped area.\" Its survival depended on wresting control over \"the life-giving waters from the Himalayas\" that had, through British canals, \"been unfairly diverted to increase the prosperity of distant tracts\" that now lay across the border. The Pakistanis retorted that India \"wishes to make a desperate attempt to escape the economic consequences of partition\"\u2014which Pakistan, as a new state, had no choice but to face. The Pakistani submission to the tribunal of arbitration gave Partition a material as well as an ideological dimension: \"Apart from religious and cultural considerations, one of the main objects of partition is to enable the residents of the two Dominions to use and develop their economic resources for their own benefit.\" They closed with a goad: \"East Punjab should have the courage to face the economic consequences of a political standing by itself.\"\n\nEach Punjab \"found itself an economic unit\"\u2014the phrase suggests that this happened as one might \"find oneself\" in an unfamiliar destination after getting on the wrong train. Divided provinces, like the divided nations of which they were part, had to stand alone where once they were part of a larger whole. The vogue for planning demanded a simplified model of the economy upon which plans could be made. This cemented the vision of an Indian economy set apart from the whole web of connections that tied India to Southeast Asia and beyond. Partition stymied many plans: it struck at the mutual dependence of the jute growers of eastern Bengal and the export houses of Calcutta, at the ties between coal producers of eastern India and Pakistan's factories, at the carefully calibrated use of water by farmers along the length of the canals of Punjab. These new \"economic units\" unleashed a desperate competition for water: the precondition for every vision of prosperity.\n\nIn both India and Pakistan, Partition generated a sense of loss and a feeling of vulnerability. Following India's water stoppage, water engineering became an urgent priority in Pakistan. Pakistan's engineers designed a new canal project known as the BRBD (Bambanwala-Ravi-Bedian-Dibalpur); it would run parallel to the partition border, a \"canal designed to sever Pakistan's [water] supply from India.\" A volunteer corps of laborers rallied to the cause of the new canal as an act of national defense\u2014it came to be known as the Martyrs' Canal. For India, the loss of the productive agrarian lands of western Punjab hastened the push to develop its eastern reaches. Plans for a large dam at Bhakra, on the drawing board since the early twentieth century, now became a priority. Old fears of famine had never gone away; they were reactivated by Partition. Eastern Punjab needed new sources of water to keep its most vulnerable districts secure from a failure in the rains.\n\nThe Indian water stoppage lasted a matter of weeks. Negotiations between the two sides resumed at the end of April 1948. In exchange for payment, India agreed to continue supplying canal water to Pakistan for an unspecified period, during which \"alternative sources\" would be developed. Both sides clashed repeatedly, their claims often directed at international observers. Pakistan proposed international arbitration; India insisted it was a domestic matter. In 1951 the American David Lilienthal\u2014a senior official in the Tennessee Valley Authority, and now a globetrotting development consultant\u2014toured India and Pakistan; he took a particular interest in the Indus water dispute. Lilienthal contrasted \"politics and emotion\" with \"engineering or professional principles.\" He described how Partition, driven by emotion and not by reason, \"fell like an ax\" upon the Indus basin. But, he added, \"the river pays no attention to Partition\u2014the Indus, she 'just keeps running along' through Kashmir and India and Pakistan.\" He wrote a long piece for _Collier's_ magazine warning the American foreign policy establishment that Kashmir was \"another Korea in the making.\" Lilienthal had proposed that water management be removed from the political realm. He had faith in the shared training and professional camaraderie of India's and Pakistan's water engineers; he believed in their ability to work together for a \"cooperative,\" technical, solution. In Partition's aftermath, such apolitical solutions were as attractive as they were unrealistic.\n\nTHE PARTITION OF INDIA MARKED THE BEGINNING, NOT THE END, of the division of Asia's waters. A year after Mao Zedong's army overpowered Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists in the Chinese Civil War, inaugurating the People's Republic of China in October 1949, Chinese forces invaded Tibet. The annexation of Tibet was a thorn in India's relations with China. Many Indian politicians, including members of Nehru's cabinet, urged him to take a hard line, but Nehru opted for a path of conciliation, recognizing that India was not in a position to take any action. What went almost unremarked at the time was that the annexation of Tibet in 1950 also gave China control over much of Asia's freshwater. The Indus was divided between India and Pakistan\u2014but its source is on the Tibetan Plateau, which was now ruled as part of China. From the Tibetan Plateau flow the Brahmaputra (known in Tibet as the Yarlung Tsangpo), the Salween, the Mekong, and also the Yangzi. The source of the great rivers still seemed, in 1950, remote, wild, untouched by the modern world. It is no surprise that water was mostly invisible through the process of dividing Asia into modern nation-states. In the second half of the twentieth century, water resources would become increasingly important to the process of marking and laying claim to the earth, increasingly pivotal to conflicts between Asian states. In 1950 water was not, or not yet, a cause of conflict except between India and Pakistan. But their effects on shared water resources would be among the most far-reaching consequences of Asia's midcentury territorial disputes.\n\nStill, the power of nature, paying no heed to new borders, was on full display in August 1950, when\u2014on Indian Independence Day, the fifteenth\u2014a powerful earthquake tore through the borderlands straddling India, East Pakistan, Tibet, and Burma. The earthquake was one of the ten most powerful ever recorded, caused by the collision of two continental plates. Its epicenter was in Rima, Tibet\u2014and came just three months before the Chinese invasion\u2014but the bulk of the damage fell on the northeastern Indian state of Assam. Even as politicians were busy redrawing the map of Asia, the earthquake altered the landscape and devastated human lives. As if to underscore the remoteness of the earthquake's epicenter from centers of political power, relief was slow to arrive. The earthquake blocked the course of many tributaries of the Brahmaputra, changing the river's course. The British botanist and explorer Francis Kingdon Ward was traveling in Tibet at the time, and penned one of the few eyewitness accounts from the earthquake's epicenter. He wrote that \"the immediate result of the earthquake was to pour millions of tons of rock and sand into all the main rivers... displacing millions of cubic feet of water.\"\n\nEvery scheme to engineer water had to contend with the instability of Asia's mountain rivers; with the growing confidence of postcolonial engineers, caution began to be set aside.\n\n# II\n\nIn 1951, India carried out its first census after independence. It was at that time the largest census ever undertaken in the world. The average life expectancy in India stood at just 31.6 years for men, and 30.25 years for women. In the United States at the same time, that figure was 65.6 years for men, and 71.4 for women. For every 1,000 live births in India at the time, more than 140 infants died. This was an indictment of two centuries of British rule, since the \"abstract number which is the average human life span,\" as philosopher Georges Canguilhem noted, revealed much about \"the value attached to life in a given society.\" In China, after more than a decade of war, life expectancy was no higher. Nothing illustrates so plainly the magnitude of the challenge before the governments of Asia's new states. For India and China, as for Pakistan and Burma and countries all along the great crescent, harnessing water was a priority in their quest to transform the conditions and expectations of life.\n\nIn his introduction to the census, commissioner R. A. Gopalaswami pinpointed what he saw as a turning point in India's population history, around 1921. Until then India's population had grown slowly. The terrible famines of the late nineteenth century, the prevalence of infectious diseases like plague and malaria, the devastating and rapid toll of the influenza epidemic of 1918, which killed between 12 and 13 million people in India\u2014taken together, they produced a grim toll of premature death and debilitating illness. After his account of the influenza, Gopalaswami's narrative reaches its pivot: \"We now reach the turning point,\" he wrote, where after 1921, \"we hear no longer about abnormal deaths.\" From that point on, he argued, famine and mass epidemics ceased to be the killers that they were in India. Some of the credit he gave to the mobilizing power of Indian nationalism, some to administrative improvements that came from lessons the British had learned from earlier disasters. Gopalaswami presented a picture of India's climate that was no longer the threat that it was: \"Though the usual cycles of vicissitudes of the seasons continued and the brown and yellow belts of the country continued to suffer from droughts... there was no extraordinary calamity\" in the years between the wars. Good policy was matched with good fortune, since \"nature also seems to have been kindlier\" in the two decades after 1921, with fewer major droughts. The Bengal famine of 1943 was a devastating reminder that famine could return to India. But it did not invalidate the longer-term pattern, and prevailing wartime conditions made it exceptional; rather, Bengal \"gave a sharp jolt\" to India's leaders, and reminded them of the need for vigilance.\n\nGopalaswami went on to consider the implications of India's rapid population growth for the country's future. The most alarming statistic, in his mind, was that the area of cultivated land per capita in India had fallen by 25 percent in thirty years: land had run out, and yields were declining. He ended his discussion on a note of foreboding, placing India's experience in global context. It could well be the case, he wrote, that \"we are passing through the last stage of that exceptional phase in the growth of mankind in numbers which was introduced mainly by the opening up of the New World and partly by the creation of a world market.\" Gopalaswami steered clear of Malthusian alarm. Like many of his generation he believed in the power of the state, in the marriage of wise planning with technology, to solve social and economic problems.\n\nThere were three possible responses to the challenge of feeding India. The independent Indian state tried them all. To the extent that the productivity of the land suffered from the very small plots of land held by the majority of cultivators, land redistribution seemed a promising solution. Soon after independence, Nehru's government proposed to abolish the _zamindari_ system, the practice by which large landowners acted as intermediaries between the state and cultivators, wielding the power to collect taxes, a key feature of both Mughal and British administration. Although it had to confront some vested interests, _zamindari_ abolition, which had to be approved state by state, was relatively straightforward\u2014in the political culture of free India, _zamindars_ epitomized the old feudal order that independence was meant to sweep away. But at most 6 percent of land in India changed hands under these reforms. The chief beneficiaries were most often farmers who were already relatively well off. Any energy behind land redistribution in India fizzled by the mid-1950s: by that time rural landowners had cemented themselves as an important constituency in Indian electoral politics; they closed ranks to defend their interests.\n\nThe second approach, implemented with considerable success, was for the state to intervene more actively in the food economy. A commitment not to intervene in markets had been a shibboleth of British administration in India after the end of the East India Company. As we have seen, that iron confidence in markets shaped the British approach to the famines of the 1870s and 1890s, in which so many millions of Indians died. But the Second World War reversed that faith abruptly. India saw the rise of an elaborate apparatus of food control that lasted well beyond independence. The American T. W. Schultz, one of the pioneers of development economics, remarked in 1946 that \"no country in the world, with perhaps the exception of Russia, has gone so far [as India] in controlling basic food distribution.\" By 1946, close to eight hundred cities and towns were covered by the rationing scheme. In 1947 the wartime \"Grow More Food\" campaign was resurrected, and in 1949 the government of India set the campaign's goal as the attainment of national self-sufficiency in food grains by 1952. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Indian state purchased 4.3 million tons of food from its own farmers, and just short of 3.5 million tons abroad. An elaborate network of transportation and storage was established, providing the skeleton of India's public distribution system that, to this day, remains vital to the food security of hundreds of millions. As we will see, when serious drought threatened northern India in the mid-1960s, and Maharashtra in the early 1970s, the state's food distribution proved its worth and averted famine.\n\nBut the approach that received by far the most attention, and the most funding, was the quest to intensify agricultural production\u2014to grow more food on the same amount of land. Gopalaswami observed that this could be done, in Indian conditions, by increasing the spread of double cropping\u2014in which two crops were grown each year, one in the winter and one in the summer\u2014through the expanded use of fertilizer; and, above all, by expanding year-round irrigation to free agriculture from dependence on the monsoon. In 1951, India launched the first of its five-year plans for economic development\u2014influenced by Soviet central planning, but maintaining a mixed economy. Fifteen percent of total expenditure under the first plan went to irrigation, and a majority of that to what were called \"major and medium irrigation projects.\" At their apex stood the large multipurpose dams that would transform India's rivers in the years to come. The mastermind behind the Indian planning commission was the brilliant Bengali statistician Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, who had spent some years in the 1920s working for the meteorological department at Alipore observatory in Calcutta, and who had published a statistical essay on floods in Orissa.\n\nTHROUGH THE LATE-NINETEENTH-CENTURY CLIMAX OF IMPERIAL globalization, Asia had been reconfigured laterally, as steamships and railways connected distant places. Now, however, vertical space came to matter more. Engineers began to think about the gradient of each river's fall so they could be harnessed for hydropower; geologists aimed to measure the depth of water resources in underground reservoirs. The reorientation of Asia along a vertical axis\u2014as if the map were now drawn in three dimensions\u2014had everything to do with the conquest of water. And the conquest of water, ultimately, promised the enhancement of life and the diminution of premature death.\n\n# III\n\nInaugurating the Hirakud Dam on the Mahanadi River in eastern India, just a year after he became prime minister, Nehru described the scene as a \"fascinating vision of the future which fills one with enthusiasm.\" He wrote that \"a sense of adventure seized me and I forgot for a while the many troubles that beset us\"\u2014the \"troubles,\" that is, of mass refugee movements after Partition, of multiple insurgencies, of hostilities with Pakistan, of governing a new and heterogeneous nation. The sight of Hirakud convinced Nehru that \"these troubles will pass\" but \"the great dam and all that follow from it will endure for ages to come.\"\n\nThe Indian state wasted no time pursuing its ambitious agenda. At independence, India had only thirty dams higher than thirty meters. Most colonial works of hydraulic engineering had been on a smaller scale: fifteen- to twenty-meter-high tanks and bunds, linked to a network of canals. During the Second World War, the colonial state began to think big\u2014and the plans of the 1940s paved the way for India's largest hydraulic schemes in the 1950s. The largest of them were large water storage works at Bhakra, in Punjab, Hirakud in Orissa, Tungabhadra and Nagarjunasagar in the Deccan, and the Damodar valley project in Bengal. They epitomized the imperative of multipurpose development. Each scheme promised a cluster of benefits: year-round irrigation; water storage to even out the concentration of the monsoon rains; embankments to prevent flooding during torrential rain; river navigation; and hydroelectric power. Each scheme had its own priority among these uses\u2014the Damodar project was designed with flood control primarily in mind; Bhakra's particular symbolic importance came from its role in compensating for India's loss of Punjab's Canal Colonies at Partition, by creating a new hydraulic infrastructure around the dam complex. The projects were technically demanding as well as expensive. The Damodar valley project owed most to outside funding and expertise: it received a US$18.5 million loan from the World Bank in 1950, and its technical advisors included David Lilienthal. For the most part, India's large dams were funded by the state's tax revenues, their costs recouped later through an \"improvement cess,\" a levy on landowners who benefited most from the dams. But large dams very often ran over budget and behind schedule.\n\nThe large schemes were the most visible manifestation of India's attempt to remake nature. Many smaller projects sprang to life after independence: irrigation dams in the Vindhya hills, the Pykara hydroelectric scheme in Tamil Nadu, the Sarda Canal in Uttar Pradesh, the Sengulam project in Kerala. Beyond these lay innumerable canals restored, power lines laid, tanks and irrigation channels built or resurrected. Many of these schemes built on colonial precedents. What was new was their scale, but also the language in which they were justified. As a perceptive visitor to India observed at the time, the colossal projects \"stand out for their quality of newness,\" even if their impact on water availability and power generation was less than the cumulative impact of many smaller initiatives. The mega-projects marked a true departure: \"dependable in the worst monsoon, dynamic in the most backward region.\" Above all, \"they stand for something India could not build, and did not will, before she became a nation.\" The moral fervor behind the quest to harness India's waters came from this sense of historic opportunity. So, too, did the planners' willingness to force through their schemes, whatever the cost.\n\nThe Bhakra Nangal project, in Punjab, was India's most prominent engineering scheme. It stood 680 feet high, the second-tallest dam in the world at the time; it consumed 500 million cubic feet of concrete. Bhakra's location in the partitioned province of Punjab added resolve and poignancy to its promise of a more secure future. The dam had first been proposed in 1944, and construction began soon after independence. Facing the future, India's water engineers began with a familiar problem: \"One of the chief characteristics of rainfall is its unequal distribution over the country,\" they wrote, and \"another important characteristic is the unequal distribution of precipitation over the year.\" They set out to free India from the seasons.\n\nA. N. Khosla (1892\u20131984) stood behind many of India's plans to harness water after independence. He was the first chair of the Central Water and Power Commission of India, a graduate of the Roorkee College of Engineering and a stalwart of the Punjab irrigation department. He imagined the future in, by his own admission, \"fantastic\" terms. In an address delivered on All-India Radio in 1951, Khosla declared that \"it will be no idle dream to contemplate the linking up of the Narmada with the Ganga through the Sone, or with the Mahanadi over the Amarkantak plateau, and thus connect the Arabian Sea with the Ganga and the Bay of Bengal right through the heart of India.\" Old dreams of reshaping India's geography\u2014Arthur Cotton's dreams\u2014gained new life after independence.\n\nDreams of hydraulic engineering were inseparable from dreams of freedom. Kanwar Sain, Khosla's successor as head of India's water authority, wrote that \"the river valley projects constitute the biggest single effort since independence to meet the material wants of the people, for from irrigation springs ultimately the sinews of man, from power the sinews of industry.\" He voiced the hopes of many of India's planners and architects when he declared that the dams \"are indeed the symbols of the aspirations of new India, and the blessings that stream forth from them are the enduring gifts of this generation to posterity.\" His words were followed, in a public information pamphlet, by page after page of statistics: kilowatts generated and projected, hectares irrigated, gallons of water stored, tons of concrete expended. Large numbers were a form of rapture. For Khosla and for Sain, as for so many of their peers, Bhakra was the showpiece.\n\nJawaharlal Nehru addressing a large crowd at the dedication of the Bhakra Dam, October 1963. CREDIT: Bettmann\/Getty Images\n\nJawaharlal Nehru and Zhou Enlai celebrating the New Year on a special train taking them back to Delhi after a visit to the Bhakra Dam, December 31, 1956. CREDIT: Bettmann\/Getty Images\n\nOpening the Nangal Canal in 1954, Nehru's reverence was palpable. \"What place can be greater than Bhakra Nangal,\" he wondered, \"where thousands of men have worked or shed their blood and sweat and laid down their lives as well? Where can be holier than this?\" Nehru spoke at length in Hindi and more briefly in English, before a crowd of thousands. \"We talk about Mother India,\" he said, and now \"Mother India is in labour, producing and creating things.\" At the time, India was ablaze with demands for the creation of linguistic states out of the composite provinces inherited from British India. \"We talk so much about changing the provinces, expanding them, shortening them, disintegrating them,\" Nehru said at Nangal, his irritation unconcealed. \"I do not mind our people getting terribly excited about it,\" he said, \"and forgetting the major things.\" But Nehru made a clear contrast between the \"major things\"\u2014\"Making a new India... putting an end to the poverty of India\"\u2014and what he called \"petty disputes.\" Nehru turned to the theme of revolution. \"A revolution does not mean the breaking of heads,\" he insisted; of India's own gradual, nonviolent revolution, he declared that, with independence, \"we finished it in a way in the political sphere... we have to continue it in the social and the economic sphere.\" Bhakra became a symbol of India's ambitions. It was an obligatory stop on the itinerary of every official visitor. On the last day of 1956, Nehru took Chinese premier Zhou Enlai to Bhakra\u2014the two had built a rapport over the previous two years, though it would turn out to be short-lived. \"These are the new temples of India where I worship,\" Nehru told Zhou. \"I am deeply impressed,\" Zhou replied.\n\nThe excitement of the Bhakra project was captured in a 1957 documentary made by the government of India's Films Division. It was produced by Ezra Mir, born Edwyn Meyers: an Indian Jewish filmmaker who began by making propaganda films for the British during the Second World War, and who went on to make seven hundred documentaries in the 1950s and 1960s. The Films Division was charged with bringing \"new India\" to life on screen. Its productions included films about India's freedom struggle and profiles of political leaders and musicians. Above all, the films dramatized the quest for \"development\"\u2014for health and water, food and education. Public information films played in cinemas across the country before the feature films that people had bought tickets for\u2014they reached an audience of millions.\n\nThe Bhakra film was an epic. Its visual language came from a tradition that had circulated globally during the war: Soviet and Path\u00e9 newsreels suggested the form, the genre, the structure in which India's propagandists worked\u2014and which they made their own. The narrator's voice is clipped and serious. The soundtrack begins with nineteenth-century European music: brassy and bright, like a march. \"For centuries,\" the narrator begins, \"gazing upon the parched lands of Punjab and Rajasthan, we have dreamed of reclaiming the desert.\" The struggle at the heart of the film is clear from the outset, as suddenly the background music turns to an Indian folk theme and the film cuts to a scene of women lining up at a well, whose \"search for water, \"we are told, \"was never-ending.\" The solution, the film's narrator declared, lay in the \"unused, wasted\" waters of the Sutlej River, flowing down from the Himalayas. And then \"at last,\" as if inevitable, \"the decision was taken\u2014the Sutlej must be tamed.\" The film cuts to the image of a young, studious-looking engineer, slide rule in hand: he is the protagonist of this drama. The narrator spins out superlatives, the music turns to a fanfare of trumpets, the camera shows us Bhakra's sheer size: it is \"massive,\" \"stupendous,\" \"mighty,\" \"a miracle.\" It held out for India \"the promise of an exciting, dramatic future.\"\n\nThe film was finished before the dam. It shows us a worksite of ceaseless, noisy activity: the rumble of drills; the explosion of blasted rock; the clatter of a conveyor belt ferrying bucket after bucket of material up to the dam; the clink of hammers and the heft of spades as imported machines\u2014some of them reassembled, piece by piece, on location\u2014dovetail with the oldest kinds of human work. India's dams were a lucrative source of contracts for foreign engineering firms like Hazra & Co. of Chicago, who provided material, equipment, and many consultants. But dam building was also a spur to local industry; the largest cement factory in Asia came up to feed the \"colossus\" that was Bhakra. Toward the end of the film, we see the changing of shifts at the end of a working day. Darkness descends on the site and \"the lights of the great dam are switched on, glowing like stars.\" At moments in the film, the dam seems to transcend technology, evoking a deeper and more ancient sense of wonder\u2014it was a \"miracle.\"\n\nUntil the last few minutes of the film, the only voice we hear, apart from the narrator's, is a brief clip of Harvey Slocum\u2014the straight-talking, autodidact American dam builder who supervised Bhakra's \"army\" of Indian engineers, and who died suddenly on site in 1961. But then, finally, our focus shifts to the makers of Bhakra. At the end of a shift, \"men emerge from every corner.\" We see a worker arriving home as his three children run to greet him. As he enters his modest quarters, his wife rises to offer him water, a smile on her face. It is the first intimate or domestic scene in the film\u2014the first sight of a woman, or of children; in the background the orchestra is replaced by a simple folk melody played by a flute. The parting message is one of national unity: Bhakra represents the nation. \"Never in the long history of India,\" the narrator declares, \"have there been so many men from different parts of the country working together for a common purpose.\" The effort of creating Bhakra united Indians where the politics of region and linguistic identity divided them. The film closes with the voices of the workers, each speaking his own language. B. Srinivasan faces the camera; he speaks in Tamil without captions or voiceover; his speech is stiffly awkward before the camera. \"My name is Srinivasan. I have worked here for a year and a half. My home is in Madurai district.\" We hear from workers in Punjabi, Marathi, and Bengali, some of their words drowned out by the noise of construction.\n\nHarvey Slocum, the American dam builder who supervised construction at Bhakra. CREDIT: James Burke\/Getty Images\n\nThe Bhakra Dam under construction. CREDIT: James Burke\/Getty Images\n\nIndia's new dams attracted thousands of visitors from near and far. They became landmarks on the landscapes they had altered beyond recognition. Their clean lines and monumental size reminded some observers of Buddhist stupas. Aesthetically, as well as symbolically, they were the \"temples of new India.\" But most Indians in the 1950s had never visited a big dam. Most Indians did not read the _Indian Journal of Power and River Valley Development,_ the pages of which told a heroic story of India's hydraulic adventures. The place where most Indians encountered the grandeur of India's water projects was on screen. Public information films made an impression on many minds, but the feature films of Hindi cinema really captured people's hearts\u2014they, more than any pamphlet filled with statistics, gave India's hydraulic revolution emotional content. And in the process, they reached beyond India's shores to make India's dams a symbol for hope and progress across postcolonial Asia and Africa.\n\nConstruction workers on the Bhakra Dam site came from all over India and had many specialized skills. CREDIT: James Burke\/Getty Images\n\nWhere many a foreign consultant ended up \"a White Man's Burden character,\" as David Lilienthal described himself in his diary, one American observer of India's water projects was admiring, even at times uncritical: Henry Hart, a University of Wisconsin political scientist. Having worked as a \"minor administrative officer\" in the Tennessee Valley Authority as a young man in the 1930s, having seen a \"newly-harnessed river brought to life\" and the rural southern landscape of his childhood transformed, Hart lived in independent India between 1952 and 1954. He sought the answer to a question that weighed on many American minds as the Cold War intensified: \"Can a revolution... be _built_?\" Hart traveled the length of the country, funded by a Fulbright fellowship and a grant from the Ford Foundation. His book, _New India's Rivers,_ remains the most detailed and sympathetic account we have of India's great hydraulic experiment.\n\nHart's eye was drawn to the workers who were reduced to \"an army\" in so many depictions of India's dam fever; he dedicated his book to \"all who died without seeing the new India they built.\" And where many observers saw only the romance of technology, Hart's romanticism sought artisanal skill. At the Tungabhadra Dam site, for which Hart saves his richest description, he encountered Vellu Pillai, a fifty-three-year-old stonecutter who chiseled granite from the quarry to exacting specifications. Hart discovered that Vellu Pillai came from a family of stonecutters in Thanjavur. His had been \"a life of dressing stones for well-linings and walls\"\u2014for \"ten prosperous years,\" he had carved temple deities. Evoking the ruined capital of the Vijayanagar empire, just a few miles away, Hart saw the dam resurrecting ancient skills. \"The design itself was novel,\" he wrote,\" but the teamwork of brain and hand was a renaissance.\" Hart speaks to no women workers, but their presence and their labor are visible in his account and especially in the photographs that illustrate his book; their stories remain untold.\n\nThe centripetal force of India's water projects drew workers, skills, and materials from across India\u2014and beyond. Hart observed that some of the earliest workers on the Tungabhadra worksite were Telugu porters who had arrived from Burma during the war; they were among the half-million Indian refugees who had walked through the hilly jungles back to India when the Japanese bombs fell. Many died on the arduous journey on foot across the mountains into Assam. In the 1920s and 1930s, Burma was a frontier for Telugu-speaking migrant workers from coastal Andhra: they provided much of the labor on Rangoon's docks, they pulled rickshaws, laid roads, worked in the rice mills. As long-established patterns of migration shut down during and after the war, new ones opened up along India's river valleys. From the moment the war ended, the large projects' capacity to generate employment was a strong argument in their favor. Water projects were themselves a way to prevent the resumption of Indian labor migration overseas, which so many Indian nationalists had come to oppose as exploitative. \"At present a great deal of Indian labour is being sent to Burma and other places,\" noted a water engineer surveying the Ramaprasadasagara scheme along the Godavari. \"An irrigation scheme of this magnitude would prevent the exodus of labor.\"\n\nSome workers traveled to the dam sites in groups. Teams of porters, masons, and stonecutters arrived, some of them following an old practice of migration from place to place in search of work. Others ended up building the dams of India after a chance encounter. In a wartime hangar along the Tungabhadra River, India's first factory for the manufacture of sluice gates was overseen by Mr. Eswariah; his \"sheer mechanical intelligence\" had been discovered by the dam's chief engineer, Srirangachari, in a \"Madras highway repair shop.\"\n\nOn many accounts of India's dam projects, as in the public information film on Bhakra, a sense of mission drove the workers. There can be no doubting that idealism animated the efforts of many who toiled on the dam sites. But so, too, did the need to earn a living. For only so long could appeals to sacrifice on behalf of the nation mask poor pay and harsh conditions. The workers on the Hirakud Dam learned how quickly the postcolonial state was willing to deploy force to keep construction going. In 1954, Hirakud's workers established a union of their own to challenge the officially recognized association of workers. They grappled over pay rates and the rhythms of work. After a breakdown in negotiations, the district magistrate ordered armed police to disperse a group of workers who were headed toward the chief engineer's residence, reportedly with the intention of harming him. Following a _lathi_ (baton) charge, fifty workers were hospitalized; two died the following day. In Hart's account, which reflects the official view, the strike was the work of \"agitators\" affiliated with the Communist Party. As he tells the story, India's climate itself played a role. \"On any great outdoor work built in a monsoon climate,\" he declared, \"the hot, pre-monsoon months are the tense season.\" And so, in the end, the strike appears in Hart's account as a mere interruption: \"On the Monday after the bloody Friday, men began going back to work. By Wednesday, the dam began to rise again, full speed.\" It is as though India's dams were a juggernaut, with a life and force of their own. That is certainly how they must have seemed to those who stood in the way of the engineers' plans.\n\nNot every commentator was unequivocally in favor of the large dams. The Bengali journalist Kapil Prasad Bhattacharjee was among the earliest to call into question the approach of the Damodar Valley Corporation. As a student in Paris in the 1930s, he was influenced by the work of French hydrologists. Schooled in the economic nationalism of Dadabhai Naoroji and Romesh Dutt, Bhattacharjee argued that the Damodar valley project would perpetuate a colonial effort to keep India poor by keeping it an agrarian economy. He worried for the future of Calcutta as a port; for Bhattacharjee, the worst effect of the Damodar projects would be to silt up the Hooghly River. He felt that more could be achieved by repair and restoration\u2014the \"proper maintenance of old canals, tanks, lakes\"\u2014than through expensive projects dependent on foreign engineering expertise. Voices like Bhattacharjee's were in a very small minority in the 1950s, not only in India, but all over the world. He worried about the economic and the ecological effects of dam building; even Bhattacharjee had little to say about their human consequences.\n\nAS INDIA SOUGHT TO TAME ITS RIVERS, THE DISPUTE WITH PAKISTAN over who controlled the Indus intensified. It did not take long for David Lilienthal's idealistic vision of water beyond politics\u2014his proposal for the shared development of the Indus basin\u2014to fail. In early 1954, the World Bank proposed an alternative solution, which gave shape to the treaty that eventually came about. In place of Lilienthal's idea, the bank proposed to finish the job of Partition by dividing the water of the Indus and its tributaries completely, if not neatly, between India and Pakistan. The eastern rivers\u2014the Beas, the Ravi, and the Sutlej\u2014went to India; the western rivers, the Chenab and the Jhelum, went to Pakistan. Since the latter, too, originated in Indian territory, India would have the right to use their water for irrigation, transportation, and power generation, up to a limited volume. The negotiations dragged on for six years: India's position of strength as the upper riparian continued to trouble Pakistan. But much remains obscure about the process. Despite a commitment to greater transparency, the bank declassifies documents on a case-by-case basis; many of my requests were denied, as they contained \"classified material provided by member states.\" Dam building remains a sensitive subject\u2014its history raises uncomfortable questions about the present and the future.\n\nAs ambitions for river development intensified, older water disputes reasserted themselves within India. British India had always existed amid a patchwork of other forms of sovereignty\u2014the absorption of the former princely states into independent India raised its own problems where water was concerned. The Kaveri River dispute between the princely state of Mysore and the British-ruled Madras Presidency dates back to 1891, when the Maharaja of Mysore first proposed to make use of the river's water in his domains. The failure of the two sides to agree on how to share the Kaveri's water stalled M. Visvesvaraya's great Krishnarajasagar Dam, which began to rise only after a 1924 agreement that apportioned fixed amounts of the river's capacity to each state. In 1956, the internal map of India was redrawn: some of the old provinces of British India were broken up into new states, their boundaries corresponding roughly to the boundaries of linguistic regions. The old Madras Presidency was divided into Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, and Andra Pradesh, each with its own state legislature\u2014and each with a new set of claims upon the central government for resources. In this context, the Kaveri dispute resurfaced. The government of Karnataka reopened the argument, arguing that changing political and economic realities demanded a revision of the earlier agreement. In particular, the ambitious plans each state had to expand irrigation\u2014under the auspices of India's overarching five-year plans\u2014spawned a new set of claims upon the Kaveri's waters. The Kaveri dispute remains India's longest-running water conflict; it is far from resolved. Competing claims to ownership over water, in the postcolonial era, were not only national: they were just as likely to be regional.\n\n# IV\n\nMehboob Khan's 1957 melodrama, _Mother India,_ remains one of the world's best-known films. It is, among other things, Indian cinema's great water epic. The film opens with the shot of an aged Radha, the film's protagonist and the eponymous \"Mother India,\" touching a clump of earth to her mouth; she raises it above her head, hands trembling. Behind her: tractors, power lines, roads\u2014the churn of progress. A procession of construction equipment roars in the foreground, drowning out the music. The camera pans to a shot of a large dam rising. A jeep arrives in the village, full of khaki-clad, white-capped men\u2014functionaries of the ruling Congress party. They tell Radha that the new dam will bring water to her village; they want her, as the community's most respected elder, to inaugurate it. She refuses in all humility, until, head lowered, she allows the politicians to lead her to the dam. They place a ceremonial garland around her neck. At the very moment she is about to pull the lever to open the dam's gates, the film slips into flashback. Radha's life comes to symbolize the struggle of the Indian nation for freedom.\n\nEarly in the film Radha's husband is maimed in an accident; scenting her vulnerability, the predatory moneylender makes advances to Radha, which she rebuffs. The capricious power of nature over Radha's life and livelihood is a recurrent theme. In one of the film's central song sequences, we see Radha working in the fields with her children, pausing to feed them a meager meal of porridge, eating none herself. But she is proud, unbowed. As the song comes to an end, storm clouds build in the sky. The sky darkens, the screen crackles with lightning, the wind rises and the rain pours. The family's makeshift shelter collapses. Floods destroy the village. The crops lay ruined. Radha's youngest child dies. Even in extremis, Radha makes her surviving children reject the moneylender's offer of food. Redemption comes when the villagers fight back the flood; they come together to harvest a good crop the following season. In their dance, the camera zooms out to show us the massed villagers form the shape of a map of undivided India. Radha's song implores the villagers not to abandon their land.\n\nIn opening the film with the large dam, and a vision of prosperity, _Mother India_ suggests that India's victory was, in part, a triumph over the monsoon. These were the freedoms that India fought for, and won: freedom from want, freedom from exploitation\u2014and freedom from the vagaries of nature. The publicity pamphlet for the film used a quotation from the German Orientalist Max Mueller to encapsulate its central message: \"If I were to look over the whole world to find out the country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power, and beauty that nature can bestow\u2014I should point to India.\" In _Mother India,_ vulnerability to the weather is confined to the unhappy past; it represents an old, unchanging India, juxtaposed against an India where technology and political freedom would triumph over nature.\n\nMehboob Khan (1907\u20131964) was born in Baroda state and moved to Bombay as a young man to work for a noted horse supplier to the film industry; his first job was repairing horseshoes. He rose as a producer in the era of silent film. Khan was an active participant in the Progressive Writers Movement, a group of left-leaning writers, dramatists, and film producers who forged an Indian art that reflected the social conditions of the country. In common with many others of his generation, Khan's strong commitment to Indian nationalism melded with an outward-looking internationalism: he was voracious in his absorption of artistic inspiration from diverse places; he believed in a sense of shared struggle, across what would come to be known as the Third World, against imperial exploitation. The logo of his production company incorporated a hammer and sickle, a symbol that was discreetly removed before the film was submitted for the Oscars.\n\nFrom the start, Khan envisaged an international audience for _Mother India_. His initial working title was _This Land Is Mine,_ and he wanted to work with Sabu Dastogir, an Indian actor successful in Hollywood; the plan fell through, but the ambition to reach the wider world remained. _Mother India_ was not the first Hindi film to strike a chord with audiences across Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe. Raj Kapoor's _Awaara_ (1951) was a global blockbuster, the story of an unfeeling and autocratic judge and his estranged son, who becomes a vagrant. The film's strong message of social justice, its memorable theme song (\"Awaara Hoon\"), and its visual splendor all compelled audiences across Asia and Africa; reportedly, Mao Zedong was a fan. Mehboob Khan followed Raj Kapoor's success with _Mother India,_ which was popular across Francophone and Anglophone West Africa, in Ethiopia, across Asia and the Middle East, and in the Soviet Union and Greece. Egyptian audiences were enthusiastic about _Mother India,_ which had immediate resonance in another country where dams symbolized modernity.\n\nThe film's influence endures. Anthropologist Brian Larkin describes a scene in northern Nigeria in the 1990s, where Lebanese distributors had been importing Hindi films for four decades. \"It is Friday night in Kano, and _Mother India_ is playing at the Marhaba Cinema,\" Larkin writes. \"Outside, scalpers are hurriedly selling the last of their tickets to the two thousand people lucky enough to buy seats in the open-air cinema of this city on the edge of Africa's Sahel desert.\" Throughout the screening, \"people sing along to the songs in Hindi, they translate the dialogue into Hausa and speak the actors' lines for them.\" Forty years after its release, _Mother India_ 's appeal transcends generations. \"I have been showing this film for decades,\" a local distributor told Larkin, \"it can still sell out any cinema in the north.\"\n\nHow did a Hindi film about one woman's lifelong struggle against nature and exploitation prove so resonant across so much of the world? We are used to thinking of \"development\" as something imposed from on high, by all-powerful states upon unsuspecting populations. Since the 1980s, a lot of writing about \"development\" in the postcolonial world has been heavy with irony: we know, now, how so many of those schemes turned out. Their costs are too evident; their consequences, intended and unintended, have mounted. But beneath the grand plans were also simple dreams of a better life. _Mother India_ touched millions of people because it told a humane and humanizing story about dreams of water and plenty, dreams of security\u2014dreams of a future that was better than the past.\n\n# V\n\nA darker reality lurked behind the glossy dreams of dams and plenty. On a rock of colonial-era legislation, the Land Acquisition Act of 1894, millions of lives in independent India foundered. Passed to foster railway development, the law gave the state the right to compulsory purchase of land for \"public benefit\"\u2014the law of \"eminent domain,\" a version of which most modern states have retained. The postcolonial state pressed the act immediately into service. Bhakra, Hirakud, the Damodar valley: each of these projects began in 1948; each of them needed more than one hundred thousand acres of land. So, too, did the new steel plants of Bhilai, Rourkela, and Durgapur.\n\nEven before the end of the war, intensive discussions were underway about the numbers of people who would be displaced by the Bhakra Nangal Dam. One Punjab official wrote in February 1945: \"We cannot obviously allow the whole scheme to be wrecked by a few obstinate people who may refuse to move.\" If the \"majority\" were \"not strongly averse to the proposal,\" then those against it would \"if necessary [be] ejected by force.\" Pieces of paper came to bear immense value; a Punjab government official dismissed cultivators' fears of dispossession by pointing out that \"they appear to have no right in the lands they cultivate at present.\" He could \"sympathize wholeheartedly\" with those \"ousted from their ancestral lands,\" but the \"cold truth\" was that \"their interests cannot be allowed to impede\" a project \"which, with its irrigation and hydroelectric potentialities, is likely to carry so many benefits to wide areas of the country.\" The architects of Bhakra were under no illusions about the scale of displacement the project would cause. However attractive the alternative land offered villagers, one official wrote, \"it is extremely doubtful whether it will be a satisfactory form of gilt-edged security.\" Where could people go? How would they recover their livelihoods? And what of their bonds of community\u2014their bonds with the piece of the earth they knew best? Too often, irreversible projects ploughed ahead with those questions unasked.\n\nDisplacement never went unchallenged. In December 1950, ten thousand villagers from an area soon to be submerged by the Tungabhadra Dam came together in a public meeting. They issued a list of demands, topped by their demand for adequate compensation for their loss of land and income. Among those who needed to be resettled were not only registered landowners, but also \"houseless coolies, weavers, and ryots [cultivators]\" who faced the \"difficult present circumstances.\" Two years later, the government offered them a better deal: 30 percent over and above the amounts awarded by the Land Acquisition officers, but only to those \"who withdraw their cases from the civil courts.\" In this rare willingness to compromise lies a clue to just how many people fought their dispossession in the courts of independent India. A few months after the meeting of Tungabhadra villagers, a touring official wrote to Hyderabad's minister of revenue: \"I told the people gathered in a pretty large number at Manur that they should not stand in the way of the construction of the project but should consider it a great sacrifice on their part, since by the sufferings, if at all, of a small number the country is going to prosper.\"\n\nThis was the crux of the utilitarian argument\u2014the greatest good for the greatest number\u2014that authorized India's great water projects at any cost: in families displaced, in villages drowned and futures ruined. Through most of the 1950s, India's courts agreed. When the Maharaja of Darbhanga, Kameshwar Singh, tried to resist the acquisition of part of his Bihar estate, the High Court ruled that \"the Legislature is the best judge of what is good for the community... and it is not possible for this Court to say that there was no public purpose behind the acquisition contemplated by the impugned state.\" Convinced of its mission, the Indian state felt little need even to document the displaced.\n\nThe true scale of displacement would only become clear later on. Through the painstaking work of activists like Walter Fernandes and scholars like Sanjoy Chakravorty, working through fragmentary archives and court cases, we now have a sense of the numbers of people that India's dams chased from their homes. From independence to the present day, that number is likely to exceed 40 million. It bears repeating: 40 million people in India have been displaced by dams alone. More than 50 million people have been displaced by the state's development projects writ large. India's _adivasis_ have borne the brunt of this displacement, and they are also least likely to have received any form of compensation. One reason that almost every official figure vastly underestimates the numbers displaced is that they count only those who own land that has been acquired by the state through compulsory purchase. They do not include the large number of landless people in India who \"depend on the acquired land for income\"\u2014tenants, wage laborers, service providers. The latter group have seldom if ever received compensation. The other way in which the true losses sustained by displaced communities exceed official calculations is that dams often submerged common property\u2014forests, grazing grounds, and other grounds considered \"wasteland\" by the state. The commons were already under strain by the end of the nineteenth century, more likely than ever to be enclosed and possessed as private property\u2014but the poorest groups in society, _adivasis_ above all, still depended on them in the 1950s. Through a painstaking assembly of data, Chakravorty has estimated that water projects are by far the greatest cause of population displacement in independent India. The \"core problem,\" he writes, is that \"the population that benefitted from the development projects is fundamentally different from the population that was displaced or disrupted.\" The benefits of large dams have gone downstream; power from hydroelectric plants has gone to cities and factories and to farmers who \"still have land [on which] to run their pumps.\"\n\nThe environmental consequences of large dams have been considerable: forests have been drowned, soils salinated, rivers blocked in midflow, deltas starved of silt, natural drainage hindered\u2014leading, ironically, to more severe flooding. But the sheer scale of the impact of large dams on Asia's ecology of water would only become clear toward the end of the twentieth century.\n\nNehru himself began to have a change of heart at the end of the 1950s. \"For some time past,\" he said, speaking about India's dam fever, \"I have been beginning to think that we are suffering from what we may call 'disease of gigantism.'\" He proceeded to tell his audience of engineers that \"the small irrigation projects, the small industries and the small plants for electric power will change the face of the country, far more than a dozen big projects in half a dozen places.\" But a massive failure in the monsoons precipitated a shift in political priorities.\n\n# VI\n\nThe United Nations' Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) started life in Shanghai in 1947. The commission set about collecting information on economic conditions across Asia. Its first survey came out in 1948\u2014an \"incomparably more thorough and informative account of the economic life of the region\" than any ever attempted\u2014and painted a picture of a continent in ruins after the war. ECAFE's original regional members were Pakistan, India, Burma, Thailand, the Philippines, and China. At a time when much of Asia remained under imperial control, \"nonregional\" members\u2014the imperial powers and the Soviet Union\u2014had a major presence, as did \"associate,\" nonvoting, members that were still under colonial rule or postwar occupation\u2014Ceylon Malaya, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, and Japan. The intersection of Asia's postwar revolutions with the early Cold War created immediate political tensions. After the Communist victory in the Chinese civil war in 1949, ECAFE decamped from Shanghai to Bangkok; like the rest of the UN system, it recognized the Republican government in Taiwan as the rightful representative of China.\n\nAsia in the 1940s was torn three ways: between colonial powers still clinging to power, newly independent states hungry for the technology and financing that would allow them to realize their grand plans, and the new superpowers in competition for their allegiance. ECAFE's deputy director, the American C. Hart Schaaf, made the bold claim that, amid these tensions, ECAFE was primarily the creature of new Asian states. He insisted that \"in the most extensive and populous region on earth,\" the \"most conspicuous political fact\" was \"a new dynamic nationalism\"; he suggested that ECAFE had not only \"witnessed\" but also \"facilitated\" this movement. One indication of this stance was ECAFE's appointment of an Indian director, P. Lokanathan, a Madras University economist who had been editor of the influential periodical _Eastern Economist._ Invoking the judgment of an imagined \"future historian of ECAFE,\" Hart Schaaf argued that ECAFE's role in the region would in time be seen as vital.\n\nAsia faced a \"revolution of rising expectations\" that cut across revolutionary and nonrevolutionary, capitalist and Communist states. ECAFE embraced water as a major regional priority, and one that could bring people together: it was an area where tangible results could be achieved. In 1950 the organization convened a meeting in Bangkok on flood control in Asia. Hydraulic engineers, city planners, and hydrologists from across the region came together to compare notes; through the mediation of international agencies, \"often... a particular national project becomes regional.\" In his search for a metaphor that would explain the benefits of regional cooperation, Hart Schaaf turned to \"the concept of an act or event which sets in motion a cumulative process of great momentum,\" adding that it was \"around [this idea] that Lord Keynes and others have constructed their thinking about the 'multiplier.'\" ECAFE's achievements were piecemeal, perhaps relatively small, but they were not insignificant. The agency epitomized the ideal known as \"functionalism,\" which Lilienthal had put forth in response to the Indus dispute: that technical matters, from public health to water management, could be removed from the political arena and solved cooperatively by experts whose professional camaraderie transcended geopolitical fault lines. But the politics of national sovereignty, like the geopolitics of superpower rivalry, could not be avoided. The very absence of the People's Republic of China from the ECAFE table made the organization's claims to a comprehensive regional perspective ring hollow. In 1954, for the first time, ECAFE's _Economic Survey_ included \"Mainland China,\" compiling statistics from official sources in the PRC: it was among ECAFE's most keenly read publications, as Asian planners, economists, and statesmen had the occasion to compare their countries' rates of \"progress\" with that of the revolutionary behemoth.\n\nThe curiosity of Asia's leaders and engineers about China\u2014fascination combined with suspicion\u2014went beyond the capacity of an ECAFE report to satisfy. Nowhere more so than in China's largest neighbor, India. The government of India had been among the first to recognize the People's Republic of China in 1949. Nehru's first ambassador to China, the historian K. M. Panikkar, was keenly impressed by China's revolution, and by Mao. The Chinese government's invasion and annexation of Tibet in October 1950 alarmed and surprised India, which regarded a semi-independent and friendly Tibet as a buffer along its border with China. Nehru came under pressure from others within the Congress to take a harder line; but a realistic sense of India's inability to intervene prevailed. Relations between the two countries warmed in the 1950s in line with Nehru's foreign policy of nonalignment with either bloc in the Cold War. Among the Indians most keen to learn about developments in China were the country's leading hydraulic engineers. In May 1954, Kanwar Sain, chairman of India's Central Water Commission, and K. L. Rao embarked on an official mission to China to inspect and to report back on China's water projects\u2014flood control in particular. Sain and Rao were among the first outsiders to see, firsthand, China's hydrological experiment; and because they were favorably disposed toward the Chinese government, they had extensive access to information.\n\nSain and Rao arrived in China on May 4, 1954, and stayed two months. They spent much of their time on the water, making many parts of their journey along the Yangzi by boat. Sain and Rao were chief protagonists of India's own colossal efforts to control water; the scale of work in China dazzled them. They undertook their tour of China half a century after the Indian Irrigation Commission had traveled through India in search of water. Theirs was part of the same quest: the famines of the late nineteenth century had unleashed in India a desperate and continuing search for sources of water to mitigate dependence on the monsoon. Sain and Rao were trained in the colonial tradition of Indian water engineering. But now they represented an independent nation, and for inspiration they looked not to Europe but to revolutionary China. Consider the contrast between the two tours: where the irrigation commission traveled with a retinue of servants in a specially chartered train, Sain and Rao were given strictly limited foreign exchange. They were accompanied by just two interpreters and two officials. They were impressed by the modesty, the lack of ostentation they saw\u2014and by the absence of the tight social hierarchies of India, to say nothing of caste. Another thing puzzled Sain and Rao. For generations, Indian intellectuals had believed that the most fundamental bond between India and China was Buddhism. But \"to our repeated questions about the Buddha\" came a standard response: \"Chairman Mao is our Buddha.\" In a new era, India and China needed a new language, a new basis for their interaction\u2014it came naturally to two hydraulic engineers to see that basis in the shared problem of water.\n\nDistinguishing his perspective from the negativity about China that he had imbibed reading the accounts of \"foreign diplomats,\" Sain commented on the high standards of sanitation he saw everywhere. An austere Indian engineer in the tradition of Visvesvaraya, Sain noted with satisfaction \"an absence of headlines in the newspapers highlighting murder, scandals, or disgraceful lives.\" Most of all, he was impressed by the \"clear-cut vision\" state officials had of a \"new China of their dreams,\" which in turn instilled in the people \"unbound faith and confidence in the wisdom, goodness, and creative policy of the government.\" Sain contrasted the Shanghai he had seen in 1939, on his way home from the United States\u2014a cosmopolitan and decadent city, in his mind\u2014with the city he saw in 1954. \"The bright lights had gone out,\" he wrote, but he meant this as a compliment. Shanghai now looked \"more typically Chinese,\" shorn of Western concessions and colonial settlements. Like so many other port cities along the littorals of the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, it was now \"integrated [more] closely with the economy of the interior rather than dependent on foreign luxury trade.\"\n\nSain's and Rao's report contains an extended list of every Chinese official they met, from ministers to field engineers to water scientists at the College of Hydraulic Engineering for Eastern China, in Nanjing. They were struck by the quality of China's hydraulic engineers. They delighted in the firm emphasis given to technical education in China. They praised the Chinese capacity for improvisation, building huge dams from local materials when imports were in short supply. Traveling through China, Sain's and Rao's thoughts turned naturally to comparisons with India. There were clear differences in the challenges each country faced. One sharp contrast between India and China was climatic\u2014once again, what made India distinctive was the monsoon. \"Unlike India, hemmed in by the Himalayas,\" they wrote, \"China is open to Central Asia\"; this meant that, in the summer, \"China unlike India is not the single objective of the air circulation of a whole ocean.\" China received \"less heavy and less concentrated rainfall\" than India, and its rain was \"much more equally spread across the interior.\" By contrast, China's rivers were more menacing than India's, more prone to burst their banks. India's great need was irrigation; China's was flood control. Both countries eyed an industrial future, and the promise of hydroelectric power attracted them both.\n\nIndia and China shared a sense of urgency. They shared a conviction that water held the key to security and prosperity\u2014these translated into an addiction to mammoth projects. In both countries, bigger was better. Just as the pamphlets of India's Central Water Commission and the documentaries of its Films Division extolled the pace and the scale of dam building in India, so too did the Chinese state and its engineers take pride in their compression of time. In the five years since the liberation, they boasted, \"250 major and thousands of minor irrigation projects\" had begun in China, adding 9.2 million acres of irrigated land. Most striking to the Indian visitors were the \"remarkable speeds of construction\" China had achieved through the mobilization of labor on a scale \"unknown in recent times.\"\n\nSoon after the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949, Mao's government made the Yellow River a priority. Known for centuries as \"China's sorrow,\" the Yellow River was notoriously prone to flooding. Within a year after the liberation, both the Huai and Yellow rivers experienced catastrophic floods. In the interests of national reconstruction, they had to be tamed and conquered. Where India drew expertise and aid from both the Americans and the Soviets, and where Nationalist water engineers in China in the 1920s and 1930s had maintained close links with the United States and Germany, after 1949 Chinese hydraulic engineers combined Russian technical assistance with local ingenuity. In parallel with India's race to build Bhakra Nangal, the most ambitious Chinese dam was the Sanmenxia on the Yellow River.\n\nLike Bhakra, the Sanmenxia had its origins in the 1930s; like Bhakra, a sense of urgency that followed the revolutionary upheaval of the 1940s brought it to the top of the agenda. The dam was located near the border between Shanxi and Henan, designed by Soviet engineers. The Soviets proposed a concrete gravity dam across the Yellow River, with a reservoir 360 meters above sea level. The initial plan would have displaced more than 800,000 people from their homes, and flooded 3,500 square kilometers of land. As plans for the dam went into circulation, between 1955 and 1957, Chinese experts debated it at length. During a fleeting moment of political openness under Mao's \"Hundred Flowers\" campaign, hydraulic engineer Huang Wanli\u2014trained as a meteorologist at Cornell and Iowa in the 1930s, and then an aide at the Tennessee Valley Authority\u2014raised the alarm. He argued in favor of a lower dam, with a smaller reservoir. He hinted that the Soviet plans had not undertaken a detailed analysis of costs and benefits. He felt that a smaller scheme, which displaced fewer people, would be less risky. He feared that the dam's design was no match for the heavy loads of silt that the Yellow River carried: the danger, as he saw it, was that the dam's reservoir would silt up, making the dam useless\u2014or, worse, dangerous.\n\nThe Hundred Flowers campaign was short-lived; as people spoke more freely, Mao disliked what they said. His retribution was swift. Huang was condemned and humiliated. He was deemed a \"rightist\" and sent for \"re-education.\" His predictions proved uncomfortably accurate. Within a few years of the Sanmenxia Dam's completion in 1960, it was clear that its reservoir was clogged with sediment. As Sino-Soviet relations soured after 1960, it became easier to blame a faulty Soviet design for the dam's problems. Acknowledging the scale of the problem, Zhou Enlai ordered a reconstruction and renovation of the scheme, at huge cost. At the same time, the human cost of the dam was immense. Just as Bhakra and Hirakud began the decades-long displacement of Indians by large dams, Sanmenxia led to the forcible relocation of an estimated 280,000 people.\n\nOther aspects of China's experience had no parallel in India, as Sain and Rao were quick to notice. The mobilization of labor in China was on a scale unknown in India, and this also set China on a path to water engineering quite different from the one established by their Soviet allies. Mao had prevailed in the Chinese civil war because of his stunning success in mobilizing popular support and enthusiasm\u2014first in the vanguard of the anti-Japanese resistance, and then deployed against Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist army. This commitment to mass action never left Mao. It shaped deeply his government's approach to water management. The first achievement of the people's energies, mobilized at the county level, village by village, was the two-hundred-kilometer People's Victory Canal, linking the Yellow River and the Wei. The _People's Daily_ ran features on the exertions of model workers who had broken records and distinguished themselves in devotion to the cause. By the mid-1950s, as China's collectivization drive gathered pace, Mao's government laid ever-greater emphasis on irrigation from the ground up. This fervor reached a peak during the Great Leap Forward, when every county was set to work building its own dams and irrigation ditches. Zhou Enlai made a rare official acknowledgment of the disastrous consequences of this approach in 1966, when he said, \"I fear that we have made a mistake in harnessing and accumulating water and cutting down so much forest cover... Some mistakes can be remedied in a day or a year, but mistakes in the field of water conservancy and forestry cannot be reversed for years.\"\n\nOf course, much of this took place after Sain's and Rao's visit. They saw no signs of danger in China's quest for water. In table after table they compared China with India\u2014how much concrete their dams consumed, how much water their reservoirs could hold. The speed of canal excavation was where China's achievements were most dramatic in comparison with India's. The Indian engineers' conclusion was wistful: \"In India, where similar human force is available, it should be possible to attain similar speeds... by proper organization and creation of enthusiasm among the people\"; they chose not to mention that \"proper organization\" would have demanded a level of coercion that the Indian government was unwilling (or unable) to muster.\n\nThe most revealing part of Sain's and Rao's report is a verbatim record of a speech by China's director of water conservancy, given at the end of their stay, in which he sought to address the questions that had arisen during their visit. Director Hao positioned the People's Republic firmly within an ancient tradition of water management in China. \"The record of exploitation of water by the Chinese people,\" he wrote, \"dates back to ancient times.\" But under the \"corrupt\" and \"feudalistic\" rule of a decaying empire, compounded by the failures of the Nationalist government, \"the hydraulic constructions [of China] were seriously ruined owing to long years of negligence.\" The Communist state claimed the mantle of imperial power over water\u2014it was a revival as well as a revolution. China's archives of water control were on display everywhere the visitors went: at Tsinghua University, they were shown an eight-hundred-year-old text \"containing excellent plans\" of the Yellow River. Hao spent as much time telling his Indian visitors about small projects as he did extolling the gargantuan ones. His was a story of repair and renovation as much as creation. He spoke of the myriad ponds and dikes that conveyed water to the fields of southern China. He spoke of the spread of simple technology\u2014a \"Liberation-type waterwheel\" that outdid the age-old technologies still in use.\n\nSain and Rao returned to India filled with enthusiasm. For all that they grasped the complexity of China's approach to water, their message back home was a simple one: it was a message of scale, speed, and control. Their main \"lesson\" from the Yellow River for the management of the notoriously flood-prone Kosi River of Bihar was the lesson of centralized command; China's intensive emphasis on small projects fell by the wayside in their accounts. Soon after his return Sain was summoned by Nehru, and \"closeted with him for about an hour.\" Nehru, soon to depart for China himself, asked for Sain's impressions. Listening closely, he pressed harder: how would Sain describe China in one sentence? Sain recalls that he gave Nehru an unscripted answer: \"At present China is behind India in every field, but I feel that at the rate they are progressing, China may be ahead of India in 10-15 years.\" Nehru \"made no comment,\" Sain remembered, \"but I could see from his face that he did not relish this reply.\"\n\nIndia's most eminent water engineers returned from China with a sense that the two countries shared fundamental problems, and that there were lessons they could learn from China. But there were ominous portents, too. In his speech, Director Hao had described how China's water projects had been \"extended to the border regions of our fraternal minorities and helped to promote national unity.\" There was never an attempt on the Chinese side to disguise the fact that water was intrinsic to political power. The conquest of water meant the conquest of space. With the control over water came the projection of state power over peoples with a different vision of water's uses: the people of Xinjiang, the people of Tibet. Unspoken was the thought that some day the \"border regions\" in question may include China's borders with India.\n\nSain and Rao faced a problem when they returned with the first-ever maps of China's water projects to be seen outside China. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs was rankled by what Sain and Rao had missed: the maps they had been given by Chinese officials claimed as Chinese territory a large swath of the borderland that the Indian state saw as integral to India. The maps were destroyed, redrawn to accord with India's understanding of its territorial boundaries. Sain later wrote in his memoirs that he was grateful this had been caught before the volume was published\u2014if it had not, it would have been a source of \"great embarrassment\" a few years later, when India and China went to war over just those borders.\n\nOne of Sain's enduring impressions of his trip had been \"how the Chinese people loved and admired the Russians.\" \"The bookstalls are generally full of Russian books and journals,\" he wrote; Russian expertise was offered without condescension and without strings\u2014or so it seemed. He had the opportunity to see for himself a year later, when he led an Indian delegation to the Soviet Union, sponsored by the United Nations' Technical Assistance Administration. Again, the visit of Indian technical experts was followed by an official visit by Nehru. Sain wrote a sweeping account of just how rapid the Soviet Union's economic progress had been since the revolution. Inspecting its hydraulic projects, he concluded that \"the interests of the power engineers have been accorded pride of place,\" a dominance he traced back to Lenin's emphasis on electrification as the key to socialism\u2014flood control and irrigation, India's and China's other great needs, were less valued. But Sain's conclusion was clear: China had much more directly to teach India than the Soviets.\n\nAS CHINA'S EXPERIENCES INSPIRED INDIA'S ENGINEERS, SO INDIA'S experiences became a model for the rest of Asia. A year after his visit to the Soviet Union, ECAFE's director, Lokanathan, commissioned Sain to join a UN mission to survey the Mekong. Like the Brahmaputra, the Salween, and the Yangzi, the Mekong originates on the Tibetan Plateau. In the twentieth century, it has been Asia's quintessential \"transboundary river,\" running through China, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam before spilling into the South China Sea. The Mekong, the ECAFE commission noted with understatement, was \"a perennial river of great importance.\" That importance was clear to the US government, which maintained an escalating financial and military presence in South Vietnam after the end of the French-Vietnamese war in 1954, which had resulted in the division of the country. The US Bureau of Reclamation, the domestic agency responsible for hydraulic engineering, had a global presence by the 1950s. Its engineers surveyed Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia, looking for hydroelectric potential. They had surveyed the Mekong, too, but their initial verdict was lukewarm.\n\nConvinced that a substantively international effort was needed, the UN went back. Sain was joined on the commission by Y. Kubota, the president of Japan's Nippon Koei corporation; G. Duval, a former colonial official; M. Sakaita, an engineering geologist from Japan; and the Dutchman W. J. van der Oord, a navigation specialist. They toured the Mekong in April and May 1956. The commission placed its faith in two large hydroelectric projects, one on the Tonle Sap in Cambodia, the other at Nam Lik in Laos. \"The prick has gone too deep to be halted\"\u2014this is how Sain described his sense that large-scale hydraulic engineering was inevitable, now, in the Mekong as elsewhere in Asia, given the bold claims that had been made on behalf of big dams, and given the hunger for progress and development that he saw wherever he traveled. The following year, Sain joined another commission coordinated by ECAFE and led by Raymond Wheeler, former chief engineer of the US Army Corps of Engineers. Wheeler's account of the mission harked back to the language of colonial exploration. \"There were no maps of the country,\" he wrote, \"we had to make them... Nobody had any data on river flow, or even any idea how to keep data.\" Wheeler described the Mekong as \"truly a virgin river.\" Historian David Biggs notes that the commission proposed \"a cascade of hydroelectric dams and irrigation schemes in the valley from the Chinese border southward to the Mekong Delta.\" The Mekong commission signified an opening for private interests who stood to profit from the dam-building rush; Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese companies, in particular, stepped in with materials and personnel.\n\nThe Mekong commission was quickly overshadowed by the escalation of American involvement in Indochina. The US Bureau of Reclamation placed its faith in what it called \"impact type projects,\" the grandest of them being the Pa Mong Dam, upstream of the Laotian capital, Vientiane. Vast, ambitious, planned to the last detail\u2014the dam never materialized, as the United States became mired in military conflict in Vietnam that engulfed Vietnam's neighbors as well. There was a close bond between American support for dam building in Asia and American strategic imperatives in the Cold War. But Kanwar Sain\u2014a patriotic Indian engineer at the pinnacle of his profession, enamored of China but with close personal and professional links to the US Bureau of Reclamation\u2014chose to spend a decade of his career with the Mekong commission, trying to coordinate the development of Asia's most international river. In his memoirs, he hints that the material reward of working for the United Nations was one clear incentive. But his motivations went deeper than the money. Sain believed, like so many of his generation, that taming the waters was a goal beyond national sovereignty\u2014and beyond ideology. Working for ECAFE alongside many former colonial civil servants and engineers now turned development consultants, Sain held to a vision of Asian nations working together to claim their rightful place in the community of nations. In a memoir that is detached, even clinical, in tone, a rare moment of emotion comes when Sain describes his \"pilgrimage\" to the site of Angkor Wat, in Siem Reap, Cambodia, while on his first Mekong mission: \"I was very much moved by the ancient glory and culture of India reflected in Angkor Wat,\" he wrote. Just as many of India's water engineers presented their \"new temples\" as standing within an ancient historical tradition of water engineering, so Sain appealed to a deep history of cultural exchange across borders to provide ballast for his vision of an Asia united by water\u2014or by water engineers.\n\nIn a sense, Sain's faith was eventually vindicated. The Mekong commission outlasted the American war. It received a new lease of life in the 1990s and now stands as one of the most important, if not always the most effective, river-regulating bodies in the world.\n\n# VII\n\nThe \"multiplier\" that ECAFE invoked to justify its work on cross-border river valley development could have the opposite effect: as projects and ambitions escalated, so did the potential for conflict. After a high point of warmth in their relationship in the mid-1950s\u2014the era of \"Hindi-Chini _bhai bhai_ \" (India and China are brothers)\u2014the territorial conflict between India and China intensified. The unmarked and mountainous frontier between India and China became contentious as both states intensified their presence in the borderlands. New infrastructure brought border regions within easier reach of Beijing and Delhi; military forces were stationed there; migration from the plains brought new settlers, often ethnically distinct from the people who inhabited the uplands. The spark for conflict was the construction of a Chinese road linking Xinjiang and Tibet\u2014a road that passed within what India considered to be its territory. Indian intelligence did not find out about the road until 1957, by which time its construction was well advanced. India insisted on the sanctity of agreements made under the British; the Chinese charged that India now stood as the beneficiary of British imperial aggression. In a pained and lengthy letter to Zhou Enlai, which was later published by the Indian government, Nehru countered that \"the boundaries of India were... settled for centuries by history, geography, custom and tradition.\" He turned, then, to water: \"The water-parting formed by the crest of the Himalayas is the natural frontier\" between India and China, \"accepted for centuries as the boundary.\"\n\nWater was not, by 1960, perceived as a source of conflict, but recently declassified Indian sources show that there were fears about the future. Rumors were rife. In exile in India after the failed Tibetan uprising of 1959, the Dalai Lama raised the alarm in a public meeting. He charged that the Chinese state was \"planning to build high dams across the Brahmaputra and Indus group of rivers in the Tibet region,\" and that the Chinese \"had these schemes in view ever since they came to Tibet.\" He asked, pointedly, \"how far such projects undertaken unilaterally would be in the interests of India.\" The Indian foreign ministry responded cautiously to a report on the Dalai Lama's speech. \"We have... no information so far about any proposal of the Chinese government to construct dams across the Indus or Brahmaputra before the rivers leave Tibet,\" one official wrote, but he saw the \"necessity of being alert in this manner.\" Indian officials were well aware that \"there is a great fall in the Brahmaputra just before it enters India\" with \"potential for power and irrigation.\" But they were reassured by the thought that it would take \"huge resources to make anything of it\"; any plans the Chinese had \"will certainly take a long time.\" The Indian trade mission in Gyantse, Tibet\u2014which clearly doubled as a source of intelligence\u2014concurred. They reported to Apa Pant, the chief political officer in the Indian protectorate of Sikkim, that \"construction of dams and reservoirs on the river is likely to involve huge resources including manpower, which the Chinese authorities will be able to utilize only after they have brought in large numbers of Chinese for settlement.\"\n\nThe Indian Ministry of External Affairs was concerned enough to involve colleagues in the irrigation department. In a letter marked \"top secret,\" K. K. Framji, chief engineer of India's irrigation department, reassured the foreign ministry that \"substantial or imminent diversions by China for irrigation purposes in the Tibet region do not appear to be practicable.\" The construction of storage dams for power generation might even benefit India as they \"would be helpful in mitigating floods in Assam or East Pakistan.\" But he then raised a darker prospect: \"If the Chinese hydro-electric schemes are so projected as to divert substantial quantities of Brahmaputra flows away from the present course into adjoining valleys,\" this would be \"a significant loss of valuable water resources to India, and even more so, to Pakistan.\" He concluded on a hopeful note: \"No doubt we will be given timely information regarding any observed or reported activities towards any such diversion.\"\n\nEvents soon overtook these concerns about the future of water. In 1959, India infuriated the Chinese government by granting asylum to the Dalai Lama; from that point, tensions on the border between India and China ran high. Both sides built up their military forces along the border; India pursued a \"Forward Policy,\" stationing troops north of the McMahon line, the 1914 frontier that had marked the boundary between Tibet and British India. Taking the Indians by surprise, Chinese military forces launched attacks on both the eastern and western flanks of the border region on October 20, 1962. As the world was transfixed by the Cuban missile crisis, Indian and Chinese forces fought in the high Himalayas. But it was no contest: the Indian military was no match for Chinese forces, who won decisive victories. A month after the offensive, the Chinese declared a unilateral cease-fire and withdrew their forces to the \"line of actual control\"\u2014or the de facto border.\n\nThe war with China marked a humiliating defeat for India. The Indian army was ill-equipped, ill-prepared; China's invasion seemed to mock the effort Nehru had put into fostering good relations between the two countries. Nehru's political legitimacy at home was battered. With hindsight, 1962 appears as the beginning of the end of the Nehru era in Indian politics. In the opening pages of his first novel, _Such a Long Journey,_ set in Bombay of the 1960s and 1970s, Rohinton Mistry evokes a widespread sense that \"the war with China froze Jawaharlal Nehru's heart, then broke it. He never recovered from what he perceived to be Chou En-lai's betrayal.\" Nehru's frank, even desperate, plea for American military assistance in the war dented his commitment to nonalignment in the Cold War. India's defeat on the international stage coincided with a rising chorus of criticism at home, raising questions about the economic and political strategy Nehru had pursued in the fifteen years since independence. Was there a better way?\n\nJAWAHARLAL NEHRU DIED IN 1964. HIS WILL AND TESTAMENT EXPLAINED why he wanted his ashes to be scattered in the Ganges upon his death. \"I have been attached to the Ganga and the Jumna rivers in Allahabad ever since my childhood,\" he wrote, \"and, as I have grown older, this attachment has also grown.\" The Ganges, he wrote, \"is the river of India, beloved of her people\": bearer of \"her hopes and fears, her songs of triumph, her victories and her defeats.\" Evoking the identity of the river with the very geography of India, Nehru wrote that each glimpse of the Ganges \"reminds me of the snow-covered peaks and the deep valleys of the Himalayas, which I have loved so much, and of the rich and vast plains below, where my life and work have been cast.\" Nehru was adamant that \"my desire to have a handful of my ashes thrown into the Ganga at Allahabad has no religious significance.\" Water still had imaginative power to evoke the sacred, to shape nations' perceptions of their limits. The Ganges remained the essence of India, the Himalayas India's natural boundary, even in an age when India's \"new temples\" were large dams.\n\n# EIGHT\n\n# THE OCEAN AND THE UNDERGROUND\n\nIN _T HE LIVES OF OTHERS_, SET IN BENGAL IN THE LATE 1960S AND early 1970s, Neel Mukherjee brings a novelist's imaginative sympathy to evoke what it feels like to depend on the rains. Supratik, the novel's protagonist, has become involved in the Naxalite movement, a violent revolutionary movement of Maoist inspiration, committed to rural revolution in India. As part of his work of political outreach, Supratik, a privileged city boy, spends time in the countryside, growing accustomed to its rhythms. He inhabits a rural Bengal that is impoverished, indebted, under the heel of landlords\u2014and governed by the monsoon. As they prepare the seedbeds to transplant paddy saplings, Supratik's host, Kanu, gazes at the sky. His questions are perennial ones: \"Would it arrive this year? his eyes seemed to be asking; would it be late? would it be enough? There was both anxiety and resignation in his face.\" And then, this time, the rains came. Supratik continues: \"It was exactly as I remembered from childhood\u2014sheets of water coming down for hours and hitting the ground with such force that you thought the road would dissolve\u2014except here the ground, which is earth, does dissolve.\"\n\nOn the surface there is little to connect this imaginative account of the lived experience of climate with the meteorological data being accumulated by international scientists at the time. Human lives and voices could not be fed into climate models, where readings of pressure and wind and moisture could. But they told different facets of the same story.\n\nThis chapter tells two intersecting stories\u2014the connections between them were not fully evident at the time. The first is the story of monsoon science in the 1960s; the second is the political and economic history of India's mid-1960s droughts. The International Indian Ocean Expedition ran between 1959 and 1965. It used new technology to uncover the forces underpinning the monsoon; it resituated South Asia in relation to the vastness of the Indian Ocean; it established new links between the countries along the ocean's rim, including a web of weather-monitoring stations. The scientific expedition raised the alarm that human activity was starting to make itself felt in the oceans\u2014perhaps even that it was altering Earth's climate. At just the moment when Asian states were sloughing off the web of connections that linked them across borders and seas, satellites and aerial photographs and deep sea probes projected a view of Asia shaped by a vast, connected climate system\u2014a system with very tangible consequences for the large development schemes that states around the Indian Ocean rim had embarked on.\n\nIn the same years the monsoon came urgently back into view in India, which was in the grip of drought for three pivotal years in the mid-1960s. India's enthusiasm for the Indian Ocean Expedition, in common with many other countries in the region, was driven primarily by short-term concerns with a looming food crisis, which threatened political unrest. The Indian Ocean Expedition promised a survey of the sea as a set of \"material resources to be exploited.\" Most of all, it promised more accurate weather forecasts. India's response to the crisis of the mid-1960s was to intensify its quest for water. The dam building of the 1950s had not gone far or fast enough. Old fears of the monsoon climate resurfaced, regardless of the advances in climatic understanding that the new science promised. The government adopted a package of agricultural reforms that included high-yielding crops, vast quantities of chemical fertilizer, and the more intensive exploitation of groundwater using electric pumps.\n\nIN HIS 1981 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL Association, on \"The Challenge of Modern Historiography,\" historian of the Atlantic world Bernard Bailyn spoke of the relationship between what he called latent and manifest processes in history. The former he described as \"events that contemporaries were not fully or clearly aware of... however much they might have been forced unwittingly to grapple with their consequences.\" He described the relationship between latent and manifest events like this:\n\nThe events I am referring to were known, if at all, only vaguely by contemporaries or by previous historians to have _been_ events; they are being discovered as particular happenings now for the first time. Taken together, they form a new landscape, a landscape like that of the ocean floor, assumed to have existed in some vague way by people struggling at the surface of the waves but never seen before as actual rocks, ravines, and cliffs. And like the newly discovered ocean floor\u2014so rich, complex, and busy a world in itself\u2014the world of latent events can be seen to be part of, directly involved with, the manifest history of the surface world itself.\n\nBailyn's oceanographic metaphor is especially apt in this chapter, where it takes on literal as well as symbolic meaning. We can now, for the first time, integrate the discovery of the Indian Ocean's effects on the monsoon, the early signs of climate change, with the manifest political and economic transformations of India and other parts of Asia in the 1960s and 1970s.\n\nThe lessons of the new climate science\u2014that Asia was intensely vulnerable, increasingly interconnected, bound by growing risks from the destabilization of its climate\u2014went unheeded before a renewed quest to conquer nature. The 1960s and 1970s were the decades that pushed India and other parts of Asia more fully toward a crisis of water.\n\n# I\n\nBy the 1960s the Indian Ocean was largely invisible to states in South Asia who looked no further than the waters immediately off their coasts. Migrants had once traversed the sea with few restrictions, in a pattern of circular migration. Now they faced an obstacle-strewn space governed by passports and visa restrictions. As India prepared for the International Conference on the Law of the Sea, to be held in Geneva under the auspices of the United Nations in early 1958, it was clear to Indian negotiators that the meeting would have what they called \"far-reaching consequences.\" At stake was the renegotiation of the customary three-mile limit on the extent of each state's \"territorial waters,\" a legal conception that came into widespread use around this time. Lawyers at India's Ministry of External Affairs pinpointed the core conflict: \"The countries which support the three mile limit,\" they noted, \"own over 80% of the world tonnage and are therefore interested in maintaining freedom of the seas.\" India, on the other hand, along with many developing countries, claimed a greater expanse of water of its coasts \"on the ground of security or for economic reasons such as the preservation of exclusive fishing rights for their nationals.\" Among the pressing reasons for a change were technological developments that allowed for the exploitation of resources further offshore, not least fishing by large trawlers. India was equally concerned with the \"conditions under which the waters of a bay can be regarded as internal waters,\" given the \"close linking of the waters to the land domain\" and the \"utility of the bay to the economic needs of the country.\" Although negotiations over the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea would continue through the early 1980s, the final agreement recognized the claims of countries pressing for an extended definition of territorial waters, to which was added a wider exclusive economic zone. The sea came, more and more, to resemble the land\u2014as a form of territory.\n\nTo scientists, the Indian Ocean was \"the largest unknown area on earth.\" Paul Tchernia, who worked in the physical oceanography laboratory of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, described it as the \"forlorn ocean.\" Returning from a voyage through the Indian Ocean en route to and from the Antarctic, he suggested that an international investigation of the Indian Ocean should be incorporated into the activities of the UN's International Geophysical Year in 1957\u20131958: a massive exercise in coordinated data gathering that transformed knowledge of Earth's physical processes. Tchernia's suggestion came too late to include the Indian Ocean in that giant program, but there was a convergence of interest in investigating the least well-studied among the world's oceans. The catalyst came from a meeting of the Special Committee on Oceanic Research, set up by the International Council of Scientific Unions. It met for the first time at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in coastal Massachusetts in August 1958. Among its champions was the Scripps Institution of Oceanography's Roger Revelle (1909\u20131991), a pioneer in the study of global warming and the effects of carbon emissions on the oceans.\n\nMidcentury oceanographers were drawn to the Indian Ocean for the same reason that medieval traders could cross it\u2014the seasonal reversal of the monsoon winds. This pattern of reversing winds made the Indian Ocean unique; this made it a \"model of the world ocean,\" upon which scientists could test their \"wind-driven models.\" Many scientists who lived on the ocean's rim, especially those in government service, had more immediate interests. The ocean's fisheries held the potential to address concerns about food shortages in Asia and Africa; its mineral wealth had barely begun to be exploited. Unlocking the mechanism of the ocean's influence on climate could provide the key to food security and economic development.\n\nFrom the start there was tension between short-term and long-term aims of the project; between the search for quick results and the patient accumulation of data on which to build scientific understanding. Oceanographer Henry Stommel approached the wild enthusiasm for the new Indian Ocean Expedition with skepticism. He published a few editions of an anonymous newsletter he called _Indian Ocean Bubble_ \u2014named to invoke the eighteenth-century speculative craze known as the South Sea Bubble\u2014with the implication that his colleagues' craze for the Indian Ocean, too, was built on speculation. Its circulation was limited to a short list of oceanographers. Its final editorial was honest to a fault. \"I think there is only a very remote chance that the Expedition will help improve fisheries and alleviate the poverty of the people in many Indian Ocean countries,\" Stommel wrote. He found it \"disheartening\" to see \"oceanography join the long line of pressure groups acting\u2014under the guise of humanitarianism\u2014to advance their own interests.\" Those \"interests\" were \"in themselves legitimate, but essentially unrelated to the moral and 'socio-economic' issues which they pretend to serve.\"\n\nIn the end the International Indian Ocean Expedition involved forty ships from thirteen countries. Its capacious agenda encompassed what the mission's official chronicle called \"moral and 'socio-economic issues\" as well as the \"interests\" of oceanography in basic research. The list of countries involved does not map easily onto the geography of the Cold War. Many large states bordering the Indian Ocean were enthusiastic participants in the program, including hostile neighbors India and Pakistan, as well as Indonesia and Australia. The United States played a leading role, involving scientists from the Scripps and Woods Hole institutes of oceanography, as well as the US Weather Bureau and the navy. The British, too, were heavily involved, given that they still had a substantial colonial and strategic presence in the region in the early 1960s. The Soviet Union contributed the 6,500-ton _Vityaz,_ the largest ship in the program. The Indian Ocean Expedition also marked the rebirth of German oceanography after the war, and it showed the resurgent scientific and technical prowess of Japan, which contributed two vessels, the _Kagoshima Maru_ and the _Umitaka Maru_.\n\nThe Indian ships on the expedition reflected\u2014in their origins, their shape, their materials\u2014different epochs of seafaring history. The _Kistna,_ its \"sleek lines betraying... naval origins,\" as one observer put it, was built as a naval frigate in 1943, a product of the Second World War's fillip to Indian industry. Now armed with an Edo echo sounder with a range of six thousand fathoms, the ship was fitted for oceanographic research, but it came with a warning: \"Austere living conditions; not fit for women scientists. No salt water bath fitted.\" The smallest vessel in the expedition was the _R.V. Conch,_ which belonged to the University of Kerala. It represented a much older tradition of shipbuilding: it was a small ship built of hardwood, in the long tradition of coastal craft that had threaded together India's western coast for centuries. By contrast the trawler _R.V. Varuna_ was brand-new, purpose-built in Norway in 1961 in connection with the Indo-Norwegian fisheries project. Despite its novelty, it came with the same \"men only\" warning as the naval frigate: \"Women scientists cannot be housed.\" From the earliest days of the spice traders, the Indian Ocean was crossed predominantly by men\u2014some things were very slow to change, and the loss to Indian Ocean science has been considerable.\n\nThe expedition's research aims encompassed the study of ocean currents and littoral drift; an investigation of ocean chemistry, salinity, and temperature; the exploration of marine life, and especially fisheries; the study of wind and atmospheric conditions and rainfall. Much of the excitement came from the new technologies that allowed scientists to see the sea anew. Sonar technology allowed them to hear enough to map the Indian Ocean's sea floor with heightened accuracy\u2014their images evoked an underwater continent as varied in its topography as the land above. Advances in satellite technology provided synoptic pictures of cloud cover and precipitation. Computers allowed scientists to process quantities of data beyond all precedent: Klaus Wyrtki of the University of Hawaii oversaw the production of an oceanographic atlas, which processed data from twelve thousand hydrographic stations stored on two hundred thousand computer cards.\n\nAmong all of the Indian Ocean Expedition's endeavors, one observer wrote, \"none shows more contrast between past and present than meteorology.\" The Indian Ocean Expedition marked the most intensive investigation of the South Asian monsoon since the days of Gilbert Walker, now with a raft of new tools. Fascinating though it was to glimpse the ocean's floor, for many scientists the most urgent priority for the Indian Ocean Expedition was to provide a better picture of Asia's climate. Almost a century after the establishment of the Indian Meteorological Department, scientists wrote in 1962 that \"inadequate knowledge of the large-scale influences on weather have always hampered weather forecasting.\" The need to understand the monsoon \"has become even greater and more urgent,\" they argued, \"in view of the large scale development plans of many of the countries in the field of agriculture, exploitation of water resources, flood control programmes, and programmes for ameliorating the consequences of weather extremes.\" Economic planning, they wrote, demanded \"accurate advance information on the onset of the rains, its variations from day-to-day\" and \"the occurrence of spells of heavy rain and breaks.\"\n\nIn his 1927 presidential address to the Royal Meteorological Society, Gilbert Walker had speculated that \"variations in activity of the general oceanic circulation\" would likely be \"far reaching and important\" in understanding the world's climate. It was not until the 1960s, bolstered by data collected during the International Geophysical Year and the Indian Ocean Expedition, that his insight would be developed. Walker's pioneering work on the lateral connection between the climates of Indian Ocean and the Pacific\u2014his Southern Oscillation\u2014now acquired a vertical dimension. The Indian Ocean Expedition focused on understanding the exchange of energy between the ocean and the atmosphere, driven by the monsoon winds. Piece by piece, scientists sought to understand the large-scale monsoon circulation of the Indian Ocean. The reversal in the direction of the monsoon winds had been well known for centuries, but it was more difficult, one scientist wrote, to \"determine the vertical limits\u2014than the horizontal\u2014of the monsoon influence.\" Changes on Earth's surface were linked with changes in the deep sea, and in the upper atmosphere.\n\nA crucial component of the Indian Ocean Expedition was the International Meteorological Centre that was set up in Bombay in 1963, at the Colaba observatory, which was first built as an astronomical observatory by the East India Company in 1826. Along with India, the project received support from Ceylon, Indonesia, Japan, the Malagasy Republic, Malaya, Mauritius, Pakistan, Thailand, the states of East Africa, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Its prized possession was an IBM 1620 \"computor\" (as the word was then spelled), financed by the United Nations Special Fund. The center's director was tropical meteorologist Colin Ramage. In 1958 Ramage moved from a position as deputy director of the Royal Observatory in Hong Kong\u2014where he had studied the South China Sea's typhoons\u2014to a professorship at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where he directed a US Air Force\u2013funded research station on meteorology. \"Just as every viewer has his personal rainbow,\" wrote Colin Ramage, \"so every meteorologist seems to possess a personal and singular understanding of what is meant by 'monsoon.'\" The one point of agreement, Ramage noted, was that the Indian monsoon is the largest and most dramatic. For all the international involvement, the core of the International Meteorological Centre's personnel came directly from the Indian Meteorological Department, which contributed one hundred staff.\n\nAlready during the UN's International Geophysical Year in 1957\u20131958, Indian meteorologists had made a signal contribution. Among them was Anna Mani. Born in 1918 in the princely state of Travancore, Anna Mani studied physics at Presidency College Madras and then worked at Nobel laureate C. V. Raman's laboratory at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. In 1945, she received a scholarship to Imperial College\u2014I heard many stories of Anna Mani from the Indian meteorologists I met, including a story, perhaps apocryphal, of how she endured her voyage to Southampton as one of the few women on a ship full of demobilized troops. Mani joined the meteorological department in 1948, and during the International Geophysical Year, she took charge of a network of stations to measure solar radiation across India. Just the year before the International Meteorological Centre was established, India had augmented its research capacity with the establishment of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Poona, which remains one of the country's preeminent institutions. Under the Indian Ocean Expedition, those most intimately familiar with the monsoon now contributed to research on a global scale.\n\nIn a pamphlet published by the World Meteorological Organization, Ramage described the Colaba center at work:\n\nThroughout the night, staff in the small, air-conditioned communications room have been receiving broadcast coded weather reports from the Indian Ocean region in morse code and on teleprinters. Pictures of charts analysed a few minutes before in the meteorological centres at Nairobi, Moscow, Sangley Point and Canberra unroll from facsimile printers. Across the compound of Colaba Observatory in the Signal Office of the western Regional Meteorological Centre, other teleprinters disgorge figure-crammed sheets of paper containing detailed information on Indian weather, and on the weather over the whole eastern hemisphere north of the equator.\n\nIn this scene the Indian Ocean came alive, where as a zone of trade and as a political idea it was dead. The sea was connected in a new way by weather maps and the flow of data through fascimile printers. In the late nineteenth century, the expanded collection of data transmitted through the telegraph allowed the first synoptic weather maps of large regions to be drawn. The Colaba center's work reflected a new geography as well as advances in technology. Overlaid on the old British imperial networks of weather reporting were new centers of knowledge and power, including Moscow and even Vladivostock. This nocturnal hive of activity, in a small corner of south Bombay, gave substance to the idea of the Indian Ocean as a vast weather system stretching beyond national boundaries. Not all of the exchange was unfettered. Thousands of reports came in, but \"problems in radio transmission meant that the centre got less than half the observations made.\" Nevertheless, Ramage was reassured, \"copies of all observations were sent by mail,\" furnishing a paper archive of minute observations of the Indian Ocean's climate, even if, by the time they arrived, \"they were not much good for forecasting.\" More disappointing was the fate of a floating automatic weather station provided by the US government and anchored in the Bay of Bengal by the Indian navy: \"After a few months, its radio quit and it was neither seen nor heard from again.\"\n\nThe new quest to understand the monsoon relied on two breakthroughs in technology: aerial video and satellite photography. Five research aircraft were based in Bombay to support the International Meteorological Centre's work: one belonged to Woods Hole, the other four to the US Weather Bureau, including two large DC-6 airplanes. As in the nineteenth century, cyclones held a particular fascination for meteorologists\u2014and now improved storm forecasting would benefit the growing numbers of people who lived in South Asia's coastal cities. The US Weather Bureau's two DC-6 aircraft flew the first aerial reconnaissance mission into a cyclone in the Indian Ocean (though there had been many such missions over the Atlantic): Ramage was in the scientific observer's seat on one of them. Ramage's plane flew through the storm at 20,000 feet; the other was way down at 1,500 feet above the ocean's surface. \"I thought the aircraft was falling to pieces,\" Ramage wrote, \"we dropped 300 feet in a single second\"\u2014a common complaint of nervous flyers in turbulence, but in Ramage's case it was likely accurate. Most awesome, for this lifelong student of tropical storms, was the experience of flying into the eye of a monsoon depression. He described flying \"into an amphitheatre of multi-layered nimbo-stratus cloud. In the centre only thin milky cloud above us and almost none below, and five minutes later we were once again in rain clouds.\"\n\nWhen Ramage and Indian meteorologist C. R. Raman (brother of Nobel laureate in physics C. V. Raman) produced their atlas of Indian Ocean meteorology, they were able to draw 144 charts based on 194,000 shipboard observations and 750,000 balloon ascents into the upper atmosphere. The ability to visualize the weather in new ways was especially compelling. Scientists installed cameras on commercial and military aircraft flying through the region to take time-lapse films of the clouds they encountered in flight over the Indian Ocean. Ramage described how time-lapse cameras had previously been used \"spectacularly in science films to compress into a few seconds the blooming cycles of flowers\"; now they were placed on aircraft to photograph clouds at the rate of one frame every three seconds. On a six-hour flight, they would record every cloud on thirty meters of 16 mm film. Watching the videos later, Ramage wrote, \"The viewer gets the rather exciting impression of flying at about 50 times the speed of the aircraft.\"\n\nAn even more promising development was underway by the end of the expedition\u2014daily satellite photographs of the Indian Ocean. \"We now have for the first time,\" Ramage enthused, \"the opportunity to attempt a complete description of the whole atmospheric distribution over the Indian Ocean.\" That \"complete description\" is what Ramage and Raman attempted, chart by chart, in their meticulous work of climatic reconstruction. The most exciting prospect lay just over the horizon of possibility. The force of the monsoon came from the exchange of energy between air and sea\u2014it was now possible to study this complex process. The promise of satellite photography was that it might \"elucidate the role of the monsoons in the total atmospheric circulation.\"\n\nDespite his optimism, Ramage delivered a modest assessment of progress. The goal of Henry Blanford and Gilbert Walker\u2014a long-range forecast of the monsoon\u2014remained elusive. Even incremental improvements in forecasting, Ramage thought, would help in \"aiding flood prevention and control and in enabling irrigation engineers to make the best possible use of stored water,\" as well as helping the fishers of the Indian Ocean rim to take advantage of lulls in the monsoon, up to a week long, to take to sea. But the prospect of an accurate long-range forecast, Ramage lamented, was \"as remote as ever.\" The vast accumulation of data had not altered a truth well known\u2014that \"the atmosphere is turbulent and chaotic.\" There was no substitute for patient observation. The best meteorologists could do was to keep doing what was embedded in their practice: to use \"long climatological records and detailed statistics to come up with a sort of odds on what the next season's rainfall will be.\" His conclusion was sober:\n\nThe apparently rhythmic nature of rain-and-break, rain-and-break, during the summer monsoon encourages us to delve more deeply into the underlying causes of the rhythm and in particular the causes for interruptions or changes in the rhythm. Finding the rhythm of a total season, however, seems almost certainly beyond our immediate grasp.\n\nMORE OMINOUS SIGNS EMERGED FROM THE INDIAN OCEAN EXPEDITION. Two years before that expedition began, Revelle had written, with his colleague the geochemist Hans Seuss, that human beings were conducting, unwittingly, a \"large scale geophysical experiment\" with the world's climate. \"Within a few centuries,\" Revelle and Seuss wrote, \"we are returning to the atmosphere and oceans the concentrated organic carbon stored in sedimentary rocks over hundreds of millions of years.\" One of Revelle's students, Charles Keeling, was the first to start systematic measurements of atmospheric carbon the following year, in 1958. Revelle and colleagues had long-range goals for their study of the Indian Ocean: they wanted to see how far the Indian Ocean was a \"dump for the waste products of industrial civilization.\" And they sought to determine \"the role of the ocean in climatic change, especially in absorbing the carbon dioxide spewed into the atmosphere when fossil fuels are burned.\" We have forgotten how important the Indian Ocean was to documenting anthropogenic climate change, prompting early stirrings of alarm. The data from the Indian Ocean voyages suggested that the sea and the atmosphere were being affected by human activity on land. But these \"long range\" problems were then distant from the level of human experience. The time horizons of oceanic research were incommensurable with those of planning for food security. Because the long-range monsoon forecast remained elusive, because understandings of climate grew more complex, it was easier to focus on what could be contained and controlled\u2014one river valley at a time.\n\nThe Indian Ocean Expedition generated a picture of the South Asian monsoon that was an integral part of the global climate system. South Asia's climate was part of a large-scale interchange of energy and moisture between the ocean and the atmosphere. This expansion in the scale and complexity of understanding sat uneasily with the confidence, so prevalent in Asia among dam builders and planners, that nature could be anticipated, or its effects engineered away. A 1968 pamphlet on the monsoon\u2014written by P. K. Das, director of the Indian Meteorological Department, and published as part of a National Book Trust series, \"India: The Land and People\"\u2014contrasted the tendency of Indian farmers and poets to see the monsoon in vast, even cosmic, terms with \"more rational techniques, such as the scientific control of river valleys.\" In a sense, with its emphasis on turbulence and chaos and complexity, the new monsoon science resonated more easily with what Das saw as the superstitious view than with a view of the monsoon as simply a variable to be controlled.\n\n# II\n\nThe final year of the International Indian Ocean Expedition coincided with the worst failure of the South Asian monsoon in decades. For two successive years, in 1965 and 1966, large parts of India suffered from drought. The drought coincided with India's first major political transition after independence, following the death of Jawaharlal Nehru at the end of May 1964, and it pushed forward a change in economic strategy that was already underway. The two years after Nehru's death made clear the limits of India's progress toward self-sufficiency in food.\n\nNehru was succeeded by the diminutive and mild-mannered Lal Bahadur Shastri, a party stalwart from the Hindi heartland of North India. When Shastri took office, alarm about India's food situation was widespread. There had been many flare-ups of protest in the cities, dubbed \"bread riots\" in the media. The Congress party's distinctive style of accommodative politics came under strain after the disaster of the China war. Groups that had long formed part of the Congress coalition\u2014middle- and upper-caste landowners, urban workers, industrialists\u2014were no longer content to defer to the urban elite, no longer willing to keep a lid on their conflicts with each other. Some of them found a voice outside the Congress umbrella. Under attack from left and right, Shastri, who was easy to underestimate, undertook a series of quiet but decisive reforms. Political scientist Francine Frankel, who was doing research in India at the time, describes the result: \"A series of undramatic initiatives in economic policy that went virtually unnoticed at the time cumulatively altered the entire approach to India's development strategy.\"\n\nThe core of Nehru's approach had been a push for import-substituting industrialization. India in the 1950s had developed as a mixed economy, but one in which the public sector played a leading role, especially at the \"commanding heights\" of the economy. This was the strategy championed in the 1950s by the planning commission, to which Nehru gave considerable autonomy under the leadership of master statistician (and sometime meteorologist) P. C. Mahalanobis, dubbed \"the Professor.\" The Indian countryside was given two roles to play in this \"drama,\" as Mahalanobis insisted that the second five-year plan must be: The first was to ensure food security to a country still scarred by the memory of colonial famines, with the ultimate aim being self-sufficiency in food grains. The second was to generate foreign exchange through the export of nonfood crops to pay for the imported machinery that India would need until its own factories could make them. Jute and cotton were two of India's most valuable exports.\n\nBut at odds with the emphasis on self-reliance came an increasing reliance, through the 1950s, on food aid from the United States. From the time of its institution in 1954, Public Law 480, or PL-480\u2014known widely as the \"food for peace\" scheme\u2014disposed of the large agricultural surpluses of the American Midwest in the postcolonial world, on preferential terms. India was by far the largest recipient of this aid. Indian imports of American wheat grew from two hundred thousand tons in 1954 to more than 4 million tons by 1960. Given the ups and downs of the Indo-American relationship in the 1950s, this struck many Indian politicians as an uncomfortable level of dependence on an unreliable patron. The importance of American food aid was only one indication that the Indian government's agricultural strategy had faltered. Looking back, in the late 1960s, an official report acknowledged the problem. \"All the efforts at achieving self-sufficiency in foodgrain production during the three Plan periods did not fully succeed,\" the Indian ministry of agriculture acknowledged; instead, a sharp drop in agricultural production in the early 1960s came as a \"great shock to everyone concerned with agriculture.\" After 1961, per capita income in India did not increase, and by the mid-1960s the availability of food per capita was lower than it was in 1956.\n\nThe man charged with addressing this \"shock\" was C. Subramaniam. He was born in 1910 to a farming family in Coimbatore district in Madras, a prosperous region of irrigated export agriculture at the edge of the Western Ghat mountains and a center of India's textile industry. Subramaniam was a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of the veteran Madras leader of the Congress party, C. Rajagopalachari. He joined the Indian freedom movement as a young man; he was one of an army of Congress party workers imprisoned by the British during the Quit India movement in 1942. He spent the 1950s in the state government of Madras, until Nehru appointed him to the coveted industries portfolio in his cabinet. For Shastri to move him to agriculture, something of a Cinderella ministry, seemed a step down. But Subramaniam embraced the challenge. He came to represent a strand of economic thinking in India that had always run alongside, sometimes in tension with, the planning commission's \"industry first\" approach. Subramaniam believed, contrary to the planning commission, that the Indian countryside was the key to security and progress. Subramaniam drew on ideas that had been in circulation from the late nineteenth century. They were prominent in the writings of India's early \"economic nationalists,\" and found new expression in the 1920s and 1930s in detailed studies of agricultural economics.\n\nIn the circumstances of the early 1960s, a rediscovery of rural India's importance converged with a line of thought that American development experts pressed upon India. From the late 1950s the World Bank and many American government observers began to urge that India should pay more attention to agriculture, even at the expense of scaling back its grand industrial vision. Specifically, they advocated for markets to play a greater role in Indian agricultural policy, which would in turn spur investment in new technologies. They were skeptical of the Nehru government's emphasis on agricultural cooperatives; they argued, instead, that India could boost its food production most rapidly by providing incentives to farmers with capital, those who already benefited from larger landholdings and irrigation facilities, even if this came at the price of higher levels of inequality in the countryside. Wielding the powers of persuasion and veiled threat that they gained from India's dependence on American food aid, these outside experts gained a sympathetic hearing from within the Indian government, which had its own \"America lobby\" as well as pro-Soviet faction.\n\nFrom the outset Subramaniam believed that new technologies were the key to the transformation of India. One of his first initiatives was to strengthen the moribund Indian Council for Agricultural Research, and to bolster agricultural education in India. Early in his tenure as agriculture minister, Subramaniam was impressed by reports of the stunning results shown by Rockefeller-sponsored experiments in Mexico with high-yielding varieties of maize and wheat, and by experiments with new hybrid strains of rice in Taiwan and the Philippines. Could they work in India? A team of scientists led by the Canadian plant pathologist R. Glenn Anderson had already initiated a series of experimental stations in India with pilot projects in Delhi, Ludhiana, Pusa, and Kanpur; when one hundred kilograms of seed, flown in from Mexico, arrived in India in 1964, they were ready to test them in Indian conditions. Here lay the roots of what would come to be known as the \"Green Revolution,\" which would transform Indian and global agriculture in the final third of the twentieth century.\n\nBut first Subramaniam had to prevail over his cabinet colleagues who remained committed to the Congress's stated goal of moving toward a \"socialist pattern of society\"\u2014or, at least, to rapid industrialization first and foremost. T. T. Krishnamachari was the planning commission's most vocal proponent of focusing on heavy industry. His concern was primarily with keeping food prices down for urban workers. To achieve this, he argued for a national food distribution system based on a system of price controls and monopoly food procurement by the state. Subramaniam pointed out that this infrastructure of food control, which had its roots in the wartime economy, was \"uneconomical\"\u2014government prices for compulsory procurement were so low that they gave farmers no incentive to invest in new technology. The two sides crossed swords over inequality. Subramaniam recalled in his memoirs that his opponent argued against high-yielding varieties because \"this strategy would lead to greater social tension within the rural areas, because benefits would be unequally distributed.\" Subramaniam's response was to ask his critics \"what other option we had.\" To those who argued that he was caving to American pressure, Subramaniam countered that only a new approach to agriculture would save India from subjection, for he feared that \"once we became dependent on these imported foodgrains other political strings would be attached to them.\" The turn to high-yielding varieties made Indian agriculture dependent, instead, on large imports of chemical fertilizer\u2014and more dependent than ever on new sources of water.\n\nThe crux of Subramaniam's strategy was to \"concentrate modern inputs in irrigated areas.\" This is a prosaic way to describe a fundamental change. From the nineteenth century India's geography of water had shaped plans for the country's future. Now the difference between irrigated and rain-fed lands would be accepted as a necessary inequality\u2014even a matter of strategy.\n\nSUBRAMANIAM'S APPROACH TO AGRICULTURE GAINED A FILLIP from the overwhelming sense of economic and political crisis surrounding India in 1965. By September 1965 it was clear that the year's summer rainfall was far short of normal: aggregate agricultural production was 17 percent down on the previous year. In a speech to persuade the chief ministers of India's states of his policy, Subramaniam spoke of a \"race against time.\" Facing down criticism from the Communist H. N. Mukherjee in Parliament, who accused Subramaniam of forcing through his strategy under American pressure, the agriculture minister accused his questioner of exploiting \"the psychological hour when the monsoon has failed,\" and preying on the \"fears\" of the country. India's vulnerability to the monsoons, it seemed, was as deep as ever. \"How helplessly we are at the mercy of the elements,\" a newspaper editorial lamented in 1965, arguing that all India had to show for the previous decade of development efforts were some \"shallow and tentative improvements in irrigation.\"\n\nEconomic crisis merged with political turmoil. A series of military skirmishes on the border escalated into war with Pakistan, from August 5 to September 22, 1965. The catalyst was Pakistani military infiltration into Kashmir, undertaken in the hope of sparking a rebellion against Indian rule. Both sides claimed victory after a UN-brokered cease-fire; in contrast with the China war, however, the Shastri government's military campaign was greeted as a success at home. Shastri urged struggle on both fronts with his resonant phrase: \"Jai Jawan! Jai Kisan!\"\u2014victory to the soldier, and victory to the farmer. An immediate consequence of the war was the abrupt cessation of American aid both to India and to Pakistan.\n\nUS president Lyndon Baines Johnson had already assumed direct charge of PL-480 shipments; with characteristic bluntness he called it the \"short tether.\" He would ship only enough grain to India to meet immediate needs: a direct and unabashed form of political leverage, which angered the Indian government. Subramaniam played an essential role in negotiations over restarting the shipments after the war. He had developed a reputation in Washington as an Indian leader favorable to the United States, and whose policy views tallied with American advisors' ideas. Subramaniam forged a rapport with Orville Freeman, Johnson's secretary of agriculture. The two men met at a UN Food and Agriculture Organization meeting in Rome in November 1965 and signed a secret agreement to accelerate India's agrarian reforms in exchange for expanded American food aid. Taking over as prime minister after Shastri's sudden death in Tashkent, where he had gone to sign the peace treaty with Pakistan, Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi visited the United States in 1966 to cement this deal. She received a warm reception from LBJ, but she felt deep humiliation at having to go to the United States as a supplicant. \"I don't ever want us to beg for food again,\" Indira Gandhi told an aide in December 1966.\n\nWhen the summer monsoon failed for a second successive year, in 1966, India's food situation worsened. The state of Bihar, one of India's poorest, was most directly affected. Facing Republican congressmen who were hostile to aid and hostile to India, the Johnson administration emphasized the scale of the food emergency in India\u2014evoking the specter of famine for the first time since independence. In order to push through a bill boosting aid to India, Johnson told Freeman that he wanted the American public to know \"that people were being hauled away dead in trucks, and that they needed food.\" By contrast Indira Gandhi's government chose not to declare a famine in Bihar for fear of the domestic political fallout. Instead, the central government dismissed early reports of starvation from Bihar as hyperbole\u2014just as the British imperial government had been wont to do. Famine was too much a symbol of a dark past, its conquest too vital to the political legitimacy of the Indian state, to concede this, the first famine since India's independence. But the scale of suffering in Bihar threatened to explode and on April 20, 1967, the government of India declared the existence of famine in Palamau and Hazaribag districts; five more districts were added in time, along with others that suffered \"scarcity.\" The nineteenth-century Famine Codes, revised incrementally over the years, came into effect. The full force of the state swung into action to counter food shortages in Bihar. PL-480 shipments from the United States were vital, distributed in twenty thousand fair-price shops. In keeping with traditional practice, the government initiated public works on a large scale to provide employment to augment local incomes and to encourage food imports from other regions of India. Under the leadership of the socialist Jayaprakash Narain, the Bihar Relief Committee mobilized an army of volunteers, as well as donations. A year before the Biafra crisis of 1968, often held up as a watershed in the development of a global humanitarian consciousness, the Bihar crisis reached the wallets, and the television screens, of a public far away.\n\nIndira Gandhi in January 1967, soon after she became India's prime minister. CREDIT: Express Newspapers\/Getty Images\n\nBy most measures, the Indian and American response to dearth in Bihar was a success. Despite major food shortages, far fewer people died than during the nineteenth-century famines; the official death toll was in the region of 2,300 people. Even if this was an underestimate, the contrast with India's experience of famine under colonial rule was stark.\n\nBut the story has a strange and unexpected coda. Housed in the Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, is an innocuously named box of archival files: \"India Memos and Misc., 1 of 2, volume 8.\" I learned about its contents in a fascinating article by two historians of Cold War science, Ronald Doel and Kristine Harper. Doel and Harper argue that the environmental sciences were vital to the Johnson administration's foreign policy, and to its projection of American power overseas. From the 1950s, the deepening American involvement in Vietnam had generated a deepening interest in the hydrology of the Mekong River. As the US military intervened more intensively in Vietnam after 1962, mastering nature became strategically vital. American medics experimented with new drugs for the control of malaria, a prerequisite for jungle warfare: they devised mefloquine. Some went further: they had visions of intervening to alter patterns of rainfall to disrupt the agricultural base of North Vietnam. The United States had seen a long series of attempts at weather control in the twentieth century, a history characterized more by outlandish schemes than by any measurable success. Now it became a plank of military and diplomatic strategy. The Bihar drought occurred just when secret American plans for weather control in Vietnam were in testing. President Johnson connected the two, as he became the most unlikely of experts on the South Asian monsoon. Johnson would write in his memoirs that, as he looked at weather charts before approving each PL-480 shipment to India, he came to know \"exactly where the rain fell and where it failed to fall in India.\"\n\nIn January 1967, Pierre St. Amand arrived in Delhi with others from the Naval Ordnance Test Station on a highly classified mission; indeed, only a decade ago did the work of Doel and Harper bring it to light. Nicknamed Project Gromet, the scheme\u2014with the secret approval of Indira Gandhi's government\u2014aimed to inject silver iodide into \"large, high-altitude cold clouds\" to force precipitation. Official acknowledgment of the program came in the form of a sly and prosaic statement: \"Scientists from the United States and India are cooperating in a joint agro-meteorological research project, localized in Eastern U.P. [Uttar Pradesh] and Bihar to study the cloud physics and rain producing mechanisms over these areas of India which have incurred several droughts during the last few years.\" The problem was that, in January, the skies over Bihar were virtually cloudless. They expanded their quest toward Punjab. US ambassador Chester Bowles, an Indophile, wrote in secret that \"both we and the Indians want to demonstrate that if we can [force precipitation] India's food and agriculture need not be entirely at the mercy of weather vagaries.\" Soon after that, the archival trail runs cold; \"GROMET quietly died,\" its historians conclude.\n\nDoel and Harper were interested in Project Gromet primarily for what it tells us about US foreign policy under Johnson. Seen in the light of India's long history of struggle with the monsoon, it acquires other layers of meaning. In a sense, Project Gromet was the antithesis of the Indian Ocean Expedition. Where the new science emphasized the complexity of the monsoon climate, rooting it in teleconnected land-ocean-atmosphere interactions on a planetary scale, the attempt to make rain in Bihar epitomized the logic of control and containment. Even then, the architects of the plan feared the consequences of engineered rain in India having an unwanted impact across the border in Pakistan.\n\nTHE YEAR 1967 WAS A TURNING POINT IN INDIA'S POLITICAL HISTORY. Having ruled India with a comfortable parliamentary majority since independence, the Congress party took a drubbing at the polls in India's third general election. While they remained in power in New Delhi, their majority was reduced\u2014more significantly, they lost control of state governments in states including Tamil Nadu (to the regional party born of the anti-caste movement, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam), Kerala (to the Communists), and West Bengal (to a coalition including the Communist Party). A generation after independence, the mantle of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru was no longer enough to muster support for the party that had led the nationalist movement. The coalition of social forces that underpinned Congress dominance was fragile; in many places it unraveled. A confidential assessment by the British High Commission in Delhi reported to London that the election results reflected \"impatience with the chronic failure to deal with rising prices, low wages [and] food shortages, amounting to famine in certain areas.\"\n\nOccasionally, conventional accounts of this political moment include climate among their explanations for the change. India's political and economic transformation in the 1960s, writes political scientist Ashutosh Varshney, owes much to the \"serendipity of the monsoon.\" In recent years, it has become common once again for historians to see climate as a force underpinning political events. But to think of India's political transformation as \"caused\" by the failure of the monsoon would be unduly simplistic. The outcome of the 1967 elections reflected the hopes of India's voters; it was the outcome of new languages of political mobilization deployed by India's parties; it distilled new struggles for power and justice and recognition unleashed by mass democracy, which could no longer be contained within a dominant party system. A richer picture emerges if we see climate not as an external force determining human outcomes, but rather as a source of all-too-human fears and anxieties. Only in the context of century-long fears about India's monsoon climate\u2014the deep historical association of monsoon failure with famine\u2014can we understand why so many experienced the drought of the mid-1960s as evidence of political failure.\n\n# III\n\nIndira Gandhi was one of few heads of state to attend the UN's first conference on the human environment, held in Stockholm in June 1972. In her rousing speech to the plenary session, she set out ecological problems that were already a matter of public discussion in India:\n\nWe share your concern at the rapid deterioration of flora and fauna. Some of our own wildlife has been wiped out, miles of forests with beautiful old trees, mute witnesses of history, have been destroyed. Even though our industrial development is in its infancy, and at its most difficult stage, we are taking various steps to deal with incipient environmental imbalances. The more so because of our concern for the human being\u2014a species which is also imperiled. In poverty he is threatened by malnutrition and disease, in weakness by war, in richness by the pollution brought about by his own prosperity.\n\nBut her diagnosis of the root cause differed from that of many of the conference's promoters, whose vision was consumed by dark Malthusian nightmares in the Third World, epitomized by biologist Paul Ehrlich's _Population Bomb,_ published in 1968. The opening lines of Ehrlich's book described a \"stinking hot night\" in Delhi. \"As we crawled through the city, we entered a crowded slum area... the streets seemed alive with people,\" he wrote: \"People eating, people washing, people sleeping. People visiting, arguing, and screaming... People, people, people, people.\"\n\nIn response, Mrs. Gandhi set out a position that saw environmental degradation as primarily a problem of poverty: a problem of distribution, not of numbers. She reminded her audience that \"we inhabit a divided world.\" She attributed historical responsibility for the despoliation of Earth where it rightly belonged: with the wealthy countries of the world. \"Many of the advanced countries of today have reached their present affluence by their domination over other races and countries,\" she said, and through \"the exploitation of their own natural resources.\" The rich world \"got a head start through sheer ruthlessness, undisturbed by feelings of compassion or by abstract theories of freedom, equality or justice.\" But now the poor countries were being told that they could not do the same. \"The riches and the labour of the colonized countries played no small part in the industrialization and prosperity of the West,\" she reminded her audience, but in the 1970s, \"as we struggle to create a better life for our people, it is in vastly different circumstances, for obviously in today's eagle-eyed watchfulness we cannot indulge in such practices even for a worthwhile purpose.\" The development of a middle class in India, or even just the provision of minimally decent standards of living to its poorest citizens, took place with a growing awareness of finite resources. \"We do not wish to impoverish the environment any further,\" she insisted, \"and yet we cannot for a moment forget the grim poverty of large numbers of people.\" Her most resonant phrase, and the one for which her speech is remembered, was in the form of a question: \"Are not poverty and need the greatest polluters?\"\n\nShe raised the stakes, asking: \"How can we speak to those who live in villages and in slums about keeping the oceans, the rivers and the air clean when their own lives are contaminated at the source?\" She resisted the binary choice of development _or_ environmental protection. \"The environment cannot be improved in conditions of poverty,\" she declared, and \"nor can poverty be eradicated without the use of science and technology.\" In \"science and technology\" lay India's great hope.\n\nGandhi concluded by describing to the audience how she saw India's quest since independence. \"For the last quarter of a century,\" she said, \"we have been engaged in an enterprise unparalleled in human history\u2014the provision of basic needs to one-sixth of mankind within the span of one or two generations.\" In this evocation of speed, urgency, and scale lay Gandhi's recognition of the demographic and material transformation that was sweeping the world. The edge of Malthusian panic remained, despite Indira Gandhi's eloquent rebuttal at Stockholm. In time just such a sense, that population growth was an exorable and destabilizing force, fed her own fears of conspiracy. In the context of labor unrest and judicial challenges to the legitimacy of her election victory, they underpinned the siege mentality that led her to declare a state of emergency in 1975, suspending India's democratic constitution for the first and (so far) the only time, using a colonial-era provision. It would lead Indira Gandhi's government to enact a brutal population control program involving gross abuses, including forced sterilizations.\n\nIn Indira Gandhi's vision, many disparate concerns came together to constitute an overarching problem of \"the environment\"\u2014population growth and the finitude of natural resources; concerns about the impact of rapid development on human health; concerns about species extinction and disappearing habitats. The international conference coincided with the earliest attempts to confront these challenges at home in India. Mrs. Gandhi's government sponsored the Water Act of 1974, which was among the first attempts to deal with an environmental issue on a national basis in India. The act created pollution control boards at both the state and the national levels; the boards were given the authority to determine permissible levels of pollution, setting limits on the composition and quantity of effluent that factories, for instance, could discharge into water bodies. The legislation took an expansive view of water, covering \"streams, inland waters, subterranean waters, and sea or tidal waters.\" But the law proved, and it continues to prove, difficult to implement. Pollution control bodies did not have the will or the power to prosecute powerful local industrialists. The Water Act faced many challenges in the courts, often on the grounds that it violated the constitutional right to carry on a trade or business. For instance, in 1981 lawyers for a firm called Aggarwal Textile Industries, challenging a ruling from Rajasthan state's pollution control board, argued that \"the problem of prevention of water pollution is a problem of vast magnitude and... it would be beyond the means of an individual to prevent or control the pollution resulting from an industry set up by him.\" In a significant number of cases, offenders were allowed to continue their polluting activities.\n\nDESPITE DAWNING AWARENESS OF THE QUESTION OF SUSTAINABILITY, the crux of India's response to the crisis of food and population lay in a massive increase in the use of water. The early twentieth century's faith in the possibility of expansion without limit was reinvigorated. The precondition for the growth of the Green Revolution in India was an expansion in irrigation. And the water available from surface irrigation works, however ambitious in scale, was insufficient. Cultivators in arid parts of India had known for centuries, and British administrators recognized in the nineteenth century, that South Asia's groundwater resources provided the most immediate insurance against drought. Many regions of South Asia had ancient and elaborate systems of well irrigation, though this infrastructure had fallen into disrepair in many places by the nineteenth century. The advantages of groundwater resources are manifest in South Asia: groundwater is locally available on demand and requires far less infrastructure than surface irrigation works; groundwater is spared the large-scale water loss from evaporation that reservoirs experience. Groundwater resources are more resilient to episodic monsoon failure. Until the 1960s, groundwater could not be mobilized on a large enough scale to meet India's food requirements. The arrival of the tubewell changed that decisively.\n\nTubewells are a humble technology, unlikely harbingers of a hydrological revolution. A tubewell is a well driven by an electric pump, consisting of a long stainless steel tube that is bored into an underground aquifer. Historian and architect Anthony Acciavatti argues that they represent an \"inversion\" of the monumental water technologies: dams and canals. In contrast with dams, the tubewell has a \"minimal footprint and maximum draft of water, it creates undreamed of independence and three-dimensional chaos.\"\n\nAn electric tubewell, of the kind that proliferated in India in the 1960s. CREDIT: Illustration by Matilde Grimaldi\n\nThe Indian government encouraged the adoption of high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice by subsidizing the capital costs of infrastructure for the intensive exploitation of groundwater. State electricity boards reduced the cost of electricity. By the 1970s, unable to bear the cost of monitoring energy use by millions of farmers across widely dispersed areas, state electricity boards opted for flat tariffs. This gave large farmers an incentive to use as much energy as possible to extract water from underground. As a result, agriculture's share of total energy use in India grew from 10 percent in 1970\u20131971 to 30 percent by 1995, even as state electricity boards accumulated huge losses. By 2009, groundwater accounted for 60 percent of India's irrigated area, and surface irrigation for only 30 percent. Just as they shared the waters of the Indus, India and Pakistan came to share a new dependence on groundwater. Embracing the same package of hybrid seeds and intensive fertilizer use, Pakistan's food security became even more reliant on irrigation than India's. All the while, and despite the declining importance of surface irrigation, the profusion of large dams continued. Dam construction was unstoppable, even as underground water now supplied the greater share of water for irrigation. Large dams had acquired enormous symbolic power, to the point where they epitomized the conquest of nature by technology. Three decades after India's independence there were also many vested interests in the engineering and construction industries committed to the continued proliferation of dams. Their social and ecological costs multiplied through the 1970s; as we shall see in the next chapter, their costs provoked widespread resistance in the 1980s.\n\nUtopian technological schemes for the capture of India's waters flourished in the 1970s, alongside\u2014and as though unaware of\u2014growing understanding of the scale, power, and unpredictability of climate. Although Roger Revelle was a pioneer of oceanography and an architect of the 1960s' Indian Ocean Expedition, he turned in the 1970s to more practical matters. Revelle moved from Scripps to Harvard to found the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. In 1975 he wrote an essay with his Indian colleague V. Lakshminarayana on what they called the \"Ganges Water Machine.\" They expressed concern that \"deeply embedded cultural, social, and economic problems inhibit modernization of agriculture and fuller utilization of water resources\" in India. They envisaged that \"the introduction of technological changes on the required scale might break the chains of tradition and injustice that now bind the people in misery and poverty.\" They had in mind a technological mirroring of the vast, interconnected hydraulic system that linked the monsoon rains, the Himalayan rivers, and the waters underground\u2014an expanded network of bunds, dams, and, above all, the massive expansion of groundwater pumps. The same year, K. L. Rao, a veteran of Indian irrigation, published an even grander plan. He returned to the dream of Sir Arthur Cotton, irrigation pioneer of the nineteenth century, in proposing a large scheme to transfer water\u2014through a network of canals\u2014from the wettest to the driest parts of India.\n\nIndia's experience of water-driven growth in the 1970s found echoes across Asia. The 1970s also saw rapid growth in Chinese agriculture, as China developed its own path toward a green revolution. The unprecedented expansion in food production in China in the 1970s built upon the extension of agricultural research stations right down to the level of local communes. Like the Indian government, the Chinese state viewed the rapid growth in population and the pressure on arable land with alarm, reversing the pronatalism that characterized the first two decades after the revolution. As in India, Chinese farmers' adoption of high-yielding seed varieties depended on large quantities of chemical fertilizer. In the 1970s, the Chinese fertilizer industry expanded through a dispersed network of small-scale factories. High-yield dwarf rice varieties spread especially rapidly in China in the 1970s, boosting harvests. And in China, as in India, the agricultural growth of the 1970s depended on mining underground water. Electric pumps played almost as significant a role in expanding irrigation in China as they did in India. In 1965, there were approximately half a million mechanized irrigation and drainage devices in China; by 1978, there were more than 5 million. But in other ways, the Chinese approach to growing more food diverged from India's. In keeping with the Maoist emphasis on mass political mobilization, China's agricultural strategy was more broadly based than India's. Historian Sigrid Schmalzer describes it as a \"patchwork of methodologies,\" in which mechanization coexisted with labor-intensive terracing, chemical fertilizer with traditional practices of night-soil collection and the application of pig manure. The water- and fertilizer-fueled growth of the 1970s laid the groundwork for China's further agricultural expansion in the 1980s; but with the end of agrarian collectivization and the arrival of market reforms, rural inequalities, too, grew wider.\n\n# IV\n\nThe water inequalities that India has always faced deepened in the 1960s and 1970s; they were accentuated by the uneven spread of tubewells. From the late 1960s, as the Green Revolution took off, the drier regions of India's northwest and southeast emerged as the centers of agricultural growth\u2014a result of groundwater exploitation, fueled by electrification to allow the use of high-yielding seeds. The water-rich areas of India's northeast, by contrast, continued to rely on rainfall, utilizing relatively inefficient diesel pumps for shallow groundwater irrigation; they remained at risk of regular waterlogging, but lacked the infrastructure to use the surplus water for storage or groundwater recharge. Where large dams promised to create energy through hydroelectric power, pumps used it in large quantities to mine water.\n\nThese inequalities were manifest between 1970 and 1973, when parts of western and central India experienced three successive years of drought. The western state of Maharashtra was worst affected. In the World Bank's archives in Washington is a fifty-page typescript account of the Maharashtra drought; scrawled at the top is a handwritten instruction: \"Circulate.\" The author was agricultural economist Wolf Ladejinsky (1899\u20131975). He was born to a Ukrainian Jewish family who fled the Russian civil war to the United States in 1922. Ladejinsky studied at Columbia University and joined the US Department of Agriculture's foreign service, coming to specialize in Asia's agrarian problems. He served in the American occupation of Japan, where he played a key role in overseeing land reform, as he then did in Taiwan. Ladejinsky came under suspicion in the McCarthy era, but President Eisenhower defended him and appointed him to direct land reform in South Vietnam in the late 1950s, just as American involvement there was deepening. Through the 1960s, Ladejinsky continued to focus on the problems of rural Asia, working with the World Bank. He was anti-communist but saw the importance of land reform in societies where landholdings were highly concentrated in a few hands.\n\nLadejinsky had worked in India on numerous occasions, and the World Bank sent him back in 1972 to investigate a drought that threatened hunger in Maharashtra. \"This is an occasion when the writer intends to keep his emotions in leash,\" he promised at the outset of his note, fearing that his \"credibility may suffer from dramatizing the incontrovertible cruelty of nature\u2014no rain and no crops.\" He observed that \"historically the struggle of the Maharashtra farmer has been one of quest for water.\" In an echo of British commentary in the late nineteenth century, he personified the monsoon as a force, as when he referred to \"the monsoon playing truant.\" He described his journey out to the countryside from Poona; it was not long before he found himself traveling through a landscape that \"leaves one shaken about the perversity of nature.\" Lack of drinking water was a problem everywhere. More than shortages of food, it was a lack of water that, Ladejinsky saw, led farmers to uproot themselves and migrate in search of work. He described the sight of water tankers surrounded by people at famine relief camps\u2014tankers that had been donated by oil companies as an act of charity. Words mattered, Ladejinsky argued: neither the state nor the central government wished to invoke the term \"famine\"\u2014seen as a relic of a dark colonial past\u2014but their use of the mild term \"scarcity\" masked the severity of the crisis.\n\nThe drought in Maharashtra showed how little the hydrologic revolution of the 1950s and 1960s had touched many parts of rural India. In his detailed study of the drought, economist Jean Dr\u00e8ze noted that only 8 percent of land in the region was irrigated. For those on rain-fed lands, Dr\u00e8ze wrote, \"the meagre harvest of coarse grains remain a gamble on the monsoon and the land offers a spectacle of desolation and dust during the slack season.\" The drought led to a 14 percent drop in food availability; the threat of starvation was very real. It was averted by concerted government response, arguably one of the most effective in the history of independent India. The Food Corporation of India organized the transportation of wheat from other parts of the country. It was sold at subsidized prices through thirty thousand fair-price shops distributed across the state. At the same time, a large program of public works generated employment; up to 2 million people a day attended these works, building roads and bridges and digging wells. This boosted local incomes and in turn pushed up food prices in Maharashtra, attracting supplies from beyond the state\u2014often illegally, since the government had barred the interstate trade in grain during the crisis. Those illicit supplies, even at inflated prices, helped to compensate for the shortfall.\n\nIn the end it was not big technology but rather the unheralded public distribution system of India that averted catastrophe in Maharashtra. The drought showed how patchy and uneven the reach of water engineering was. It showed the importance of public policy and prompt intervention. But these were not the lessons learned. The drought did nothing to dent confidence in the idea that all India needed was irrigation, now from deeper and deeper underground.\n\n# V\n\nScientists' understanding of the monsoon advanced in the 1960s and 1970s, spurred by the data collected by the Indian Ocean Expedition and by the International Geophysical Year that had preceded it, in 1957\u20131958. At the heart of monsoon science now were two phenomena. The first was \"moist processes\"\u2014most simply, the release of latent heat and the effect of clouds on radiation. The second was the coupling of ocean and atmosphere. There was a new awareness that the monsoon system formed, as one meteorologist put it, a \"complex of seemingly disparate parts: two fluids, the mobile air and the changing ocean below.\" Increasingly sophisticated computer models could turn each of these processes on and off in an attempt to isolate and investigate different variables.\n\nThe most important breakthrough came with the work of Jacob Bjerknes, a Norwegian meteorologist at UCLA\u2014son of Vilhelm Bjerknes. Father and son were both part of the team that had, in the 1910s, discovered and named the phenomenon of polar fronts from their observatory in Bergen. Now, using data generated by the expeditions of the International Geophysical Year, Jacob Bjerknes determined the mechanism driving a phenomenon that Gilbert Walker had first observed in the 1920s, during and just after his time as director of the Indian meteorological service. Walker had called it the Southern Oscillation, an oscillating contrast in atmospheric pressure across the Pacific Ocean, as measured in Darwin and Tahiti. But Walker had been unable to determine the cause of this swing in pressure; Bjerknes discovered that the answer lay in the waters of the Pacific Ocean.\n\nIn the 1960s, Jacob Bjerknes discovered the El Ni\u00f1o Southern Oscillation (ENSO)\u2014the illustrations show its \"warm\" (El Ni\u00f1o) and \"cool\" (La Ni\u00f1a) phases. CREDIT: Illustration by Matilde Grimaldi\nBjerknes found that the key to the southern oscillation lay in the periodic warming of sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean, and he dubbed it El Ni\u00f1o in keeping with the term that fishers had given the phenomenon. This warming reverberates throughout the world's climate. Most of the time, the waters of the western Pacific, off Indonesia, are warmer than in the eastern Pacific\u2014this drives the easterly \"trade winds,\" but Bjerknes saw that these were a surface manifestation of an overturning circulation in the upper atmosphere at higher latitudes. He named this the Walker Circulation in honor of Sir Gilbert. During an El Ni\u00f1o episode the contrast narrows as the waters of the eastern Pacific warm up; in response, the Walker Circulation weakens, since it is driven by that difference in temperature and pressure. Less intensive surface winds reduce the ocean's churn, leading to less of the colder water from the depths welling up to the surface; this sustains the abnormal warmth in the eastern Pacific, and so flattens the usual temperature contrast across the ocean\u2014attenuating further the Walker Circulation.\n\nThis disruption in circulation has consequences for rainfall in the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean\u2014and even the North Atlantic. El Ni\u00f1o years tend to be associated with weak monsoons in Asia, and with excessive rainfall in South America. Bjerknes dubbed the overall oceanic-atmospheric system the El Ni\u00f1o Southern Oscillation (known as ENSO), of which El Ni\u00f1o was the phase of ocean surface warming and La Ni\u00f1a (girl child) of cooling; years that exhibit neither extreme are known as \"neutral.\" La Ni\u00f1a has the opposite effect of El Ni\u00f1o, strengthening the temperature contrast between the eastern and western Pacific, strengthening the Walker Circulation, and bringing more rain than usual to Asian shores.\n\nThe discovery of ENSO marked a breakthrough for understanding the Asian monsoon. Once it had been identified, historical climatologists showed that many of the worst droughts in Asian history\u2014including the droughts that brought famine in the 1870s and the 1890s, and also the Maharashtra drought of 1972\u20131973, discussed earlier in this chapter\u2014coincided with El Ni\u00f1o events. But the causal relationship between ENSO and the monsoon is complex. There is some evidence to suggest that an especially strong or weak monsoon might foreshadow rather than follow the corresponding phase in the ENSO cycle. Tropical meteorologist Peter Webster argues that there may be truth in Charles Normand's suggestion\u2014made in the 1950s after his retirement as head of India's meteorological service and before Bjerknes had discovered El Ni\u00f1o\u2014that India's weather was more use in predicting what was in store for other parts of the world than it was itself amenable to prediction.\n\nKnowledge of ENSO raised new questions about the periodicity of drought in Asia\u2014a question that, as we have seen, had provoked much discussion in the 1870s. It reinforced the sense, drawn from the Indian Ocean Expedition, that Asia's climate was fiendishly complex, associated with many other parts of the planet's climate. ENSO is quasiperiodic; it recurs but the intervals between events vary and are not easy to predict. The early 1970s also brought new knowledge of internal climatic variability on shorter timescales. In 1971, Roland Madden and Paul Julian, based at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, discovered what came to be known as the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO): an oscillation in surface pressure and wind direction over large areas, with consequences on a planetary scale. The MJO has a clear periodicity; it is, as meteorologist Adam Sobel has put it, \"a signal that emerges above the meteorological noise.\" Migrating from west to east, from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific, the MJO lasts between thirty and sixty days, and its intensity varies from year to year. In its \"active\" phase, the MJO brings heavy rain, and a heightened chance of tropical cyclones; in its \"suppressed\" phase, it interrupts the monsoon flow, even reversing the wind direction, bringing clear skies. The MJO is associated particularly with the northern winter; but scientists also discovered another intraseasonal oscillation in the northern summer months, which propagates northward rather than eastward. Known as the Boreal Summer Intraseasonal Oscillation, its connection with or independence from the MJO has been the subject of debate, but it, too, is thought to play a vital role in the fluctuations of rainfall over Asia each summer. In the 1980s further research was done to uncover the mechanisms at work behind these intraseasonal oscillations, though some uncertainty remains. These intraseasonal oscillations might well explain the alternation between active and break periods in any monsoon season, which has such vital and direct effects on agriculture.\n\nAdvances in technology and understanding did little to revise Colin Ramage's verdict, at the end of the Indian Ocean Expedition, that little headway had been made in forecasting the monsoon in a practical sense. Progress had been made in understanding the system on a large scale. But what mattered most to Asian farmers were the rhythms of rainfall within a given monsoon season\u2014the relationship between what meteorologists call \"active\" and \"break\" periods of the monsoon. So finely attuned is Asian agriculture to the monsoon that the most devastating effects on cultivation often come from unexpected breaks in the midst of the summer rains, even when rainfall overall is plentiful\u2014the skies brighten suddenly, and crops do not receive the water they need to thrive at a critical phase in their life cycle.\n\nA further push to crack the monsoon's code came in 1979, as part of a worldwide effort called the Global Weather Experiment\u2014the Indian Ocean component of that came to be known as the Monsoon Experiment, or MONEX. The scale of the operation was vast, even larger than the Indian Ocean Expedition of the 1960s, and more fully equipped with satellite technology. It encompassed 3,400 land stations, 800 upper air observatories, 9 weather ships, 7,000 merchant ships, and 1,000 commercial aircraft drawn in to record observations, 100 dedicated research aircraft, 50 research ships, 5 weather satellites, and 300 balloons. Despite this scale, despite the dazzling advances in equipment, Webster noted that much older ways of knowing the monsoon\u2014the instinctive knowledge of mariners\u2014were still in evidence in 1979; he saw that _dhows,_ the traditional sailing vessels of the northwestern Indian Ocean that had for centuries harnessed the monsoon currents, were still widely used.\n\nCOLIN RAMAGE, DIRECTOR OF THE METEOROLOGICAL COMPONENT of the Indian Ocean Expedition, returned to India in the 1970s. In his spare time while there on assignment, he turned amateur historian and wrote a short and provocative essay on how his predecessor John Eliot\u2014the second director of Indian meteorology, after Henry Blanford\u2014had failed spectacularly to forecast the crushing drought of 1899\u20131900. Ramage delved into the archives of the _Times of India_ and wrote a powerful account of the famine that followed. \"The government refused with religious fervor to modify the holy writ of laissez-faire,\" he declared. Like many critics of imperial policy at the time, he saw that the railways had done as much to worsen as to alleviate the famine, by making it easier for speculators to ship grain out to areas where purchasing power was higher. He praised the Indian government's efforts to protect its citizens against the threat of famine, but noted that, despite best efforts, India remained dependent on food imports, as it had since the 1920s. His conclusion was ominous. \"Can we be sure that such a devastating famine will not recur?\" he asked; not since Indian independence had there been a drought as severe as the drought of 1899. He ended his essay on that note, leaving implicit the underlying question: what would happen if another drought of that magnitude were to materialize?\n\nBut another threat was now on the horizon. In 1979, the same year as MONEX, the World Meteorological Organization held its first World Climate Conference. The conference declaration recognized the need to \"foresee and prevent potential man-made changes in climate that might be adverse to the well-being of humanity.\" From the 1980s, the combination of climate change and other environmental threats compounded the water-related risks faced by billions of people in Asia.\n\n# NINE\n\n# STORMY HORIZONS\n\nIN THE 1980S THE FULL PROPORTIONS OF ASIA'S WATER CRISIS BECAME manifest\u2014including its vertical dimension. In that decade, satellite images and remote sensing data revealed to scientists how fully human activities had transformed the physical environment, reaching from the underground waters to the upper atmosphere. Much of the impact was visible without the aid of sophisticated technology. It became viscerally clear in the quality of the air that people breathed and the water that they drank, in the strangulation of the rivers they lived by and lived from. In 1984, the chemical pollutants that coursed through the holy Ganges reached such concentrations that a stretch of water caught fire: it became a river of flames.\n\nAsia's waters were subject to unprecedented demands that came from the convergence of two large processes. The first, which began in the 1950s, was population growth. India's population grew from just under 370 million people in 1950 to 684.8 million in 1980, an increase of 185 percent; through the 1970s alone, India added 131 million new citizens. China's population grew more slowly, but from a larger base: from 562 million people in 1950 to just under 988 million by 1980, and with an absolute increase of close to 166 million people in the 1970s. Although the rate of population growth in both India and China had slowed considerably by the 1980s, not least because of coercive population \"control\" measures in both countries, the cumulative impact of the previous decades' growth has been manifest. Belying the fears of the Malthusian prophets, the effects of this expansion on the biosphere were initially limited by very low levels of income per capita\u2014and limited, too, by deliberate efforts by both the Indian and Chinese governments to hold back consumption to generate savings for future investment in industrial development. But then arrived the second major transformation, which began in the 1980s: the rapid economic growth of Asia's two largest countries, China and India, both of them following a path forged by other countries in East and Southeast Asia a decade or more earlier, but on an altogether different scale.\n\nThe bonfire of socialist austerity began first in China, where the reforms of Deng Xiaoping enshrined the notion that \"to get rich is glorious.\" From 1978 to 2012, the Chinese economy grew at an average annual rate of 9.4 percent, \"the fastest sustained expansion by a major economy in history.\" The Indian economy was slower to accelerate, but by the 1980s average annual growth was around 5 percent. Following an emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund to meet a critical shortage of foreign exchange, the Indian economy underwent a process of liberalization after 1991, orchestrated by the economist Manmohan Singh. This involved a dismantling of elaborate regulations governing private investment and trade, dubbed the \"License-Permit Raj.\" High growth followed, picking up in the late 1990s; but it was accompanied by galloping inequality. India has remained home to more poor people, in absolute terms, than any country on Earth. In India, more than in China, the ecological threats generated by new prosperity intensified the more familiar, water- and weather-related risks of extreme poverty. Unlike China, India's population has remained predominantly rural, and will continue to be so by the middle of the twenty-first century. The destabilization of Asia's water ecology, which accelerated in the 1980s, put more people at risk in India and in neighboring Bangladesh than anywhere else.\n\nThis chapter shows how, starting in the 1980s, Asia's waters submitted to a concatenation of demands from industry, from agriculture, and from the needs of booming cities. The mining of groundwater exceeded the capacity of the hydraulic cycle to replenish aquifers. A hunger for energy led to a renewed interest in hydroelectric power. States and private investors eyed the upper reaches of the great rivers. From the 1980s hydraulic projects converged upon the Himalayas. The most promising lowland dam sites were exhausted by the 1970s; the steep drops of the mountain rivers made them ideal for power generation. As a cluster of competing projects lined up along the rivers' descent from the 1980s, the potential for conflict grew. States acquired the capacity to deny water to others downstream; not so much the technical capacity, since dam technology had changed relatively little from the 1950s, but rather the financial and infrastructural capacity\u2014and above all, the will. New demands on resources, and new demands for water, came from the revival of trade between South, Southeast, and East Asia, which had ebbed in the 1950s and 1960s.\n\nThe final ingredient in this cocktail of ecological destabilization came with the accelerating effects of climate change. Already in 1982, environmental activists in India invoked what they called a \"rather futuristic problem\"\u2014the \"possibility of global climatic change taking place by the end of the century because of increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.\" They raised an ominous prospect: \"It is quite possible... that agriculture as practiced for centuries in India may have to change and crop outputs may become a matter of even greater uncertainty than today.\" Since then, the scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change has been overwhelming. Climate change is no longer a \"futuristic\" problem\u2014its effects are here, now. And its effects menace the coastal rim that stretches from India to China.\n\nClimate change affects water in every form: it affects the rain clouds and the Himalayan glaciers, the flow of rivers and the shape of coastlines, the level of the ocean and the intensity of cyclones. Climate change is irreducibly historical. As historian and Marxist theorist Andreas Malm observes, \"The storm of climate change draws its force from countless acts of combustion over, to be exact, the past two centuries.\" But the current crisis is a product of history in another sense too. The acute impact of climate change on Asia, and on South Asia in particular, will play out across a landscape shaped by the past\u2014shaped by the cumulative effects of social inequality, shaped by the borders of the mid-twentieth century, shaped by infrastructures of water control. And it will be shaped by the legacy of ideas from the past, including ideas about climate and the economy.\n\n# I\n\nWater was a core ingredient in Asia's experience of what economist Angus Deaton calls the \"great escape\" from scarcity. The intensification of agriculture driven by the Green Revolution\u2014a package of high-yielding seed varieties and extensive fertilizer use, sustained by vast quantities of water\u2014augmented food production to an extent that would have been unthinkable even one generation earlier. Between 1970 and 2014, India's production of cereals grew by 238 percent, compared with a 182 percent expansion in population over the same period. This took place with only a marginal increase in the quantity of land given over to food crops. In China the expansion was more dramatic still: a 420 percent increase in cereal output with no increase in land area under cultivation. Just a decade after the desperate recourse to American food aid during the monsoon failures of the 1960s, India became a food surplus country.\n\nIntangible though it was, an unshakable sense took hold among the Indian elite that the threat of an uncertain monsoon had receded. It was a sense expressed by writer and newspaper editor Khushwant Singh in a 1987 essay on the monsoon in Indian literature. Singh ranged widely across Indian epics and poetry to show how deeply the monsoon had shaped Indian cultural sensibilities over hundreds of years. But he concluded that, in recent decades, \"India has taken enormous strides toward freeing herself from dependence on the vagaries of the monsoons.\" Technology led the charge: India had \"raised enormous dams, laid thousands of miles of irrigation canals, and dug innumerable electrically operated tube-wells to supply water to her farms.\" A sense of security brought disenchantment. \"There is no longer the same agony waiting through long summer months of searing heat to catch a glimpse of the first clouds,\" he argued. The monsoon had vanished from Indian literature; it \"no longer stirs the imagination of the poet or the novelist with the same intensity it used to.\"\n\nThose closer to rural India had a different view. The same year as Singh, the modernist artist Jyoti Bhatt, trained in the influential Baroda school in Gujarat and immersed in local artistic traditions, wrote that for all of the improvements in weather forecasting, the ability to predict the character of a whole monsoon season remained elusive. In folk culture, if not in high poetry, the monsoon's mysteries lived on. Bhatt described an annual festival in the arid lands of Kutch and Saurashtra, in Gujarat, celebrating Bhadali\u2014the daughter of a shepherd and a gifted diviner of rain. The festival was bound up with anxious expectation. Villagers in Gujarat, he wrote, \"keep observing and interpreting various omens, signs, and factual symptoms around them.\" They relied on the \"collected experience of many generations\" to decide when to plant their crops each year. Bhatt was agnostic about how far these rituals helped farmers, but at the very least he saw that they provided more excitement and drama than \"watching a Door Darshan [the state broadcaster] weather forecast based on data received from Insat, on a small TV screen.\"\n\nAlso in 1987, but on a larger scale and in the language of economics rather than poetry, Harry Oshima revisited the old region of \"monsoon Asia.\" Hawaii-born Oshima (1918\u20131998) wrote his dissertation on the national income statistics of Asia's new states; he worked for the United Nations in the 1950s, and served as the Rockefeller Foundation's representative in the Philippines in the 1970s. Oshima found that monsoon Asia's coherence had been shattered by a transformation in the relationship between water and productivity. Oshima began with a timeless vision: across the coastal and deltaic sweep from South Asia to East Asia, the intense seasonality of rainfall created common patterns of agriculture\u2014labor-intensive paddy cultivation, high population density, a preponderance of small farms. He wrote, too, of the \"philosophy\" of the \"monsoon economy\"\u2014an ethos of \"harmony... compromise, moderation, diligence, and cooperation.\" In writing this, Oshima echoed the language of an earlier era, which drew a straight line from climate to culture. But the period since 1970 had broken deep historical patterns. There had been an unexpected differentiation in income levels across the region, which was now, in Oshima's view, \"crystallizing with a few modifications into the three basic regions of... East, Southeast, and South Asia.\" Oshima was least sanguine about South Asia's prospects; pessimism about India was widespread among economists at the time. South Asia was effectively now the residue of \"monsoon Asia\"; everywhere else, industrial growth and intensive irrigation had powered an escape from the monsoon. But even in India, it was clear by the 1980s that something fundamental had changed.\n\nIN INDIA, THE REVOLUTION IN FOOD PRODUCTION DEPENDED, above all else, on groundwater. As we have seen, the first experiments with using motorized pumps to extract groundwater in India date from the late nineteenth century, but until the 1960s, their use was negligible. The greatest growth came in the use of private tubewells: there were half a million in use across India in 1968; that number had grown to 5 million by 1994. As the exploitation of groundwater increased, so too did the depth that tubewells had to reach. Investment in tubewells has been almost entirely private, in contrast with dams and other surface irrigation works that have been publicly funded. But under Indira Gandhi's government in the 1970s, landowners were encouraged to utilize groundwater and install tubewells through the provision of subsidized or even free electricity; state electricity boards were left to set prices, and many of them incurred heavy losses. The use of groundwater proceeded with no regulation. Large farmers, with the capital to invest in technology and with the large landholdings to benefit from irrigation, dug deeper than their neighbors, capturing groundwater for their private use and even selling it on to others. Cheap electricity provided an incentive for farmers to extract as much groundwater as they could, with little thought for replenishing the aquifers. Tushaar Shah, a leading expert on groundwater policy in India, has described it as \"an atomistically managed water-scavenging irrigation regime involving tens of millions of pump owners who divert surface and groundwater at will.\" In all, nearly three-quarters of the expansion in India's irrigated cropland since independence has come from groundwater, and much of the expansion came in the 1970s and 1980s.\n\nThe effects of this boom in water mining were clearest in Punjab. Already by the 1910s, Punjab was India's most prosperous agricultural region; the elaborate system of canals built by the British made its arid lands productive. By the early twenty-first century, Punjab produced 20 percent of India's wheat and 42 percent of its rice, on just 1.5 percent of the country's land area. Punjab possessed only around eleven thousand tubewells in the late 1960s, on the eve of the Green Revolution\u2014that number would grow more than 100-fold to 1.3 million over the next forty years. Groundwater provides two-thirds of Punjab's water supply. But the water table has declined perilously since the late 1970s. The intensive use of pesticides in farming has contaminated water sources, and this is widely acknowledged to be responsible for a substantial increase in the incidence in cancers in the area. In the western Indian state of Gujarat, another region where agriculture is dependent on groundwater, the water table has dropped by 1.4 meters each year from the late 1970s through the end of the 1980s, and at an even faster rate since then.\n\nIf the monsoon no longer inspired India's poets, as Khushwant Singh observed in the 1980s, the infrastructure of groundwater extraction has become an unavoidable feature of the landscape in ways that have left their mark on South Asian literature. In a powerful short story published early this century, Pakistani-American writer Daniyal Mueenuddin evokes the landscape of that part of Punjab that formed part of Pakistan after Partition\u2014the agrarian heart of a country even more dependent on irrigation than India. The protagonist is Nawabdin, the village electrician; his special talent was \"a technique for cheating the electric company by slowing down the revolutions of electric meters.\" This mattered deeply, because electricity was the lifeblood of agriculture\u2014\"In this Pakistani desert, behind Multan, where the tube wells ran day and night, Nawab's discovery eclipsed the philosopher's stone.\" In that simple detail, as Mueenuddin sets the scene, we glimpse a vast agrarian transformation.\n\nINDIA AND CHINA HAVE MUCH IN COMMON IN THEIR RELIANCE ON groundwater to secure an increase in food production, in their vulnerability to the depletion of water sources, in the economic geography of their water use, and in the sheer scale of change they have experienced since the 1980s. But China has grown much faster than India, and India has been even more vulnerable than China to water- and climate-related risks, as a result of its greater dependence on agriculture, its higher levels of poverty, and, to return to a theme that has recurred throughout _Unruly Waters,_ because of the particular characteristics of the monsoon.\n\nIf China's use of groundwater since the 1970s has not been quite as prodigious as India's, it is not far behind. Underground aquifers provide water to 40 percent of China's farmland, and drinking water to 70 percent of the population of China's arid north and northwest. Across the North China Plain, groundwater levels have dropped by approximately 1 meter a year since 1974, a rate of depletion comparable with that of Punjab. Like India, China's groundwater is contaminated. A study undertaken by the Chinese government in the 2000s showed that 90 percent of China's groundwater was polluted, and 60 percent severely polluted with heavy metals and fertilizer and chemical waste.\n\nIn the broad sweep of history, China and India have undergone comparable shifts in their economic geography\u2014in both cases, groundwater and other sources of irrigation were the driving force of change. Historian David Pietz points out that China, in the second half of the twentieth century, underwent a \"reversal of food production patterns that pertained for most of the imperial period.\" The dry North China Plain now produces 60 percent of China's wheat and 40 percent of its corn on 22 percent of its land, and just 4 percent of its water resources. This has led to the transfer of what hydrologists call \"virtual water\"; that is to say the water that is embedded in crops, from water-scarce to water-abundant areas. This is a story that parallels, in nature and in timing, the emergence of arid Punjab as India's agricultural powerhouse. As the economist Harry Oshima noted in the 1980s, even before the scale of China's and India's transformation was evident, the old geography of monsoon Asia had been shattered. It had been shattered, above all, by new sources of water. At any point until the late nineteenth century, it would have been self-evident that agrarian wealth in Asia lay in areas of abundant rain\u2014the essence of monsoon Asia was the intensity of cultivation, especially rice cultivation, that the monsoon climate allowed. In a remarkably short space of time\u2014the forty or fifty years after 1960\u2014this pattern had been reversed by technology, and by fossil fuels.\n\nThe terrible paradox is that this stunning expansion in food production was achieved in a way that cannot be sustained. Groundwater resources are under acute strain in the regions of Asia that most depend on them. A study using data from the NASA Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites showed that, between 2002 and 2008, groundwater depletion in northwestern India\u2014the heartland of the Green Revolution\u2014amounted to 109 cubic kilometers of water, an amount that exceeds the storage capacity of India's largest reservoir. Freshwater availability per capita in India is projected to fall to 1,335 cubic meters by 2025, in comparison with a global average of 6,000 cubic meters. Groundwater has been the cornerstone of India's and China's food security since the 1970s\u2014but for how long?\n\nTHE SUSTAINABILITY OF INDIA'S GROUNDWATER BOOM IS ONLY ONE aspect of a deeper crisis of water. It was clear from the earliest years of the Green Revolution that one consequence of the new approach to agriculture was deepening rural inequality. In his commentary on the Maharashtra drought of 1970 to 1973, economist Wolf Ladejinsky had seen how sharp the contrast was between irrigated and nonirrigated lands. Long-standing fault lines between wet and dry, rain-fed and groundwater-supplied lands grew deeper. Access to water was both a cause and a symptom of inequality.\n\nIn the 1980s, recognition of the extent of water inequality energized an intellectual and political movement that called into question the fundamental pillars of India's development strategy. Disagreements over economic policy were common enough in the 1950s and 1960s. India's policymakers included committed planners as well as those in favor of free markets. But they disagreed about the means, and not the ends of development. By the end of the 1960s, India faced a radical alternative, in the shape of a Maoist insurgency that began in West Bengal and soon spread to other parts of the country. The insurgents, led by an urban elite committed to the romance of revolution, believed that only the violent dispossession of India's landowning class could bring about substantive change. Paradoxically, they drew inspiration from China at just the moment when Chinese agriculture changed course, embracing its own version of the Green Revolution. Others looked to India's past, to the history of water, for inspiration as they considered alternative economic models.\n\nMahatma Gandhi was a clear source of inspiration for many of those who, in the 1980s, challenged the assumptions of the Indian state. Though their influence on economic policy was muted, Gandhians continued after independence to urge upon India a different model of development\u2014more rooted in rural communities, less wedded to monumental technology. They called for a holistic approach to development that emphasized both social and ecological equilibrium. The essence of their philosophy was encapsulated in Gandhi's 1946 pronouncement that \"the blood of the villages is the cement with which the edifice of the cities is built. I want the blood that is today inflating the arteries of the cities to run once again in the blood vessels of the villagers.\" The 1970s saw the rise of the Chipko movement that brought together concerns with environmental degradation in Himalayan forests with the assertion of forest peoples' rights to the resources on which their livelihoods depended. The movement was explicitly Gandhian in inspiration, and women played a leading role within it.\n\nThat spirit infused a new approach to India's water problems in the 1980s, an approach that looked back to a golden age of local, sustainable water management, embedded in the ancient practices of rural India. Just as Gandhi evoked a largely mythic notion of India as a collection of village republics\u2014an idea that he drew primarily from Western writers\u2014environmental activists in the 1980s harked back to an ecologically responsible, traditional India. It mattered little that this vision bore little resemblance to the picture that was emerging from historical and archaeological research. Archaeologist Kathleen Morrison puts it this way: \"nostalgic\" environmentalists evoked \"a mode of life that I have simply been unable to reconstruct even as my work has expanded to incorporate three thousand years of agrarian history.\"\n\nIn those same decades, research on the history and diversity of India's water practices painted a more complex picture. Water management was often tied to the exercise of royal power. Irrigation works depended on coerced labor. Access to common property was governed by the exclusions of caste\u2014and those commons were under pressure even before the nineteenth century. The valorization of communitarian solutions could often serve to legitimize inequality and oppression. Many of the architects of independent India, including Jawaharlal Nehru, had seen this clearly. B. R. Ambedkar, leader of India's Dalits and architect of the Indian constitution, was no rural romantic: \"What is the village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness, and communalism,\" he had asked in the Constituent Assembly in 1948. The divergence between these different visions of India's past reminds us that water has a public as well as a scholarly history\u2014throughout the 1980s, idealized narratives about water management in the past had rhetorical and strategic value for the debates of the present, and they informed contending visions of the future.\n\nEven if it was little more than a useful fiction, the idea of a return to a more ecologically harmonious past motivated many strands of the Indian environmental movement, which emerged in earnest in the early 1980s. The movement's foundational text was the _First Citizen's Report on the State of India's Environment,_ written by Anil Agarwal and his colleagues at Delhi's Centre for Science and Environment, which Agarwal had founded in 1980. Agarwal was by then one of India's most influential environmentalists. Born in the northern industrial city of Kanpur in 1947, to a landowning family, Agarwal studied mechanical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology there. His work as the science correspondent of the _Hindustan Times_ in the 1970s brought his writing to international attention. The citizen's report paid close attention to the water crisis facing rural India. A few years later, in 1985, a report by the center urged the importance of recovering and repairing India's ancient practices of harvesting the waters of the monsoon. The report's authors, Agarwal and his prot\u00e9g\u00e9 Sunita Narain, went further; in their view, nothing less than a revitalization of rural India would reverse India's slide toward ecological degradation and social crisis. They described India's traditional villages as \"integrated agro-sylvo-pastoral entities,\" dependent on common property resources: the rivers and the lakes and the forests. They claimed that the Indian state's approach to development\u2014top-down, reliant on big technology\u2014had \"torn asunder this integrated character of the villages.\" In this was more than a trace of the holistic \"rural sociology\" of Radhakamal Mukerjee in the 1920s. Agarwal and Narain argued that \"the process of state control over natural resources that started with colonialism must be rolled back.\" Their prescribed solution was the final decolonization of rural India, a reversal of the process that began in the mid-nineteenth century with the British search for India's water wealth.\n\nA similar commitment to elevating traditional practices and indigenous knowledge underpins the most wide-ranging and influential condemnation of the Green Revolution, written by environmental activist Vandana Shiva. Shiva emerged as a distinctive voice in Indian debates in the 1980s, and in the 1990s she would go on to become internationally influential within the antiglobalization movement. Trained as both a physicist and a philosopher, Shiva started the Research Foundation in Science, Technology and Ecology in the Himalayan town of Dehra Dun in 1982. In the opening pages of her book, _The Violence of the Green Revolution,_ published in 1991, Shiva looked back on the 1980s, and described that as the decade when Asian societies came under the grip of what she described as \"an ecological crisis and the threat to life support systems posed by the destruction of natural resources.\" Taking aim at the idea that the Green Revolution had brought about an agricultural \"miracle,\" Shiva highlighted its costs. Many of these were well known, but Shiva's forceful prose gave them new prominence. She called Punjab a \"tragedy,\" a cautionary tale of the folly of \"breaking out of nature's limits and variabilities.\" She argued that the use of high-yielding seeds, pesticides, and ever-more water had left Punjab with \"diseased soils, pest-infested crops, water-logged deserts, and indebted and discontented farmers.\" She challenged the Indian state's obsession with technological solutions to social and ecological problems; echoing Agarwal and Narain, she implied that India had not rid itself of its colonial legacy. Juxtaposing the quest for water with her emphasis on conservation, she posed it as a struggle between \"diversity, decentralization and democracy,\" on one side, against \"uniformity, centralization, and militarization\" on the other.\n\nShiva's book epitomized a new sort of environmental thinking in India. But it also reflected a new set of intellectual and political connections that crossed Asia's borders in the 1980s. Her book was published by the Third World Network, which was based in Penang, Malaysia. Formed in 1984, the Third World Network was an offshoot of the Consumers' Association of Penang\u2014which, founded in 1970, was one of Asia's earliest pressure groups devoted to a broad range of causes ranging from fair prices and housing to food safety. It was the group's report on the _State of Malaysia's Environment_ that had inspired Anil Agarwal to undertake a similar exercise in India after attending a conference in Penang. The Third World Network marked the incorporation of environmental concerns fully under the umbrella of issues on which Asian activists made common cause. The network\u2014which reached beyond Asia to encompass groups in Africa and Latin America, with many allies among activists and nongovernmental organizations in Europe and North America\u2014brought together a commitment to social and economic justice with a new concern about sustainability. The Third World Network helped to bring Shiva's work to a wide audience among activists in Asia and beyond. For her part, Shiva applied her analysis to Asian societies writ large, and not just to Punjab. Even if the 1970s' movement for a New International Economic Order at the United Nations had proved short-lived, marginalized by the Anglo-American turn toward privatization in the 1980s under Reagan and Thatcher, ethical claims on behalf of what we now call the Global South lived on. The sense of a unified Third World fighting against the legacies of colonialism as well as new forms of imperial power began to crumble as parts of Asia began to experience very rapid economic growth, but it continued to influence movements for environmental justice that focused on the ways poverty heightened environmental vulnerability and inequality worsened environmental harm.\n\nThe networks of activism that linked environmentalists across Asia's borders turned, in the early 1990s, to the problem of climate change. In a 1991 text that remains influential to this day, one of the earliest and most eloquent expressions of the argument for global environmental justice, Anil Agarwal and Sunita Narain wrote about the problem of _Global Warming in an Unequal World_. Their opening sentence is powerful and stark: \"The idea that developing countries like India and China must share the blame for heating up the earth and destabilizing its climate... is an excellent example of _environmental colonialism_.\" They pointed out that historical responsibility for the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere lay entirely with the advanced industrial countries of the world; they highlighted the hypocrisy of those countries now telling India and China to cut their emissions, when in per capita terms, India's or China's emissions were miniscule. Their conclusion was that \"the Third World today needs far-sighted political leadership\" to resist the calls by Western political leaders and environmentalists to \"manage the world as one entity,\" which could only be a mask for exploitation as long as the world remained so unequal and so divided.\n\nThe pamphlet was published just on the eve of India's economic liberalization: a series of market reforms that followed an emergency IMF loan, secured when India faced a crisis of foreign exchange. In its language, it belongs firmly in the era that was closing, though few saw it at the time. The idea of the Third World, invoked repeatedly, had already started to come unstuck; with the collapse of the Soviet Union, it dissolved. What Agarwal and Narain could not have anticipated was just how rapidly the Indian environment, with the Indian economy, would be transformed by a new openness to global capitalism. China's own economic transformation was well underway in 1991, but its colossal scale and its colossal implications for the world were only slowly becoming evident. With good reason, the 1991 pamphlet called for a united front against the powerful nations in international negotiations over climate and emissions. But it was blind to the proliferation of cross-border challenges confronting Asia\u2014in the realm of water above all.\n\nTHE EXCHANGE OF IDEAS ABOUT SHARED ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS took place alongside a focus on deeply local problems. As the crisis of rural India became more visible, it appeared to be rooted in climatic and social characteristics that were distinctive to the Indian subcontinent, familiar to observers going back to the nineteenth century\u2014the deep and particular unevenness of water's distribution, and the pervasive social and caste inequalities that limited people's access to water.\n\nJournalist Palagummi Sainath (b. 1957) spent the 1980s working on the Bombay tabloid _Blitz_. In 1993, he received a _Times of India_ fellowship that he chose to spend traveling through India's poorest districts. He traveled one hundred thousand kilometers over a few years, more than five thousand of them on foot. The _Times_ published his dispatches in installments, at a time when ever-less reporting from impoverished rural India reached a metropolitan audience that was now in the grip of economic expansion. Sainath wanted to move beyond what he saw as the media's focus on \"the spectacular\" and to highlight \"the long-term trends that spell chaos [but that] don't make good copy.\" Sainath's articles were collected and published as a book in 1996 with the deeply ironic title _Everybody Loves a Good Drought_. In his many articles on water, Sainath drew attention to the opportunities for profit that water scarcity brought to a new cabal of \"water lords.\" Sainath observed something familiar from earlier times\u2014absolute scarcity of water was not always the problem, its distribution was. \"Simply put,\" he wrote, \"we have several districts in India that have an abundance of rainfall\u2014but where one section, the poor, can suffer acute drought.\" With the insight that came from his immersion in rural India, Sainath distinguished between \"agricultural drought\" and \"meteorological drought,\" arguing that the latter was not necessary for the former to bite\u2014there were droughts that were \"real,\" and droughts that were \"rigged.\"\n\nThe Indian countryside reeled from a double burden. Many farmers, those inhabiting the 60 percent of India's farmland without irrigation, suffered under the age-old burden of their dependence on an uncertain monsoon. But high-intensity farming brought its own burdens. When the history of late-twentieth-century India is written from a perspective of greater distance, alongside vertiginous economic transformation there will be a less visible, shameful, story: the story of an epidemic of farmer suicides on a scale that may be without parallel in the world. Sainath was among the first to bring this silent crisis to public attention. Starting in the late 1990s, an estimated seventeen thousand farmers each year have taken their lives\u2014at least two hundred thousand deaths from suicide between 1997 and 2010. At the root of the intolerable pressure that many of India's farmers labor under are their growing debts\u2014debts for purchases of seed and fertilizer and pesticide and fuel for groundwater pumps.\n\nMeanwhile access to water continues to be an indicator of the most fundamental social inequalities. In a comprehensive survey of the practice of untouchability in rural India, undertaken at the start of the twenty-first century, Delhi sociologist Gyansham Shah and colleagues found that Dalits in rural India regularly face exclusion from access to basic public services\u2014and of these, the authors found, the most important by far was the denial of access to water. No fewer than 48 percent of villages surveyed reported such denial. Pervasive upper-caste beliefs about the polluting effects of Dalits having contact with water sources leads to systematic discrimination, enforced by violence. The practices that Shah and colleagues documented ranged from absolute exclusion from tubewells and tanks to Dalits being forced to wait until everyone else had taken their water before being allowed limited access. Ninety years after Ambedkar's march on the tank at Mahad, unequal access to water remains pervasive in India. And caste discrimination explains why such inequalities are sharper in India than anywhere else in Asia.\n\nSainath's dispatches from rural India in the 1990s date from a time when climate change was not foremost among India's concerns. To revisit his urgent reportage two decades later, when the signs of climate change are everywhere, reminds us that, in India and elsewhere in Asia, climate change comes on top of a mountain of intersecting ecological and economic crises that has been building since the 1980s.\n\n# II\n\nIf the ocean underground began to recede as a result of the unsustainable use of groundwater in the 1980s, Asia's running waters\u2014its rivers\u2014were more visibly scarred. The rivers were the conduit between the countryside and the insistent demands of growing cities. Since the late nineteenth century, the engineering of rivers\u2014damming, diverting, impounding them\u2014has governed efforts to redistribute water. The twentieth-century quest for the \"white gold\" of hydroelectric power intensified that quest. In India and China alike, the abuse of rivers provoked a new environmental consciousness in the 1980s. The dreams of the 1950s and 1960s gave way to an unfolding nightmare. The circumstances under which the Indian and Chinese environmental movements emerged were very different from those of their counterparts in North America, Europe, and Japan earlier in the century. In Asia, rapid growth followed, rather than preceded, awareness of scarcity and natural limits. And a sense of fragility before the power of nature, a sense that hard-won gains were under threat, led authorities in India and China to the defiant, even violent defense of large technological solutions to the problem of water.\n\nIn India, the crisis of river pollution was clearly visible by the 1980s. In their first report on India's environment, Anil Agarwal and his colleagues at the Centre for Science and Environment wrote that \"river pollution in India has reached a crisis point. A list of India's polluted rivers reads like a roll of the dead.\" They described the holy Ganges as a \"network of cesspools,\" and came up with a grim list of industries responsible for the damage: \"DDT factories, tanneries, paper and pulp mills, petrochemical and fertilizer complexes, rubber factories...\" A few years later, Darryl D'Monte, a pioneer of Indian environmental journalism and a contributor to the Centre for Science and Environment's report, declared that the \"destruction of life support systems along the Himalayas\" constituted \"the world's single biggest ecological crisis.\"\n\nIn 1985, a campaigning lawyer, M. C. Mehta, took up the river's cause. Mehta, born in a small village in Jammu and Kashmir state, worked as a public interest litigation lawyer in India's supreme court. A 1984 visit to the Taj Mahal awakened him to the harm being done to the monument by polluting factories nearby\u2014by the early 1980s, the Taj Mahal's lustrous marble had been stained a dirty yellow. Mehta filed a public interest case against the offending industries. The following year, he turned his attention to the pollution of the Ganges. In a series of landmark cases, heard weekly over several years, Mehta succeeded in having three hundred factories closed and five thousand forced to install cleaner technology; the court ordered 250 municipalities to install sewage treatment plants. Mehta's were the most significant cases brought under India's Water Act of 1974; their proceedings revealed the extent of river pollution in India by the 1980s. In its 1988 judgment on a case Mehta brought against the owners of tanneries in the industrial town of Kanpur, the Supreme Court of India noted that \"any further pollution of the river is likely to lead to a catastrophe.\" They noted the relentless discharge of sewage and chemical effluent into the river. In another case the same year, Mehta took on Kanpur Municipality. He brought as evidence a report from the Industrial Toxicology Research Centre, which showed that the water of the Ganges was completely unfit for human consumption. Mehta won his cases; the polluting industries were ordered to amend their ways. But in comparison with the scale of the problem of river pollution in India, these were small victories in an enormous battle.\n\nBeginning in the 1980s, river pollution in India reached crisis proportions. CREDIT: Dominique Faget\/Getty Images\n\nPROPELLED BY ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION FAR MORE RAPID than India's, China's rivers endured a comparable assault. In China, too, under tighter political constraints, the 1980s saw the emergence of an environmental movement\u2014and there, too, water was a prime concern. One of China's first private environmental organizations, Friends of Nature, was formed by Liang Congjie in 1993. Liang Congjie's grandfather was Liang Qichao, the prominent late-nineteenth-century reformer; his father was an architectural conservationist who suffered brutal persecution during the Cultural Revolution. Liang Congjie took a keen interest in environmental issues from the 1980s. His approach initially was cautious; his activism began with seemingly innocuous targets, like his campaign to save the chiru, or Tibetan antelope. But Friends of Nature, like its counterparts in India, harnessed the power of information to illuminate a slow crisis. The organization began to publish the _China Environment Yearbook,_ which was akin to the _State of the Indian Environment_ reports, if less overtly critical of the government. Anxieties about water pollution and water shortages multiplied in China in the 1980s and 1990s, prompted by the breakneck pace of urbanization.\n\nIn the 1990s, around the same time that P. Sainath undertook his investigative tour of rural India, journalist Ma Jun published a series of articles for Hong Kong's _South China Morning Post_ on the state of China's waters, culminating in his influential 1999 book _China's Water Crisis_. He wrote of his realization that government officials and engineers were \"trying to rob nature of the last drop of water to serve economic expansion.\" He noted that \"while most people regarded the floods, dry spells, and sandstorms as some sort of evil force that demanded even larger engineering projects, I began to view them as nature's way of retaliating for man's reckless attempt to conquer and harness nature.\" He described how the flow of the Yellow River\u2014the \"mother river,\" cradle of Chinese civilization\u2014began to decrease from 1972. In 1997, for a period of 330 days, the Yellow River failed altogether to reach the ocean. Ma Jun called the abuse of China's rivers a \"heinous crime,\" as he made an emotional appeal to the power of the rivers and the reverence with which they had been treated for centuries. \"To rescue the dying rivers with our devotion and work would be our most glorious effort,\" he urged.\n\nThe most shocking passages of his book described the pollution of the lower Yangzi River\u2014we can see similarities in both tone and content with the writings of Indian environmentalists. Ma Jun described the river as \"a vast open sea of garbage and sewage.\" It was clogged by rubbish from the dense traffic on the river: \"Styrofoam lunch boxes and vegetable scraps, toilet waste, cooking oil, machine oil and industrial muck.\" Worst of all was the pollution from the cities. Ma Jun wrote that \"day by day, week by week, month by month, in a monotonously inexorable fashion, they throw or pour the detritus of 400 million people into the waterway.\" In China, as in India, minor triumphs, small cleanups, have failed to stem a hurricane of waste.\n\nFACED WITH MULTIPLE WATER CRISES, THE INDIAN AND CHINESE states fell back on the strategy that they had favored since the 1940s\u2014to turn, again and again, to large-scale hydraulic engineering. Ecological and social harm reinforced each other in the case of large dams, which continued to be constructed on an ever-expanding scale even after groundwater became a far more important source of water for irrigation. While they drowned forests and flooded fields, they also displaced millions of people. Concerns with the social suffering caused by large engineering schemes joined fears about water pollution to form a second major strand of environmental activism. Here, too, India was at the vanguard. The 1980s saw an escalation in the scale and reach of protest against large dams in India.\n\nIn 1978, India sought World Bank assistance for the mammoth Narmada project, which called for the construction of 30 large, 135 medium-sized, and 3,000 small dams along the Narmada River, which flowed west through the states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Gujarat to the Arabian Sea. In 1985, the World Bank committed US$450 million to the project, around 10 percent of its total cost. Little had changed since the 1950s in the Indian government's iron certainty that the benefits of the project would outweigh its costs. On their initial estimate, seven thousand families would be displaced by the project. Plans were made for rehabilitation, but in keeping with common practice, only those with formal title to their lands were included. As the true scale of displacement and environmental destruction emerged, resistance grew. In the late 1980s, a cluster of nongovernmental organizations\u2014a broad coalition that included human rights groups, environmentalists, students, and local people's associations\u2014came together to form the Narmada Bachao Andolan, or NBA (\"Save Narmada Movement\"), led by the social activist Medha Patkar. Patkar, born in Mumbai in 1954 to parents who were active in the nationalist and labor movements, studied social work at the prestigious Tata Institute of Social Sciences, but abandoned the doctoral dissertation she had started as she became more involved with the struggles of marginalized communities along the Narmada valley. Under her leadership, the NBA harnessed the power of Gandhian nonviolent protest and drew on a rich vein of ideas that insisted on people's sovereignty over their lands and landscapes. Among their most resonant techniques was the \"monsoon Satyagraha\"\u2014silent demonstrations held as the river's waters rose during the monsoon, slowly submerging the protesters until they stood waist-deep in water. It appealed symbolically to the power of climate and seasonality, which the dams sought to engineer away.\n\nThe NBA succeeded in harnessing international support. In the United States, Lori Udall of the Environmental Defense Fund took up the fight. Patkar met with the World Bank in 1987, and pressure on the bank from international supporters of the Narmada movement led it, in 1991, to initiate an inquiry into the project. The bank's decision to withdraw funding for the project in 1993 was a victory for the Narmada movement, and marked a shift in the bank's previously uncritical support for large dams. But the Indian government's response was defiant. Alongside nonviolent resistance, the Narmada movement took to the courts: they had some early success, and then, from the late 1990s, faced a series of defeats as the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the project's continuation. The World Bank's withdrawal served to harden the government's resolve to find private finance for the Narmada project. When the Sardar Sarovar Dam was finally declared open in autumn 2017 by Indian prime minister Narendra Modi\u2014who had strongly supported the Narmada project when he was chief minister of Gujarat, condemning environmentalists as \"anti-development\" and purveyors of a \"campaign of misinformation\"\u2014he took pains to point out that \"with or without the World Bank, we completed this massive project on our own.\"\n\nEnvironmental activist Medha Patkar, leader of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, joins a protest against the construction of a court complex at Pipliyahana Reservoir near Indore. CREDIT: _Hindustan Times_ \/Getty Images\n\nResistance to the Narmada Dam drew attention to the harm, both environmental and social, that arose from India's post-independence addiction to large dams. Research undertaken by scientists and activists in the 1980s and 1990s showed that these problems combined to devastating effect. In the first two decades after India's independence, an estimated half-million hectares of forest was submerged by dams; this loss of land accelerated in the 1970s and 1980s with ever-larger projects like the Narmada scheme and the equally controversial Polavaram Dam in Andhra, along the Godavari River. The dams themselves suffered from the failure of their designs to take into account the quantity of silt the rivers carried. Their architects had underestimated the extent of the problem, as silt-heavy rivers clogged up reservoirs. The lifespans of the great Bhakra and Hirakud Dams\u2014two of the first to be built after independence\u2014was significantly reduced by higher rates of siltation than planners anticipated. Large dams also caused a major problem with waterlogging\u2014inundating agricultural land beyond its capacity to absorb moisture and so rendering it infertile. An estimated thirty-three thousand hectares of productive land were lost as a result of the Tungabhadra Dam. Here we see yet another contrast\u2014as India's arid regions drew down their water tables by pumping groundwater, well-watered areas near the headworks of large dams suffered from excess. As they interfered with the ecology of water, dams also created the conditions for water- and insect-borne diseases to thrive. Many studies around large dams in India and elsewhere showed a significant rise in the incidence of malaria, as large reservoirs and canals provided conditions for the anopheles mosquito to flourish.\n\nAll the while, the social disruption caused by large dams continued unabated. As we saw, the most comprehensive estimate for the number of people that have been displaced by dams in India since independence reaches 40 million people. The projects with the highest cost in lives disrupted were those of the 1980s: two of the largest dams in the Narmada project, the Sardar Sarovar and the Narmada Sagar, displaced two hundred thousand people each. A high proportion of those displaced were marginalized _adivasis_ (tribal peoples), who had little power to negotiate adequate compensation from the state. The fate of these internal refugees\u2014refugees from water development projects\u2014too often goes unrecorded. The work of journalists like P. Sainath and environmental campaigning organizations like the NBA has brought some of their stories to light. Novelist Arundhati Roy found a wide international audience with a visceral essay on the profound costs of India's addiction to large dams, though her polemical style also drew criticism. Others have turned to fiction to depict their suffering. In 2001, Vairamuthu\u2014a prolific lyricist who has written the words to more than seven thousand Tamil film songs\u2014wrote a novel, _Kallikaatu Ithihaasam_ (\"Saga of the Drylands\"), which won him the Sahitya Akademi award in 2003, India's highest literary honor. Vairamuthu chose a historical setting from his childhood to explore the suffering of those displaced in the name of progress. As a child, in the 1950s, Vairamuthu lived in one of fourteen villages flooded by the Vaigai Dam in Madurai, in southern Tamil Nadu. The wide attention his work received had a striking contemporary resonance in the 2000s, when debates about dams and displacement raged in India.\n\nAFTER ITS NARMADA DEBACLE, THE WORLD BANK SUPPORTED THE creation of a World Commission on Dams in 1997, charged with assessing the benefits and costs of dam building worldwide over the previous half century. The commission's membership included strong supporters as well as opponents of dams, among them Medha Patkar\u2014but its report, when it appeared in 2000, was more critical of large dams than most critics expected it to be. The commissioners estimated that on average dams were 56 percent overbudget, and that they delivered less irrigation water and hydropower than they promised. The commission's assessment of their environmental impact was equally bleak. Challenging the view that hydropower was an ecologically preferable alternative to the use of fossil fuels, the commission's studies pointed to the large greenhouse gas emissions from rotting vegetation in the reservoirs of large dams. It also pointed to the ecological consequences that Indian scholars and environmentalists had long highlighted\u2014dams altered river flow to the detriment of aquatic habitats; they interfered with the paths of migratory fish. By impounding silt, they robbed lands downstream of fertility.\n\nOne of the consultants to the World Commission on Dams was Ramaswamy Iyer, a career civil servant who served as India's secretary of water resources in the mid-1980s. Iyer's intellectual rigor and honesty set him apart, reflected in his willingness to change his mind. As water secretary, Iyer had taken for granted the value of large dams. He played an important role in pushing through government approval for the Narmada project. But by the end of the 1980s, he began to be influenced by what he called \"newly emerging concerns about environmental impacts and the displacement of large numbers of people.\" Environmental thinking began to influence government decisions in the late 1980s, he recalled, but the growing force of popular opposition to dams led to what he describes as a \"retreat from enlightenment\" in the 1990s. Indian administrators and policymakers came to view Medha Patkar and all that she represented with antagonism, particularly after the World Bank's withdrawal of funding for the Narmada project. The Indian government's response to the World Commission on Dams was brusque dismissal. The cavalcade of arguments about the harmful effects of large dams fell on deaf ears. Searching and thoughtful in his analysis, Iyer turned to history for illumination. The fundamental problem, he discerned, was the persistence of a deep legacy of water engineering, going back to Arthur Cotton; this had bequeathed to India a Western tradition of water engineering, to which Iyer had no objection, \"but also the underlying Promethean attitude to nature,\" which he had started to see as more problematic. To that tradition was added a distinctively postcolonial addiction to what Iyer called the \"magic spell of gigantism.\"\n\nFar from retreating from dam construction, the Indian state redoubled its efforts in the 2000s. It embarked on a scheme to link India's rivers, through one of the largest and most expensive construction projects in human history. It plans to spend at least US$80 billion on a project to link thirty-seven of its rivers through 14,000 kilometers of canals, transferring 170 billion cubic meters of water across India. Among the promised benefits of the scheme are an additional thirty to thirty-five gigawatts of electricity and better water supply for irrigation. The roots of the river linkage scheme lie in the nineteenth century, in the dreams of Arthur Cotton. More proximately, it was the brainchild of irrigation engineer K. L. Rao, who had worked alongside Kanwar Sain and A. N. Kholsa to launch India's dam-building revolution after independence. The idea gained traction in the 2000s, under the coalition government dominated by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. In 2012, the Indian Supreme Court decreed that it was a matter of \"national interest\" and that the project should be completed as quickly as possible. Environmentalists have raised concerns about the project's consequences and its disruption to already fragile hydrological systems.\n\nIn the years leading up to his death in 2015, Ramaswamy Iyer remained an eloquent critic of the scheme. \"The project is in essence an attempt to redesign the entire geography of the country,\" he wrote; \"underlying it is the old hubristic idea of 'conquest of nature.'\" He argued that the water diversion project was based on a simplistic and dangerous view of India's hydrology; even to divide India simply into \"water surplus\" and \"water deficit\" areas, in ignorance of local ecology, was absurd. The problem went deeper, Iyer thought: \"Rivers are not human artefacts; they are natural phenomena, integral components of ecological systems, and inextricable parts of the cultural, social, economic and spiritual lives of the communities concerned.\" Iyer gave voice to a view of water ecology that was at odds with the conceptions of the Indian state, but it was a view of which we have seen echoes throughout _Unruly Waters_. It was a view that sustained numerous local initiatives that pushed against the juggernaut of large dams, including careful local efforts to restore ancient irrigation systems, through a system of small and simple check dams, in arid regions of Rajasthan.\n\nBut still, \"gigantism\" prevails. At the time of writing, the river-linking project has been given renewed emphasis, though it is years behind schedule, and it is far from clear that it will ever be realized. The counterpart project in China is much further advanced. China's own river diversion project seeks to redress the country's inequalities in the distribution of water by redistributing it on a massive scale. The South to North line, from Danjiangkou reservoir in central China to Beijing, opened in 2014; it is the most expensive infrastructure project the world has ever seen. Two-thirds of Beijing's tap water now comes from Danjiangkou, almost nine hundred miles away. Another arm of the diversion project, the \"eastern route\" that follows the old Grand Canal, opened in 2013. Already, the diversion scheme has brought similar problems to those predicted in India\u2014heightened water conflicts, wastage, social disruption, and substantial ecological harm to riverine ecosystems. The most ambitious part of the project\u2014the western line, linking the headwaters of the Yellow and Yangzi rivers across the Tibetan Plateau\u2014lies in the future, and it is the most likely to cause problems for China's neighbors.\n\nThe ecological and social effects of dams have been well documented; over the past decade, new scientific research suggests that, cumulatively, the world's dams exercise a fundamental geological impact on Earth. The sheer scale of water engineering in the second half of the twentieth century is changing the shape of the world's most densely populated river deltas, which are now denied up to a third of the sediment from flowing rivers that have, over thousands of years, built up the deltas and replenished them. On one estimate, reservoirs have increased by 600 or 700 percent the amount of water held in the world's major rivers, but much less of it now reaches the sea. The once mighty Indus, like the Yellow River, is now a trickle by the time it reaches the Arabian Sea\u2014dammed and diverted into a web of canals, many of them first built by the British in the late nineteenth century. The effect of hydraulic engineering has been to put coastal settlements\u2014and mega-cities, above all\u2014at greater risk of flooding, even before we take into account the effects of climate change and sea level rise.\n\nAS THE RISKS OF CLIMATE CHANGE BECOME INCREASINGLY EVIDENT, water becomes ever-more central to political and strategic conflicts at the heart of Asia. In the face of ecological uncertainty and strategic competition, the Himalayas are home to the greatest concentration of dam construction projects in the world. In historical perspective this marks the final frontier in a conquest of water that began in the nineteenth century. From the 1880s, as European and Indian explorers reached the source of Asia's great rivers in the Himalayas, it was known that the interaction of the Himalayan rivers and the monsoons held the key to Asia's water supply. As territorial borders sharpened up in that era\u2014the border between British India and Tibet, for example, was marked by the McMahon line in 1914\u2014there came the faint knowledge that struggles over water may lie in wait. Even when imperialism was overthrown in Asia after the end of the Second World War, the problem of transboundary rivers arose directly only in relation to the partition of India. As late as 1960, as we have seen, Indian intelligence agents dismissed reports that the Chinese were planning to dam the Brahmaputra, arguing that they had neither the labor nor the infrastructure to do so.\n\nThat Indian assessment was not mistaken. But things changed rapidly in the 1980s. It was in that decade that the Chinese state's dam-building ambitions fixated upon the Tibetan Plateau, source of Asia's rivers. By the 1980s, the large-scale settlement of Han Chinese in Tibet had changed the composition of the region's population; the construction of roads and railways made it less remote from the lowlands and river valleys. Above all, China's frenetic economic growth produced a demand for energy\u2014and an uncomfortable dependence on imported oil\u2014that the hydroelectric potential of the mountain rivers promised to meet. As long as the Himalayan source of Asia's great rivers remained remote and forbidding, it mattered little who formally controlled them; but if the unruly waters were to be tamed, it mattered profoundly who brought them under control.\n\nAs I write this, more than four hundred large dams are planned in the Himalayan regions of India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Pakistan. Construction is already underway on many of these projects. A further one hundred dams are planned on the Chinese side, where so many of the rivers originate.\n\nIf these projects come to fruition, there will be a dam every thirty-two kilometers along the Himalayan rivers, making it the most heavily dammed region in the world. A secretive complex of public and private interests converge and compete to harness the waters of the high mountains. The hunger for energy is widely shared across the region, though demand is driven primarily by the voracious needs of China and India. Geopolitical rivalries play out in the negotiations over who will build the dams, and on whose terms. As multiple dams line up along the same river valleys, the risk to downstream users is grave. In the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam, there are fears about Chinese plans for the Brahmaputra upstream in Tibet, where it is called the Yarlung Tsangpo. Downstream, Bangladesh is most vulnerable of all. Already in the 1980s, Bangladesh protested the effects of India's Farakka barrage, built in 1975 to divert water from the Ganges to the Bhagirathi-Hooghly, in part to revive the port of Calcutta that had, since the mid-twentieth century, suffered from severe silting. By reducing the river's flow to Bangladesh, the dam had an impact on soil fertility, irrigation, and health. With an increasing number of dam projects upstream, the risk to Bangladesh has multiplied.\n\nIn one respect, the latest wave of dam construction departs from the precedents of the 1950s and 1960s\u2014it is financed in a different way. Until the 1990s, large dams in India and China were financed primarily by the governments, with India receiving additional funding from international financial institutions like the World Bank, and China, until the split with the Soviet Union in 1961, benefiting from Soviet aid. The new rush to build dams depends more heavily on private capital. In India, public sector organizations like the National Hydroelectric Power Company and the North Eastern Electric Power Company play a major role in dam construction; but so too do private companies like Tata Power (architect of one of India's earliest hydroelectric dams, in the 1910s), and Reliance Energy. State governments have raised capital from domestic markets as international organizations have backed away from funding large dams. But the biggest shift is the role of China. China's dam-building industry, in the late 1990s and early 2000s emerged as a major force in the world. Given the scale of China's own dam building, the depth of engineering expertise in China rivals anywhere in the Western world; and that expertise has been matched by money. By 2008, ten Chinese companies were involved in thirteen dam projects in Nepal and nine in Pakistan, many of them financed by Chinese state-owned and private banks. When India's leading hydraulic engineers had visited China in 1954, they had found their Chinese counterparts dependent on Russian expertise, having to make do and improvise. By the end of the century, the Chinese dam industry led the world.\n\nSuch is the rush for growth that warnings about the impact and the potential risks of these new Himalayan dams have been brushed aside. Environmental assessments on many of the projects have been cursory at best. Given that the dams are entwined with geopolitical and security considerations, given that governments around the region fear popular protest against the dams\u2014which has been widespread not only in India, but increasingly in neighboring countries, too\u2014considerable secrecy shrouds the plans. Even data about river flow across borders is guarded as a state secret. The Himalayan region is less densely populated than the river valleys, but the same problems that accompanied the large dams of the twentieth century are likely to follow here\u2014drowned lands and displaced people. Large reservoirs are less common at these heights than in the lowlands, but diversions to the course of rivers affect life on the river. Mountain species are under threat from the loss of their habitats\u2014already, the brown bear, the snow leopard, the musk deer, the golden mahseer, and the snow trout are imperiled. Much of the power generated by the large dams will be sold to large cities far away, while many local livelihoods are imperiled. The Lower Subansari Hydroelectric Project in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, one of India's most controversial\u2014it has been stalled repeatedly by local protests\u2014threatens the passage of country boats that carry a lot of local trade. The submergence of forest lands will deny local people their main source of firewood. Historian Rohan D'Souza describes the Brahmaputra as a \"moving inland ocean\" bound together by the rhythms of subsistence fishing and floodplain agriculture\u2014a system that is under threat from the dam. The now familiar problem of siltation menaces many of the dams. But this is also one of Earth's most active seismic zones, with earthquakes of 8.0 or more on the Richter scale not uncommon. Fan Xiao, a geologist from Sichuan and a brave opponent of recent mountain dam projects in China, fears that dams will become \"a source of permanent grief and regret for future generations yet unborn.\"\n\nTHE GRAVEST RISK OF ALL\u2014TO THE DAMS, TO THE HIMALAYAS, TO billions of people downstream\u2014comes from climate change. Climate change affects the Himalayan glaciers two ways: by changing patterns of snowfall and by hastening the process of melting. Research findings are complex\u2014not all glaciers are in retreat, and, more seriously, there are very few monitoring stations and few long-term studies. While research has been ongoing in the Chinese Himalayas since the 1990s, the Indian side has been virtually untouched by scientists. The inclusion (and later retraction) of a careless claim by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) about the speed at which the Himalayan glaciers are melting was wielded by climate change skeptics to try to discredit the organization's work. But the consensus is overwhelming that the warming of the planet has led to a recession of the Himalayan glaciers since the mid-nineteenth century and at an accelerating pace in recent decades, if not uniformly everywhere across the mountain range. Most models predict that river flow will be augmented in the short term by the melting of the glaciers\u2014bringing more frequent and severe floods, and even the risk of catastrophic dam collapses. Few observers believe that the designs for the large Himalayan dams have taken into account the uncertainties of climate change. The dangers are greater still given the heightened possibility of extreme rainfall\u2014which, as we shall see, is likely. Around the middle of the twenty-first century, by 2050 or 2060, scientists predict that the dry season flow of the major Himalayan rivers will see significant declines. Not only will this diminution make many of the planned dams ineffective, it will put many lives and livelihoods at risk. More than 1.3 billion people rely directly on the Himalayan rivers for water; 3 billion people rely on the food, water, and energy the Himalayan rivers provide. Changes in the flow and behavior of the rivers as a direct result of the warming of the glaciers threatens a significant proportion of humanity.\n\n# III\n\nThe monsoon has been a continuous thread through _Unruly Waters_ \u2014and it is with the monsoon that we conclude.\n\nThe breakthroughs in tropical meteorology of the late twentieth century shed new light on the scale and complexity of internal variability in the monsoon on multiple timescales\u2014from the quasiperiodic impact of the ENSO system to the intraseasonal variations attributed to the Madden-Julian Oscillation. In recent years, the focus of scientific research has been on how the effects of anthropogenic climate change interact with the monsoon's natural variability in dangerous and unpredictable ways.\n\nThe most fundamental forces driving the monsoon, as we have seen, are the thermal contrast between the land and the ocean, and the availability of moisture. Climate change affects both of these drivers of wind and rain. The warming of the ocean's surface is likely to augment the amount of moisture the monsoon winds pick up on their journey toward the Indian subcontinent. But if the ocean surface warms more rapidly than the land, which appears to be happening in equatorial waters, this would narrow the temperature gradient that drives the winds, and so weaken circulation. Put simply, many climate models predict that the first of these processes will predominate: \"wet gets wetter\" as a result of greenhouse gas emissions. They predict, that is to say, that the moist monsoon lands will see an increase in rainfall. But the monsoon is an intricate phenomenon, as meteorologists have long known. It is increasingly clear that monsoon rainfall is affected not only by planetary warming but also by transformations on a regional scale, including the emission of aerosols\u2014from vehicles, crop burning, and domestic fires\u2014and changes in land use. The urgent challenge for climate science is to disentangle and to understand these global and regional influences on the behavior of the monsoon. And so far, the monsoon has proved much harder to capture in models than, say, global temperatures.\n\nThe availability of detailed records of climate and rainfall in India\u2014which themselves are a product of the history of Indian meteorology going back to the efforts of Henry Blanford and his colleagues in the late nineteenth century\u2014have allowed scientists to reconstruct in detail the monsoon's behavior over the last sixty years. The picture these data present is complex, and in some ways surprising. Average summer rainfall over India has declined by around 7 percent since 1950. But what lies behind this trend? The cause of the decline in rainfall lies in the pattern of India's development since independence. Its explanation, that is to say, lies in the province of economic history.\n\nIn the late 1990s, research vessels observed exceptionally high concentrations of aerosols in the northern Indian Ocean. Satellite images showed a stain that spread across the Gangetic plain and over the Indian Ocean\u2014researchers called it the \"brown cloud,\" an accurate if not a poetic description of the haze. Between January and March 1999, a large team of investigators set out to understand this brown cloud, taking readings from their base at the Kaashidhoo observatory on one of the most remote islands of the Maldives. The project was led by Veerabhadran Ramanathan, an Indian oceanographer based at the Scripps Institute in La Jolla, California. One of the scientists involved was Dutch atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen, who around the same time also coined the phrase \"the Anthropocene,\" referring to a new geological epoch in which human activity is the most important influence on Earth's physical processes.\n\nThe project found that the haze was a noxious composite of sulfate, nitrate, black carbon, dust, and fly ash as well as naturally occurring aerosols including sea salt and mineral dust. Three-quarters of the composition of the brown cloud could be attributed directly to human activity especially concentrated along the densely populated Gangetic plain and northwestern India. In this region, where up to 80 percent of the population remains rural, and where many rural families continue to be deprived of electricity, much of the black carbon is produced by domestic burning of biomass\u2014wood, crop residue, dung, and coal\u2014used primarily for cooking. Open crop burning accounts for the rest. The stoves used in households are inefficient and combustion is incomplete, producing large amounts of soot. Apart from their likely effects on regional climate, these emissions also poison human bodies. On one estimate, more than four hundred thousand premature deaths each year in India can be attributed to indoor pollution. Black carbon combines, in the brown cloud, with sulfates and other aerosols\u2014and the Gangetic plain bears an additional burden in this respect, as a result of pockets of intensive industrial and extractive activity. Since the late nineteenth century, the Indo-Gangetic plain has been the core region of India's extractive industries, built around the rich coal and mineral deposits in the Chota Nagpur region. Further along Yamuna River, the Delhi region is one of India's fastest-growing metropolitan areas, and its largest in absolute terms. Emissions have increased exponentially since the 1970s as India's population has grown, as its economy has expanded, as inequalities within and among regions have widened. The Gangetic plain suffers from a double pathology: the sulfur, carbon, and nitrogen dioxide emissions that accompany energy-intensive growth are combined with the black carbon that comes from the use of cheaper, dirtier fuels by millions without access to electricity. If India leads in black carbon, China, too, has a brown cloud problem, with sulfates from factory emissions dominating the mix there.\n\nAll of this is shifting the monsoon's patterns. Aerosols absorb solar radiation, allowing less of it to reach Earth's surface. This cools the land, diminishes the temperature contrast between the land and sea, and weakens the atmospheric circulation that sustains the summer monsoon. Changes in circulation over the Indian subcontinent in turn affects the tightly integrated air-sea interaction that binds the Asian continent with the Indian Ocean, a system that already contains plenty of internal variability. Because of the way the Asian monsoon is linked to other parts of the planet's climate, it is possible that aerosols over South Asia and China have global consequences. When all of these effects are coupled with the impact of global warming on the ocean and the atmosphere, the instabilities multiply. Far from counteracting the effect of greenhouse gases in any simple sense, the impact of aerosols complicates them.\n\nA further driver of regional climate change is rapid changes in land use. Over the last 150 years, forest cover over most parts of Asia has declined dramatically. The intensification of agricultural production in India, and the use of more water for irrigation, have affected the moisture of the soil, its capacity to absorb or reflect heat. Crops reflect more solar radiation than forests, which tend to absorb it; the greater reflexivity of land planted with crops makes it cooler, once again weakening the temperature differentials that drive circulation and rainfall. Tropical meteorologist Deepti Singh points out that climate models have often failed to predict the monsoon's behavior in part because they are too abstract to take into account the \"complex topography, temperature and moisture gradients in the region that can influence the monsoon circulation.\" The models omit, that is, precisely the details of landscape and microclimate that the meteorologists of a century earlier were so deeply interested in, which they depicted in their detailed local and regional maps of India's climate.\n\nWe are left with the most bitter of ironies. Many of the measures taken to secure India against the vagaries of the monsoon in the second half of the twentieth century\u2014intensive irrigation, the planting of new crops\u2014have, through a cascade of unintended consequences, destabilized the monsoon itself. When the geographers of the early twentieth century wrote of \"monsoon Asia,\" they saw the monsoon as sovereign\u2014it shaped the lives of hundreds of millions of people, who waited on its every move. Monsoon Asia means something quite different now, when the monsoon's behavior, increasingly erratic, responds to human intervention.\n\nAT ONE LEVEL, THE STORY OF HOW THE MONSOON HAS CHANGED since the 1950s is a story of India's resilience. India has experienced _more_ droughts since the 1940s than in the half century before that, a half century that saw so many devastating famines. Even on a shorter timescale, there are signs of progress. In 2014 and 2015, India experienced two successive years of drought that were as severe as the monsoon failures of 1965 and 1966, which\u2014as we have seen\u2014India could only ride out with massive external aid. In 2014\u20132015, there was no noticeable drop in agricultural production, which observers attribute to better planning\u2014but also to much better forecasts, enabled by the advances in meteorological understanding, and technology, that took root in the 1970s and 1980s. Intraseasonal oscillations\u2014the MJO and the Boreal Summer Intraseasonal Oscillation\u2014have become more amenable to prediction, improving forecasts on a timescale of two to four weeks. Alongside a general drying trend, the monsoon has grown more prone to extremes over the past several decades. If India has received less rain overall, more of it has come in torrents. Between 1981 and 2000, wet spells have been more intense, while droughts have been more frequent but less intense. From the nineteenth century, understanding and predicting the fearsome cyclones that visit the Bay of Bengal with regularity prompted the development of meteorology in India\u2014just as the menace of typhoons spurred research in the Philippines and along the China coast. Predictions of the impact climate change will have on the development of cyclones are as uncertain as those that seek to model the overall behavior of the monsoon. The same countervailing forces are at work: warming seas are, in theory, likely to produce more cyclones\u2014but not if the seas are warming faster than the land. A more definite finding is that the Bay of Bengal's cyclones have grown in intensity in recent decades, as have hurricanes in the Atlantic and tropical storms in other parts of the world. In the Bay of Bengal, scientists predict that climate change will, in the coming century, lead to fewer but more powerful cyclones\u2014though it is possible that the Arabian Sea, not known for cyclones, could see an increase.\n\nNowhere in the world have tropical storms affected more lives than in Bangladesh. In the 1860s and 1870s, severe cyclones in that region of eastern Bengal, then part of British India, spurred the development of meteorological science. In the second half of the twentieth century, cyclones have been more frequent and just as devastating. Approximately 40 percent of global storm surges in the last fifty years have hit Bangladesh, including the two with the highest death tolls, in 1970 and in 1991. Five of the ten worst storms to affect any part of Asia in the twentieth century have struck Bangladesh. But the past twenty years have witnessed a dramatic reduction in cyclone mortality in Bangladesh. Cyclone Sidr, which struck Bangladesh in 2007, was as severe\u2014in terms of wind speed and rainfall\u2014as cyclone Bhola of 1970, but the death toll was one hundred times smaller. An estimated five hundred thousand people died in the cyclone of 1970; in 2007, that number was below five thousand. In part this is a tribute to improvements in forecasting. The Bangladesh Meteorological Department's ability to track cyclones as they develop in the Bay of Bengal improved significantly, with assistance from a Japanese satellite as well as data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. After the fearsome cyclone of 1991, the Bangladesh government embarked on the construction of thousands of cyclone shelters, which have saved millions of lives. Cyclone warnings have become more effective, helped greatly by the spread of mobile phones to even the poorest villages. Changes in the landscape have also played a role. Coastal embankments have kept floodwaters out, although their impact on local ecology has been more controversial. An extensive program of mangrove reforestation has helped to restore one of the most effective natural flood defenses to parts of Bangladesh's low-lying coast. But in Bangladesh, as in India and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, real gains in protecting people from tropical storms contend with a series of new risks\u2014risks that the weather will become more extreme and less predictable, and manufactured risks in the form of unregulated coastal construction, rising population density, and galloping social inequality.\n\nResearch is underway into what governs the increasingly erratic, increasingly extreme behavior of the monsoon. It likely stems from the interaction, on multiple levels and over different timescales, of planetary warming, regional climate change, and natural variability. Recent advances in the oceanographic study of the Bay of Bengal make clear how much the sea's chemistry itself affects climate. The bay is less salty than most bodies of water because of the vast discharge of freshwater from the Himalayan rivers, and because it receives more rainfall than any other sea. This has implications for ocean circulation, temperature differentials, and the interaction of ocean and atmosphere, but the forces at work are still the subject of intensive research. Some of that research looks to the deepest past for clues about the future. Satellites allowed for a new appreciation of climatic forces in the late twentieth century; now the seabed is the next frontier. In 2015, the 470-foot vessel _JOIDES Resolution,_ equipped with a 200-foot drilling tower, collected sediment cores from the sea floor under the Bay of Bengal. Scientists seek a record of the monsoon's behavior going back 15 million years, embedded in the sunken fossils of microorganisms known as plankton foraminifera that once inhabited the surface water and now lie buried. The project aims to use that deep historical data to predict the monsoon's future behavior under conditions of global warming, by examining how the monsoon has responded to historic changes in temperature, salinity, sea level, and atmospheric carbon. It is ironic, perhaps fitting, that the _Resolution_ was once an oil-drilling vessel, now converted to the more benign purpose of oceanographic investigation.\n\nON JULY 26, 2005, 37.2 INCHES OF RAIN BATTERED THE CITY OF Mumbai, most of it between 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. A third of the city was flooded. Cellular phone networks crashed. The airport was shut when its runways flooded. Close to 150,000 people were stranded in stations on Mumbai's massive commuter rail network, which came to a standstill. Almost one thousand people died, tens of thousands were made homeless. The government was completely unprepared when faced with this extreme amount of rain, even though such downpours were not completely without precedent in Mumbai's history. To many observers, this was a freak of nature\u2014or an act of God.\n\nMap of Mumbai, showing it flanked by the Arabian Sea to the west and Thane Creek to the east\u2014much of contemporary Mumbai sits on reclaimed land. CREDIT: Illustration by Matilde Grimaldi\n\nBut a citizens' commission assembled by the city's nongovernmental organizations to report on the floods reached a different conclusion. The commission argued that Mumbai had put itself in harm's way. After decades of relentless growth and expansion, Mumbai had few natural drainage channels left. They had been concreted over. There was nowhere for the water to go. Storm drains were clogged with waste, tidal flats had been built upon. What environmental regulations there were on paper could not rein in a boom in unauthorized construction\u2014in a city where prime real estate was worth more than in New York or Hong Kong. The destruction of the mangroves of Mahim Creek\u2014which stretched to seven hundred acres as late as 1930\u2014for highway construction and urban development robbed the city of a natural buffer between land and sea.\n\nA taxi under water during the Mumbai floods of July 26, 2005. CREDIT: _Hindustan Times_ \/Getty Images\n\nBeyond the suffering that the storm caused, it also provided a stark warning. If, as scientists predict, the \"once-in-a-hundred-year\" storm is likely, in the future, to materialize every ten or twenty years, or perhaps more regularly than that, Mumbai is acutely vulnerable, along with so many cities at the water's edge. The threat to the coasts, once again, comes from the sea\u2014fueled no longer just by natural patterns but also by human activity that is once regional and planetary in its sources and its effects.\n\nThe prospect of the next big storm hitting Mumbai is the alarming picture that Amitav Ghosh sketches, powerfully, in his nonfiction work on climate change, _The Great Derangement_. Ghosh forces us to imagine Mumbai in a superstorm:\n\nAt this point waves would be pouring into South Mumbai from both its sea-facing shorelines; it is not inconceivable that the two fronts of the storm surge would meet and merge. In that case the hills and promontories of South Mumbai would once again become islands, rising out of a wildly agitated expanse of water.\n\nBut in the face of catastrophe that is \"inconceivably large,\" Ghosh argues that most states, like most human beings, are guided by \"the inertia of habitual motion.\"\n\nIn recent years, the view that we should live with and adapt to the natural hydraulic risks of littoral zones\u2014to say nothing of how these risks are worsening with climate change\u2014has infiltrated the worlds of architecture and design. Mumbai architects and urban theorists Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha insist that the colonial and postcolonial practice of drawing a firm boundary between land and water in Bombay stems from a fundamental misreading of the fluid coastal landscape. Mumbai during the monsoon demands to be seen \"in cross-sectional depth,\" they argue, not in the two dimensions of maps and plans. When the monsoon comes, \"there is too little time and too much water to make an orderly exit through courses delineated on maps.\" In their vision, the city in monsoon becomes a fluid, mutable organism at the boundary between land and water, shaped by the interplay of \"the monsoon clouds above through the labyrinthine world of creeks, to the web of aquifers beneath.\" Only if we understand this, design for it, adapt to it, they argue, can we live with, rather than trying to engineer away, risk.\n\nWorking within a tradition that goes back a century\u2014to Blanford and Isis Pogson and Ruchi Ram Sahni\u2014Indian meteorologists have a distinctive understanding of the climate risks facing India today. However much patterns of rainfall may be changing, they suggest, the monsoon has _always_ presented a risk to South Asia: the fundamental source of escalating risk today lies in foolhardy policies.\n\nThis is what emerged in my conversations with S. Raghavan, formerly a senior officer in the Indian Meteorological Department, now retired in Chennai, where we met at his home. His father was a large farmer in an arid tract of rural Tamil Nadu. Raghavan grew up with an intimate knowledge of water and crops; long before he became a meteorologist, he recognized the rhythms of the monsoon. After taking a degree in physics at Madras University, Raghavan received three job offers: one from All India Radio, one from the auditor general's office, and one from the meteorological department. With little knowledge of meteorology, he took that option, excited in part by the chance to work with the latest technology, including the radiosondes he had seen on display at a stall in his college's engineering fair. At the height of the Cold War, Raghavan was sent to the United States on a government scholarship to study radar technology. When Delhi's Safdarjung Airport received its first radar in 1957, Raghavan was put in charge of its operation. In 1972, he returned to Madras to take charge of radar meteorology there, equipped with a cyclone warning radar purchased from Japan, which arrived only after a long tussle with the customs department at a time when India had stringent restrictions on imports and foreign exchange. That year, a serious cyclone struck the coastal town of Cuddalore. It was the first cyclone in India to be tracked by radar as it approached; with accurate information and early warnings, casualties were minimal. It was then, Raghavan said, that \"I realized that I was doing some service to society.\"\n\nBut just as forecasting capacities improved, in the 1980s, the risk posed by extreme weather in India multiplied. The cause was manufactured, not climatic, he said. The reason so many millions who live in coastal India are in danger, he told me, was because governments, planners, developers, and citizens had completely neglected the ordinary climatic risks that coastal South Asia faces. \"Time and time again, we put ourselves in harm's way,\" he said. Raghavan does not believe that the risks of cyclonic storms, for example, can be engineered away; at best they can be prepared for. He believes in early warning, and for that there is no substitute for the patient observation of weather fronts developing in the Bay of Bengal. His mission in retirement is the production of a Tamil lexicon of climatological terms, in the same way that the colonial meteorologists of the late nineteenth century were not averse to collecting local proverbs. He regularly gives talks to schools and residential societies about climate and weather. He described the destruction of cities' natural drainage and storm defenses. As late as the 1940s, he remembered seeing Chennai's Cooum River busy with traffic, including boats carrying salt from Andhra; it had become a \"cesspit,\" he told me. Drains were blocked by a \"plastics explosion\"; the destruction of mangroves had taken away natural protection against storm surges. \"Our own actions are responsible\" for the crisis, he said.\n\nThe soft-spoken Mr. Raghavan was careful and precise in his judgments; as we talked, he often turned to his shelves to find a book, or to consult a folder of press clippings that he had maintained over many years. The day after we met he sent me a PowerPoint presentation he had made for a recent lecture. But there was no mistaking the emotion in what he said\u2014he was both sad and angry at the way the risks of a monsoon climate had been disregarded. His was a view of the weather, and the climate, that was rarely about control\u2014it was about adapting to known and felt risks. The long quest of India's meteorologists to understand the monsoon continues to shape their responses to a changing climate.\n\nTHESE ARE NOT, FOR THE MOST PART, THE LESSONS THAT ARE BEING learned. The map of cities at risk resembles a series of beads on a necklace threaded along the coastline of Asia. One study predicts that by 2070, nine out of the ten cities with the most people at risk from extreme weather will be in Asia\u2014Miami is the only non-Asian inclusion. The list includes Kolkata and Mumbai in India, Dhaka in Bangladesh, Guangzhou and Shanghai in China, Ho Chi Minh City and Hai Phong in Vietnam, Bangkok in Thailand, and Yangon in Myanmar. Each one of these cities will confront any change in the interaction of land and water, winds and rain over Asia's oceans. Just two years after the Mumbai floods, it was the turn of Jakarta, the Indonesian capital and the fastest-sinking city in the world, pulled down by the weight of construction, by the extraction of groundwater, and by the rising sea. Jakarta is sinking by between three and six inches every year. The storm in 2007 washed over the sea walls built to protect the city. Half the city was underwater, displacing 340,000 people from their homes. In Jakarta and in each of Asia's coastal megacities, climate change compounds a cavalcade of risks that are severe in and of themselves\u2014hasty development driven by property speculation and new forms of middle-class consumption, crumbling health and sanitary infrastructures, and a lack of preparedness and precaution, are all symptoms of profound social and economic inequalities both among and within nations. Of all the countries in the world, few are more directly under threat than low-lying Bangladesh.\n\n# IV\n\nThe struggle for water transcends Asia's borders. The Himalayan rivers, dammed and diverted and vulnerable to changes in glacier cover, flow through many nation-states on their descent to the sea. Planetary warming is a result of the historical emissions of fossil fuels\u2014initially and cumulatively by the wealthy and industrialized countries of the world, but also, and increasingly since the 1980s, by China and India. Global warming interacts with and compounds the effects of regional climate change. Aerosol emissions from the Gangetic plain or from fast-industrializing areas of China have effects far beyond India's or China's borders, creating a series of brown clouds that blanket the Indian Ocean and affect rainfall far away. Climate change creates problems of distance\u2014between the source of pollution and its consequences\u2014but it also creates new forms of proximity in the form of shared risks and interdependence. The image of the Himalayas as \"Asia's water tower\" conveys both the scale of the hydraulic system that binds much of Asia, and the scale of the threat that they face from the destabilization of that source of so much water. By the 1960s, the sea itself was a form of territory. The Bay of Bengal was the crucible of the earliest monsoon science in the nineteenth century; it remains the crucible of monsoon science today. But it is a very different sort of space. It is crowded. It is contested. It is walled off by borders in the sea as much as on land. Even international cooperation in oceanographic research on the monsoon has to confront the reality of borders at sea. A major project between 2013 and 2015 set out to investigate the Bay of Bengal and its role in monsoon circulation; it brought together American, Indian, and Sri Lankan scientists. Their research vessels roamed the Bay for two years, taking an enormous number of measurements of ocean salinity, temperature, currents, and chemistry. Yet the map of their voyages, a dense set of tracks that the ships followed over those years, is divided up by a thin line marking the extent of territorial waters and exclusive economic zones; some, like the border of Myanmar, the ships could not cross for political reasons.\n\nIf borders at sea are forbidding, those on land are even more so. Throughout Asia one of the ways in which communities have coped with extreme weather has been to move\u2014often temporarily, and not necessarily over long distances. For regions that are threatened by climate change and water-related risks, borders create barriers to mobility. \"Climate refugees\" are much discussed in current legal and political debates. But the Red Cross rightly stresses that the \"populist term 'climate refugees' is profoundly misleading\": environmental drivers of migration act \"in conjunction with economic, social and political factors, and [are] linked to existing vulnerabilities,\" and it is \"conceptually difficult to establish a precise category of environmental or climate migrant.\" It would be a mistake to separate a discussion of \"climate migration\" from a broader consideration of regional patterns of mobility.\n\nThere is an odd historical resonance to some of the pronouncements about climate and migration. In the nineteenth century, too, many observers saw the movement of people across the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea as driven by climate\u2014not by climate change but by climate's natural volatility. The use of liquid metaphors to describe migration remains pervasive: a language of \"floods\" and \"tides\" and \"waves\" and \"flows.\" Many of the region's migrants today come from places and from communities that have been mobile in the past. This is hardly a surprise. Some of the places most threatened by environmental catastrophe are also places\u2014the coasts and the great river deltas\u2014that have the longest histories of migration. But other affected regions lack the accumulated family connections, knowledge, experience, and access to credit to allow them to move. Forced immobility can be as dangerous, as traumatic, as forced migration. Controls on mobility have intensified since the middle of the twentieth century, and they are likely to harden: hysteria in India about \"illegal migration\" from Bangladesh, for instance, has led to the securitization and fortification of the border, though many people risk their lives to cross it out of desperation. The slow effects of climate change are as likely to leave people stranded, unable to move, as they are to spark a rush of \"climate refugees.\"\n\nA recent study by the World Bank makes clear that although cross-border migration receives more attention, vastly more people migrate within their own countries than migrate internationally. The overwhelming majority of people who are displaced by climate change over the next three decades will move internally\u2014an estimated 40 million people in South Asia alone, and 143 million people globally. In the depersonalized language common to climate policy documents, the World Bank concludes that \"several hotspots of climate in- and out-migration are in transboundary areas\" of South Asia, and that these \"must be explored for their opportunities and managed for their challenges.\" But what does this really mean? It means the options facing people whose lives are threatened by drought or deluge will be constrained by borders as well as by poverty, gender, caste, or a lack of opportunity. It means that the closest refuge, if it should lie across a border, may not be a refuge at all. It means that many routes that make social, cultural, or ecological sense to people\u2014routes embedded in family histories, routes across regions that have not always been divided by borders\u2014will be blocked. It means that those who are compelled to cross closed frontiers in search of security will face unprecedented risks.\n\nGIVEN THE WEIGHT OF BORDERS, ARE THERE PROSPECTS OF CLOSER regional cooperation to confront the problems of water and the threat of climate change? If so, these prospects are modest in scope and ambition. Existing regional institutions\u2014the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the newer and smaller Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multisectoral Technical Cooperation (BIMSTEC)\u2014are focused overwhelmingly on the development of infrastructure and the promotion of trade. Though environmental protection is not absent from their concerns, it is not a high priority. When policy documents refer to climate, it is often as a metaphor, as in the often expressed hope of creating a \"climate friendly to investment.\" And when new infrastructure projects threaten ecological and social harm\u2014as do so many of the port projects that proliferate along the Bay of Bengal's coasts\u2014they have almost always proceeded regardless, except where they have met with significant public protest. Nevertheless the second half of the twentieth century did create agreements and institutions to manage water across borders, and these need to be strengthened wherever possible. Though flawed, the Indus Treaty signed in 1960 between India and Pakistan, with the World Bank's mediation, has largely worked. The two hostile neighbors have for the most part worked cooperatively to manage that shared river, though there have been periodic surges of tension between them. The Mekong River Commission, created in the 1950s by the UN, has outlasted the Cold War. Though the commission has often failed to prevent reckless development along the river, the growing involvement of China in its discussions suggests that states are taking more seriously the shared threats they face.\n\nBut the most promising initiatives to address shared risks may lie in the realms of science and civil society. From the start, climate science in Asia has been a cosmopolitan enterprise. In the late nineteenth century, observatories and scientists across imperial borders exchanged data and theory and reports. This is not to say that climate science stands apart from politics. It never has. In the nineteenth century, the development of meteorology was deeply entwined with imperial interests. But climate science provided a way of visualizing Asia beyond borders, as a vast and connected climatic space, bound together in every dimension\u2014the oceans, the air, and the land. Meteorologists saw that the same storms menaced the Philippines as India. Growing knowledge of climatic connections inspired attempts to share warnings if not coordinate responses. In an era of nation-states, that level of cross-border cooperation among scientists has continued\u2014and it is more vital than ever. Even as an organization like BIMSTEC is hampered by political tensions among its member states, it has made small but tangible gains in coordinating the sharing of early warnings to bolster disaster preparedness. As meteorologists' ability to forecast storms has advanced with improvements in satellite technology as well as better models, that information is now more readily accessible to a wide public\u2014mobile phones are ubiquitous across South Asia; even the smallest fishing vessels are now equipped with GPS technology.\n\nSome of the most promising recent efforts to increase cooperation across borders to tackle Asia's water problems have focused on the sharing of information. As we have seen, data concerning the hydraulics of the Himalayan rivers are a closely guarded secret. The Third Pole, a nongovernmental organization based in London and New Delhi, dedicated to understanding and communicating the cross-border water issues faced by Asian states\u2014with a focus on the Himalayan rivers\u2014has compiled as much information as is available on river flow and on climatic trends. Using open source data, it has created a new mapping platform that allows for the sharing of data on river flow and hydropower, glaciers, and groundwater. This is now readily available to journalists, activists, and scholars. These maps of the Himalayan region transcend borders, emphasizing shared ecological challenges. The ability to visualize the risks holds the promise of stimulating a more coordinated response; it might even inspire new solidarities that come from a sense of shared vulnerability. These efforts to pool information have begun to mobilize public participation by so-called citizen scientists. Season Watch, an Indian organization, encourages its members, including schoolchildren, to submit detailed daily observations of climate, thereby linking very local experiences of changing seasonal cycles with changes on a regional and global scale. This effort extends to the preservation of local archives. The World Meteorological Organization has urged the importance of \"data rescue\"\u2014the recovery of records and logs of rainfall and temperature, often handwritten, preserved in local repositories and threatened by physical deterioration. These are potentially invaluable to climatologists looking for long-term patterns of change. Those very archives, as we have seen throughout this book, are full of evidence of the ways in which, in earlier times, not only storms and currents but scientific information crossed borders.\n\nFrom the 1980s onward, there has been close cooperation among environmental activists across Asia. They have pooled information, campaigned together, and recognized that environmental degradation\u2014including but not limited to climate change\u2014is a menace they all face. Historian Prasenjit Duara sees reasons for hope in the organizations of what he calls \"network Asia\"\u2014the web of NGOs, some of them religiously motivated and others resolutely secular, coming together to confront problems of water and climate. The environmental movement has at times been genuinely transregional, yet in both India and China, it has become clear in recent years that environmental organizations are vulnerable to crackdowns by the state. There is also an imaginative barrier to cross. As we have seen, the power of environmental activism very often comes from the ability to evoke a sense of emotional attachment to particular landscapes. Narratives about the past have been fundamental to the rise of environmentalism in India and elsewhere in Asia, but the pasts they have appealed to are profoundly local ones; their narratives juxtapose an earlier age of ecological innocence with the depredations of colonialism and modernity. An appeal to nationalism has been, and remains, one powerful way that environmentalists can mobilize public support. But this can make it more difficult to work across borders.\n\nAt a time of environmental crisis, local histories and national responses are insufficient on their own. It is now easy to see on a map, or in an alarming graphic, the scale of water-related risks that Asia faces. It is clear that those risks pay no heed to borders. The promise of a new sort of environmental history, a more connected and expansive history of Asia's unruly waters, is to fill that space with cultural and political meaning\u2014to show that the landscape of Asia's mountain rivers and its monsoons have also constituted a space of migration, a zone of trade, a path of pilgrimage.\n\nThroughout history, water has both connected and divided Asia. The rivers and oceans have been thoroughfares of trade as well as zones of imperial domination. In the nineteenth century, when European empires dominated the world, Asia's hydrology underpinned many of the commodities that fueled global industrial capitalism. The storms that have always menaced coastal regions always crossed frontiers, but states have responded to them in different ways. As connections across Asia frayed in the mid-twentieth-century decades of nationalism and war, water, too, came under ever-tighter territorial control. One reason why almost all of Asia's new nation-states tried so boldly to harness water was to gain self-sufficiency in a postcolonial era in which their autonomy was nevertheless called into question by the machinations of the superpowers in the Cold War. They were spurred to do so by memories of water's lack\u2014bitter memories of famine and suffering within living memory. They were spurred, especially in India, by a fear of the monsoon climate and the power it had over human life. \"For us in India scarcity is only a missed monsoon away,\" Prime Minister Indira Gandhi said\u2014and this sense of a battle against enormous natural forces inspired in her, as in so many others, a tug between despair and optimism that science and technology held the key to liberation. Over time that insistence on self-sufficiency combined with a sense of perpetual crisis led to a narrowing of vision and a willful blindness to the consequences of repeated attempts to conquer nature. Today, the inability of states to think beyond their borders imperils lives and denudes the political imagination.\n\nIf there is one consistent lesson in _Unruly Waters,_ it is that water management never has been, and can never be, a purely technical or a scientific question; neither can it be addressed on a purely national scale. Ideas about the distribution and management of water are deeply inflected with cultural values, with notions of justice, with ideas and fears about nature and climate\u2014including very old fears about the monsoon, which grows more capricious. The battle continues to understand the monsoons and mountain rivers that shape Asia.\n\n# EPILOGUE\n\n# HISTORY AND MEMORY AT THE WATER'S EDGE\n\n\"THERE IS THE SCIENTIFIC AND IDEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE FOR WHAT IS happening to the weather,\" writes novelist Zadie Smith, \"but there are hardly any intimate words,\" no words that capture the sense of loss that climate change brings with it. \"The weather has changed, is changing,\" Smith writes, \"and with it so many seemingly small things... are being lost.\" Faced with the forbidding scale of climate change, many responses are profoundly local. Indian farmers, deeply attuned to the tenor of the skies, are changing when they plant their seeds. But changes in the weather also bring a sense of disorientation\u2014a loss of one's bearings. Everywhere I traveled over the eight years I have been working on this book, I heard stories about the weather\u2014stories of how it is not what it used to be. In many cases, these stories were prompted by a particular landscape that was familiar once, and is now unrecognizable. \"Look there,\" I was told by a longtime resident of Thanjavur on a trip through Tamil Nadu in 2012, \"when I was young, the river ran full, now it is completely dry.\"\n\nThere are many other kinds of loss that climate change threatens us with. A changing monsoon affects every form of life that depends on it. From the Gurukula botanical sanctuary in Wayanad, northern Kerala, Suprabha Seshan and her colleagues cultivate endangered plants native to the ecosystem of the Western Ghats, the western Indian mountain range that receives some of the most intensive rainfall during the summer monsoon. \"We refer to these plants as refugees,\" she writes; many have been rescued from areas where forests have already been cut down. \"The weather features regularly in our speech,\" she writes. The gardeners' work depends on an intuitive knowledge of the weather. But these patterns are changing. Seshan observes that \"ever since I have been here, about 24 years now, I have heard people talking about how the monsoon has gone awry, that it is no longer what it used to be. We also know this from scientific data, but crucially for us, we know this from the behaviour of the plants and animals in our sanctuary.\" Here, meteorological research and local perceptions match. Everyone is sure that the southwest monsoon has weakened\u2014and has become more unpredictable. Local species are \"confused,\" Seshan writes, by the weather's signals. Temperatures are too high for some mountain species to thrive, and rising temperatures bring new diseases. \"I worry,\" Seshan concludes, \"that the monsoon, with its moods and savage powers, might altogether cease.\"\n\nALONG THE COAST OF SOUTHEASTERN INDIA, TOO, ARE MANY SIGNS of irreversible change. In a small village near Pondicherry, earlier this decade, I met Mr. Rathnam, a fisherman in his fifties whose family have been fishers in the area for generations. On both sides of the narrow strip of beach on which we sat were granite sea walls. \"If not for these walls,\" he said, \"the sea would have taken this settlement long ago.\" The beach has been eaten away over the past twenty years, most noticeably by the construction of a large new port in Pondicherry, a few minutes down the coast. The Pondicherry port marked the beginning of an explosion in port construction in India, with dozens of ports currently planned for India's eastern and western seaboards. They eye the newly flourishing commercial opportunities of the Indian Ocean's littoral, which is vibrant again after falling into decline for the second half of the twentieth century. The ports cause enormous upheaval to the coastline. \"Where these boats are now,\" Mr. Rathnam said, pointing to the beach, \"those were all houses. Look, you can see the remains of the floors of houses.\" I saw little fragments jutting out from the soil, a small archive of coastal environmental history.\n\nThe remains of a house: an archive on the landscape of coastal erosion. CREDIT: Sunil Amrith\n\nHe is convinced that the sea is changing in ways beyond what is visible to the eye, beyond the visibly changing shape and extent of the beach. The weather is \"unpredictable,\" he said; \"the seasons seem to mean nothing now.\" He was convinced the monsoons are shifting, and in his narrative the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 was the moment when \"everything changed.\" The tsunami was a geological phenomenon, caused by an undersea earthquake, but to Mr. Rathnam it seemed a portent of fundamental change. He paused his story. \"I don't understand the sea anymore,\" he said, suddenly: the sea that he has known, intimately and instinctively, for a lifetime. I asked him what does the future holds. \"Nothing,\" he said; \"there will be no fish left to catch.\"\n\nA narrowing stretch of beach near Pondicherry, eroded by the construction of a new port. CREDIT: Sunil Amrith\n\nClimate change is not the most obvious or proximate cause of his distress. Here, as elsewhere in Asia, the effects of climate change compound a crisis already far advanced\u2014a product of reckless development and galloping inequality. Mr. Rathnam's livelihood has been threatened by the concentration of power in the hands of a small number of highly capitalized owners of large trawlers. There are fewer fish to catch because of what a recent report calls \"an uncontrolled addition of fishing boats between 1965 and 1998.\" The size of the catch has collapsed, and its composition has changed: fewer large predators, fewer fish that command high prices on the market. The dramatic fall in their incomes has pushed many small fishers ever deeper into debt. Development along the large highway down the coast from Chennai has led to a spike in property speculation, fueling a construction boom that flouts coastal zone regulations. A tidal wave of plastic, and effluent from factories and power plants, floats out to sea. Compounding each of those challenges, climate change is also now making itself felt. Rising sea surface temperatures in the Bay of Bengal have exceeded the boundaries that can sustain many forms of aquatic life.\n\nOne of the questions I asked Mr. Rathnam that day on the beach, was, \"What happened to the family that lived in this house, and others like them?\" One part of the answer, I expected\u2014there had been a large movement of younger people to the growing cities, and to Chennai in particular.\n\nBut there was another part of the answer that I did not expect. In light of the work I had spent the previous decade doing on migration across the Indian Ocean, I had the feeling of a very familiar map of migration being drawn before my eyes. All but the very poorest households in the village, Mr. Rathnam told me, has at least one family member overseas. A similar story emerged in the neighboring hamlet. Older routes of migration have been reinvigorated\u2014plenty of sons and nephews in the village were in Singapore and Malaysia, working in construction. Others had taken more recent paths. Many work on fishing fleets in the Persian Gulf. Colonial connections, too, continue to shape people's trajectories in Pondicherry, which was a French-ruled enclave within British India\u2014one older fisher turned to his memories of the \"French time,\" and then enumerated his family members now living in Paris. Old geographies still matter. In this part of South India, people experience and imagine climate change at home in relation to a constellation of distant places; family histories of mobility are reactivated as a means of support or insurance. But borders are harder than ever to cross. Every day, South Indian fishermen, struggling to make a living, stray into Sri Lankan territorial waters in search of fish; many have been arrested and detained by the Sri Lankan coast guard.\n\nPeople experience climate change in space as well as in time. They mark change in terms of their memories of the seasons as they used to be, or of epochal storms that now seem portents of the future. But they also mark it through traces on the landscape, through memories of old houses and old neighbors. Traces of those earlier times lie embedded as debris at the water's edge.\n\n# ACKNOWLEDGMENTS\n\nTHE RESEARCH I DID FOR THIS BOOK BETWEEN 2012 AND 2015 received funding under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP\/2007\u20132013\/ERC Grant Agreement 284053) from the European Research Council, held at Birkbeck College, London. Since 2015, my work has been supported by Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences; I am grateful to deans Michael Smith, Nina Zipser, and Laura Fisher for providing me with the resources that make my work possible. More recently I have benefited from the support of the Infosys Science Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation, and their extraordinary generosity has helped me bring this project to a conclusion. I would also like to thank Carol Richards and the late David Richards for their generous support of the Center for History and Economics.\n\nThe research for this book would not have been possible without the help of many fine archivists and librarians. Within the wonderful Harvard library system, I would especially like to thank Fred Burchstead, Ramona Islam and Richard Lesage, Laura Linard at the Baker Library, and everyone at the Map Collection. The staff at the Asian and African Studies reading room at the British Library have helped me over many years and many projects. In India I would like to thank the staff of the National Archives of India and the Nehru Memorial Museum in Delhi; Kiran Pandey at the Centre for Science and Environment's library; the staff of the Tamil Nadu State Archives in Chennai; and the Maharashtra State Archives Department in Mumbai. Elsewhere, I would like to thank the staff of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, the World Bank Archives in Washington, DC, the National Archives of Myanmar in Yangon, and the National Archives of Sri Lanka, Colombo.\n\nOver the years I have been working on this book, there has been a revolution in digitization. Sources that I spent weeks or months locating are now, as I write this, freely available online. A particular treasure for historians of South Asia has been the digitization of the library of the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics. That remarkable institution's collection of reports, occasional papers, and theses span a century and are now available to historians everywhere; this is truly a public service. The National Archives of India, too, has embarked on an ambitious program of digitization; access came too late for me to make use of these digitized materials in this book, but it will make new kinds of work possible in the future.\n\nI have benefited from excellent research assistance over the course of writing this book. I would like to thank Sneha, who was indefatigable in finding sources at the National Archives in Delhi, and to two Harvard undergraduates, Aaisha Shah and Ellie Lasater-Guttman, who tracked down many textual and visual materials for me.\n\nI am grateful to the many people who have shared their stories and memories with me over the course of writing this book. From among the extraordinary community of Indian meteorologists who have dedicated their careers to understanding the monsoon, I am especially grateful to Ranjan Kelkar, S. Raghavan, and S. R. Ramanan, who were generous with their time and spent many hours talking to me. They also shared unpublished material with me, and facilitated access to the wealth of material in the libraries of the Regional Meteorology Centre, Chennai, and the India Meteorological Department in Pune. There are many more people to thank who preferred to speak informally or to remain anonymous: my understanding of water and climate would have been poorer without the opportunity to learn from many fishers and cultivators and government officials in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry. I would particularly like to thank R. Rajamanickam for an illuminating introduction to coastal communities around Pondicherry, and for setting up some initial interviews.\n\nWriting about the history of meteorology has taken me far from my areas of expertise, and I am deeply grateful for the advice of colleagues in the fields of tropical meteorology and climate science. Professor Peter Webster of Emory University and Marena Lin of Harvard's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences were generous in answering questions and sharing unpublished work with me; I am particularly grateful to Professor Adam Sobel of Columbia University who read drafts of two chapters, providing invaluable feedback, clarifying my understanding, and saving me from errors.\n\nMy wonderful literary agent, Don Fehr, has been supportive and encouraging throughout the process. Don made it possible for me to work with an editorial \"dream team\" of Brian Distelberg at Basic Books and Simon Winder at Penguin. Brian's thorough and deeply insightful comments on a ramshackle draft pushed me to sharpen the argument and tighten the structure. Simon's edits were brilliant, honing in on where I had been evasive and suggesting many fruitful comparisons and connections. The final version has benefited enormously from the meticulous and thoughtful line editing of Roger Labrie, and from Bill Warhop's sensitive copyediting. Melissa Veronesi oversaw the production process with grace and efficiency.\n\nLOOKING BACK AT MY CAREER OVER THE PAST FIFTEEN YEARS, nothing makes me happier than that Emma Rothschild, the scholar from whom I have learned more than from anyone else, is now my closest colleague. Nobody has done more to support and inspire my work. I depend on her advice even more now than when I first arrived on her doorstep as a graduate student.\n\nI began this book while I was at Birkbeck College, University of London, where I taught for nine years. I would like to thank my former colleagues at Birkbeck, especially Chandak Sengoopta and Hilary Sapire. Since arriving at Harvard in 2015, I have accumulated many debts. I have been lucky to have the support of three exceptional deans: Diana Sorensen followed by Robin Kelsey in the Division of Arts and Humanities, and Claudine Gay in the Division of Social Science. Thomas Skerry eased my move to Harvard in many ways. At the Department of South Asian Studies, Cheryl Henderson's kindness and efficiency make everything possible; I would also like to thank Parimal Patil for his support during his time as the department's chair. At the Department of History, I have been fortunate to work with Rob Chung, Kimberly Richards O'Hagan, and their team. I am grateful to David Armitage and Dan Smail for their kindness during their respective terms as chair. At the Center for History and Economics, it is truly a pleasure to work with Emily Gauthier and Jennifer Nickerson\u2014their dedication sustains the amazing intellectual community of the center. I would also like to express my thanks to the staff of the Harvard Asia Center, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, and the Harvard University Center for the Environment.\n\nFor their warmth and camaraderie and for many kinds of help, I would like to thank friends and colleagues at Harvard: Sugata Bose, Allan Brandt, Richard Delacy, Arunabh Ghosh, David Jones, Gabriela Soto Laveaga, Kenneth Mack, Durba Mitra, Jonathan Ripley, Charles Rosenberg, Amartya Sen, Ajantha Subramanian, Michael Szonyi, and Karen Thornber.\n\nThe greatest joy of moving to Harvard has been the opportunity to work with a remarkable group of students. My undergraduate students' commitment to positive change, their courage, and their talent give me optimism for the future in these dark times. I have also been privileged to work with many outstanding graduate students: Mou Banerjee, Aniket De, Yuting Dong, Shireen Hamza, Neelam Khoja, Kiran Kumbhar, Lei Lin, Amulya Mandava, Tsitsi Mangosho, Mircea Raianu, Priyasha Saksena, Hannah Shepherd, and, beyond Harvard, Jack Loveridge and Lucas Mueller. I am especially grateful to the four students I've worked with most closely over the last three years: Divya Chandramouli, Hardeep Dhillon, Sarah Kennedy Bates, and Iris Yellum\u2014I have learned far more from them than they have from me.\n\nDispersed though they are across the world, I am always grateful for the friendship of Isabel Hofmeyr, Maya Jasanoff, Diana Kim, Sumit Mandal, Mahesh Rangarajan, Taylor Sherman, Naoko Shimazu, Benjamin Siegel, Kavita Sivaramakrishnan, Glenda Sluga, Eric Tagliacozzo, and A. R. Venkatachalapathy\u2014each of them is a model of scholarly integrity, generosity, and kindness. This time again, I owe a particular debt to Tim Harper.\n\nFor helpful conversations, ideas, or invitations to present my work, I would like to thank: Seema Alavi, Michiel Baas, Abhijit Banerjee, Ritu Birla, Anne Blackburn, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Joya Chatterji, Rohit De, Prasenjit Duara, David Engerman, Amitav Ghosh, Ramachandra Guha, Anne Hansen, Namrata Kala, Akash Kapur, Adil Hasan Khan, Sunil Khilnani, T. M. Krishna, Michael Laffan, Melissa Lane, David Ludden, Amala Mahadevan, Rochona Majumdar, Farina Mir, Kazuya Nakamizo, Michael Ondaatje, Prasannan Parthasarathi, Jahnavi Phalkey, Gyan Prakash, Srinath Raghavan, Bhavani Raman, Jonathan Rigg, Harriet Ritvo, Tansen Sen, Tomoko Shiroyama, Mrinalini Sinha, Vineeta Sinha, Helen Siu, K. Sivaramakrishnan, Smriti Srinivas, Julia Stephens, Kohei Wakimura, Roland Wenzlhumer, and Nira Wickramasinghe. I join many people around the world in mourning the loss of Christopher Bayly, who remains a guiding light.\n\nTHIS IS THE FIRST BOOK I HAVE WRITTEN SINCE BECOMING A PARENT, and I could not do my work without the work of many others. I am full of admiration for the creative and nurturing teachers at Radcliffe Child Care Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and I appreciate deeply the care of Marlene Boyette, Pearl Kerber, and Uyen-Nguyen Tran. I am grateful to the many people who have made Cambridge, Massachusetts, feel like home: Ian Miller and Crate Herbert, who have welcomed us from the start; Priyanka Shankar; the kind neighbors on our street; the community of Radcliffe parents, and especially Laura Muir and Danny Pallin; all at Cambridge Friends Meeting.\n\nMy family has sustained me through this time of many transitions. Barbara Phillips has been a caring presence and she has often put her own plans on hold and traveled a long way to help look after the children. Megha Amrith has been many things\u2014an intellectual inspiration, a listening ear, a trusted source of advice, a wonderful travel companion, and a loving and enthusiastic aunt to my children. Over these years we are lucky to have added Andreas Werner and his parents to our extended family. Jairam and Shantha Amrith have given me everything\u2014and they continue to support me in everything that I do.\n\nNothing I have ever achieved would have been possible without the love and generosity of Ruth Coffey. The origins of this book lie in conversations I had with Ruth a decade ago, when she was studying for a master's degree in environmental management in London; those conversations have developed over many travels together in South and Southeast Asia. Over the past few years my absence on research trips has placed an additional burden of childcare on her, and she has taken it on with grace while embarking on a judicial career in England, teaching law at Harvard, and pursuing many other projects. She is my anchor and my guiding light.\n\nTheodore was born when this book was in its early stages, and he has traveled many miles with me in search of water stories. I am blessed by the exuberant joy he brings to every day. He started to read just as I was writing the last sentences of this book\u2014he asked me the other day if it was finished, and suggested that my next book should be written for children. Lydia arrived as this project neared its conclusion, and she has made my life richer and more full of wonder. I dedicate this book to them both, with love and gratitude.\n\n**S UNIL AMRITH** is the Mehra Family Professor of South Asian Studies and Professor of History at Harvard University and a 2017 MacArthur Fellow. The prize-winning author of _Crossing the Bay of Bengal_ (2013), as well as several other books and articles, he lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.\n\n# ALSO BY SUNIL AMRITH\n\n_Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants_\n\n_Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia_\n\n_Decolonizing International Health: India and Southeast Asia, 1930\u201365_\n\n# ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS\n\nBRITISH LIBRARY, LONDON\n\n_India Office Records_\n\nEast India Company Board of Control Records\n\nEast India Company Factory Records\n\nEconomic Department Records\n\nMarine Records\n\nPublic & Judicial Department Records\n\nPolitical & Secret Records\n\nOfficial Publications Series\n\nNATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM, GREENWICH\n\nBritish India Steam Navigation Company papers\n\nIrrawaddy Flotilla Company papers [uncataloged]\n\nNATIONAL ARCHIVES OF INDIA, NEW DELHI\n\nDepartment of Revenue and Agriculture\n\nDepartment of Revenue, Agriculture and Commerce\n\nDepartment of Education, Health and Lands\n\nDepartment of Industries and Labour: Meteorology\n\nHome Department, Judicial Branch & Public Branch\n\nMeteorological Department\n\nMinistry of External Affairs\n\nMinistry of Irrigation\n\nMinistry of States\n\nPolitical Department\n\nTAMIL NADU STATE ARCHIVES, CHENNAI\n\nFisheries Department\n\nPublic Works Department\n\nMAHARASHTRA STATE ARCHIVES DEPARTMENT, MUMBAI\n\nPublic Works Department: Irrigation, 1868\u20131909\n\nINDIA METEOROLOGICAL DEPARTMENT, PUNE\n\nMiscellaneous reports, charts, and memoirs\n\nWORLD BANK GROUP ARCHIVES, WASHINGTON, DC\n\nDamodar Multi-Purpose Project, India: Administration, Correspondence, and Negotiations, 1953\u20131957\n\nDrought Prone Areas Project, India: Correspondence, 1973\u20131985\n\nIndus Basin Dispute, General Negotiations and Correspondence, 1949\u20131960\n\nUttar Pradesh Tube Wells Projects, India: Correspondence, 1961\u20131992\n\n# NOTES\n\nCHAPTER ONE: THE SHAPE OF MODERN ASIA\n\n1. E. M. Forster, _A Passage to India_ (London: Edward Arnold, 1924), 116; Pranay Lal, _Indica: A Deep Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent_ (New Delhi: Allen Lane, 2017), 258.\n\n2. Norton Ginsburg, ed., _The Pattern of Asia_ (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1958), 5\u20136.\n\n3. V. Ramanathan et al., \"Atmospheric Brown Clouds: Impact on South Asian Climate and Hydrological Cycle,\" _Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences_ 102 (2005): 5326\u20135333.\n\n4. Asia Society, _Asia's Next Challenge: Securing the Region's Water Future, a Report by the Leadership Group on Water Security in Asia_ (New York: Asia Society, 2009), 9; C. J. V\u00f6r\u00f6smarty et al., \"Global Threats to Human Water Security and River Biodiversity,\" _Nature_ 467 (September 30, 2010): 555\u2013561; Chris Buckley and Vanessa Piao, \"Rural Water, Not City Smog, May be China's Pollution Nightmare,\" _New York Times,_ April 11, 2016; Malavika Vyawahare, \"Not Just Scarcity, Groundwater Contamination Is India's Hidden Crisis,\" _Hindustan Times,_ March 22, 2017.\n\n5. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, _Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability_ (Geneva: IPCC, 2014); World Bank, _Turn Down the Heat: Climate Extremes, Regional Impacts, and the Case for Resilience_ (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013); Deepti Singh et al., \"Observed Changes in Extreme Wet and Dry Spells During the South Asian Summer Monsoon,\" _Nature Climate Change_ 4 (2014): 456\u2013461.\n\n6. Benjamin Strauss, \"Coastal Nations, Megacities, Face 20 Feet of Sea Rise,\" Climate Central, July 9, 2015, accessed January 12, 2018, www.climatecentral.org\/news\/nations-megacities-face-20-feet-of-sea-level-rise-19217.\n\n7. Mike Davis, _Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster_ (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1998); David Blackbourn, _The Conquest of Nature: Water, Landscape, and the Making of Modern Germany_ (New York: W.W. Norton, 2006).\n\n8. Dipesh Chakrabarty, \"The Climate of History, Four Theses,\" _Critical Inquiry_ 35 (2009): 197\u2013222.\n\n9. Amitav Ghosh, _The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable_ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016).\n\n10. Karl Wittfogel, _Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power_ (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957).\n\n11. Much of the scholarship on Chinese environmental history over the long term is surveyed in Mark Elvin, _The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China_ (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004); see also Peter Perdue, _Exhausting the Earth: State and Peasant in Hunan, 1550\u20131850_ (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986), and Kenneth Pomeranz, _The Making of a Hinterland: State, Society, and Economy in Inland North China, 1853\u20131937_ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). On India, key works include Dharma Kumar, _Land and Caste in South India: Agricultural Labour in the Madras Presidency During the Nineteenth Century_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965); C. J. Baker, _An Indian Rural Economy: The Tamilnad Countryside, 1880\u20131955_ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), and Sugata Bose, _Agrarian Bengal: Economy, Social Structure and Politics, 1919\u20131947_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).\n\n12. Marc Bloch, _The Historian's Craft,_ trans. Peter Putnam (New York: Knopf, 1953), 26.\n\n13. Fernand Braudel, \"Histoire et sciences sociales: la longue dur\u00e9e,\" _Annales, economies, soci\u00e9t\u00e9s, civilisations_ 13 (1958), 725\u2013753; K. N. Chaudhuri, _Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), quotation from Braudel on p. 23.\n\n14. \"Sampling device,\" from Charles E. Rosenberg, _Explaining Epidemics and Other Studies in the History of Medicine_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 279.\n\n15. Kenneth Pomeranz, \"The Great Himalayan Watershed: Water Shortages, Mega-Projects and Environmental Politics in China, India, and Southeast Asia,\" _Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus_ 7 (2009): 1\u201329.\n\n16. Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore, _A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet_ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017), 44\u201363.\n\n17. Eric Hobsbawm, _The Age of Capital, 1848\u20131875_ (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1975), 48.\n\n18. Ramachandra Guha, _India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy_ (London: HarperCollins, 2007).\n\n19. Peter D. Clift and R. Alan Plumb, _The Asian Monsoon: Causes, History and Effects_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), vii.\n\n20. Sunita Narain, Science and Democracy Lecture, Harvard University, December 4, 2017.\n\n21. Gilbert T. Walker, \"The Meteorology of India,\" _Journal of the Royal Society of Arts_ 73 (1925): 838\u2013855, quotation on p. 839; Charles Normand, \"Monsoon Seasonal Forecasting,\" _Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society_ 79 (1953): 463\u2013473, 469; A. Turner and H. Annamalai, \"Climate Change and the South Asian Monsoon,\" _Nature Climate Change_ 2 (2012): 587\u2013595.\n\n22. Bob Yirka, \"Earliest Example of Large Hydraulic Enterprise Excavated in China,\" Phys.org, December 5, 2017, accessed December 15, 2017, phys.org\/news\/2017-12-earliest-large-hydraulic-enterprise-excavated.amp.\n\nCHAPTER TWO: WATER AND EMPIRE\n\n1. \"Madras Government request the Court of Directors' sanction for the expenditure of 5000 rupees on deepening the Pamban Channel between India and Ceylon,\" October 1833\u2013March 1835, Board's Collections: British Library [hereafter BL] India Office Records [hereafter IOR], F\/4\/1523\/60207.\n\n2. H. Morris, \"A Descriptive and Historical Account of the Godavery District in the Presidency of Madras,\" (1878): BL, IOR, V\/27\/66\/18.\n\n3. E. Halley, \"An Historical Account of the Trade Winds and the Monsoons, Observable in the Seas Between and Near the Tropicks, with an attempt to assign the physical cause of the sail winds,\" _Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London_ 16 (1686): 153\u2013168.\n\n4. The clearest explanations of the monsoon can be found in Peter J. Webster, \"Monsoons,\" _Scientific American_ 245 (1981): 108\u2013119; and Peter D. Clift and R. Alan Plumb, _The Asian Monsoon: Causes, History and Effects_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).\n\n5. Jos Gommans, _Mughal Warfare: Indian Frontiers and Highroads to Empire, 1500\u20131700_ (London: Routledge, 2003), chapter 1; Jos Gommans, \"The Silent Frontier of South Asia, c. AD 1100\u20131800,\" _Journal of World History_ 9, no. 1 (1998): 1\u201323.\n\n6. Victor Lieberman, _Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800\u20131830,_ vol. 2, _Mainland Mirrors: Europe, Japan, China, South Asia, and the Islands_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 632\u2013636.\n\n7. Diana Eck, \"Ganga: The Goddess in Hindu Sacred Geography,\" in _The Divine Consort: Radha and the Goddesses of India,_ ed. John Hawley and Donna Wulff (Boston: Beacon Press, 1982), 166\u2013183; Diana Eck, _India: A Sacred Geography_ (New York: Harmony, 2012); Anne Feldhaus, _Connected Places: Religion, Pilgrimage and the Geographical Imagination in India_ (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).\n\n8. Karl Wittfogel, _Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power_ (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957); Kathleen D. Morrison, \"Dharmic Projects, Imperial Reservoirs, and New Temples of India: An Historical Perspective on Dams in India,\" _Conservation and Society_ 8 (2010): 182\u2013195; Kathleen D. Morrison, _Daroji Valley: Landscape, Place, and the Making of a Dryland Reservoir System_ (New Delhi: Manohar Press, 2009).\n\n9. Peter Jackson, _The Delhi Sultanate_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Sunil Kumar, _The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate, 1192\u20131286_ (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007).\n\n10. James L. Wescoat Jr., \"Early Water Systems in Mughal India,\" _Environmental Design: Journal of the Islamic Environmental Design Research Centre_ 2, ed. Attilo Petruccioli (Rome: Carucci Editions, 1985), 51\u201357.\n\n11. _Babur Nama,_ trans. Annette Susannah Beveridge (New Delhi: Penguin, 2006), 93, 264\u2013265. For later discussion of Mughal-era irrigation, see Irfan Habib, _The Agrarian System of Mughal India (1556\u20131707)_ (London: Asia Publishing House, 1963), 24\u201336.\n\n12. Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, eds., _The Mughal State, 1526\u20131750_ (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998); Lieberman, _Strange Parallels,_ 636\u2013637.\n\n13. John F. Richards, _The Mughal Empire_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Lieberman, _Strange Parallels_.\n\n14. Gommans, _Mughal Warfare_.\n\n15. Gommans, _Mughal Warfare_ ; _The Akbarnama of Abu'l Fazl_ , vol. 3, trans. H. Beveridge (Calcutta: Asiatic Society, 1910), 135\u2013136.\n\n16. Irfan Habib, _An Atlas of the Mughal Empire_ (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1982), reference to Kanauj on plate 8B.\n\n17. Prasannan Parthasarathi and Giorgio Riello, \"The Indian Ocean in the Long Eighteenth Century,\" _Eighteenth-Century Studies_ 48 (Fall 2014): 1\u201319.\n\n18. Anthony Reid, \"Southeast Asian Consumption of Indian and British Cotton Cloth, 1600\u20131850,\" in _How India Clothed the World: The World of South Asian Textiles, 1500\u20131850,_ ed. Giorgio Riello and Tirthankar Roy (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 31\u201352.\n\n19. Armando Coresao, trans., _The Suma Oriental of Tom\u00e9 Pires_ (London: Hakluyt Society, 1944), 3:92\u201393.\n\n20. Sinappah Arasaratnam, _Merchants, Companies and Commerce on the Coromandel Coast 1650\u20131740_ (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986), 98\u201399.\n\n21. Sanjay Subrahmanyam and C. A. Bayly, \"Portfolio Capitalists and the Political Economy of Early Modern India,\" _Indian Economic and Social History Review_ 25 (1988): 401\u2013424; Richards, _The Mughal Empire_ ; Alam and Subrahmanyam, eds., _The Mughal State_ ; \"giant pump\" from Lieberman, _Strange Parallels,_ 694\u2013696.\n\n22. David Ludden, \"History Outside Civilisation and the Mobility of South Asia,\" _South Asia_ 17 (1994): 1\u201323.\n\n23. H. V. Bowen, John McAleer, and Robert J. Blyth, _Monsoon Traders: The Maritime World of the East India Company_ (London: Scala, 2011).\n\n24. C. A. Bayly, _Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).\n\n25. C. A. Bayly, _Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 1; Murari Kumar Jha, \"The Rhythms of the Economy and Navigation along the Ganga River,\" in _From the Bay of Bengal to the South China Sea,_ ed. Satish Chandra and Himanshu Prabha Ray (New Delhi: Manohar, 2013), 221\u2013247.\n\n26. James Rennell, _Memoir of a Map of Hindoostan; or, The Mogul Empire_ (London: M. Brown, 1788), 280.\n\n27. T. F. Robinson, \"William Roxburgh, 1751\u20131815: The Founding Father of Indian Botany\" (PhD dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 2003).\n\n28. \"A Meteorological Diary, & c. Kept at Fort St. George in the East Indies. By Mr William Roxburgh, Assistant-Surgeon to the Hospital at Said Fort. Communicated by Sir John Pringle, Bart. P.R.S.,\" _Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London_ 68 (1778): 180\u2013193.\n\n29. Robinson, \"William Roxburgh.\"\n\n30. Alexander Dalrymple, ed., _Oriental Repertory_ (London: G. Biggs, 1793\u20131797), 2:58\u201359.\n\n31. Record of proceedings at Fort Saint George, February 8, 1793, Madras Public Consultations, January 28\u2013March 8, 1793, BL IOR, P\/241\/37.\n\n32. Letter from William Roxburgh to Joseph Banks, August 30, 1791: BL, IOR, European Manuscripts, EUR\/K148, ff. 243\u201347; Andrew Ross cited in Robinson, \"William Roxburgh,\" 224n4.\n\n33. William Roxburgh, \"Remarks on the Land Winds and their Causes,\" _Transactions of the Medical Society of London_ (1810), 189\u2013211.\n\n34. Richard H. Grove, _Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600\u20131860_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 399\u2013400.\n\n35. Richard Drayton, _Nature's Government: Science, Imperial Britain, and the \"Improvement\" of the World_ (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000).\n\n36. Letter from William Roxburgh to Andrew Ross, February 14, 1793, in Dalrymple, _Oriental Repertory,_ 73.\n\n37. Dalrymple, _Oriental Repertory,_ 56; Robinson, \"William Roxburgh,\" quotations on pp. 237\u2013238, 241.\n\n38. Jurgen Osterhammel, _The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century_ , trans. Patrick Camiller (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014), 656; E. A. Wrigley, _Energy and the English Industrial Revolution_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 91\u2013112; Terje Tvedt, _Water and Society: Changing Perceptions of Societal and Historical Development_ (London: I.B. Tauris 2016), 19\u201344.\n\n39. Joseph Dalton Hooker, _Himalayan Journals: Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains & c._ (London: J. Murray, 1854), 1:87.\n\n40. James Ranald Martin, _Notes on the Medical Topography of Calcutta_ (Calcutta: G.H. Huttmann, 1837), 90\u201393; on climate and racial thinking, see David Arnold, _The Tropics and the Traveling Gaze: India, Landscape and Science, 1800\u20131856_ (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005).\n\n41. Arthur Thomas Cotton, \"Report on the Irrigation, & c., of Rajahmundry District\" [1844], House of Commons Sessional Papers, XLI (1850), quotation on pp. 4\u20135 of Cotton's report.\n\n42. Cotton, \"Report on the Irrigation, & c., of Rajahmundry District,\" 13.\n\n43. Arthur Cotton, \"On a Communication between India and China by the line of the Burhampooter and Yang-tsze,\" _Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_ 37 (1867): 231\u2013239, quotation on p. 232.\n\n44. For a detailed account of their rivalry, see Alan Robertson, _Epic Engineering: Great Canals and Barrages of Victorian India,_ ed. Jeremy Berkoff (Melrose, UK: Beechwood Melrose Publishing, 2013).\n\n45. Anthony Acciavatti, _Ganges Water Machine: Designing New India's Ancient River_ (New York: Applied Research and Design Publishing, 2015), 120.\n\n46. James L. Wescoat Jr., \"The Water and Landscape Heritage of Mughal Delhi,\" accessed June 22, 2016, www.delhiheritagecity.org\/pdfhtml\/mughal\/JW-the-water-and-landscape-heritage-of-mughal-delhi-Oct8.pdf.\n\n47. Henry Yule, \"A Canal Act of the Emperor Akbar, with some notes and remarks on the History of the Western Jumna Canals,\" _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_ 15 (1846).\n\n48. Proby Cautley, \"On the Use of Wells, etc. in Foundations as Practiced by the Natives of the Northern Doab,\" _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_ 8 (1839): 327\u2013340.\n\n49. Proby Cautley, _Report on the Central Doab Canal,_ BL, IOR, V\/27\/733\/3\/1.\n\n50. G. W. MacGeorge, _Ways and Works in India: Being an Account of Public Works in that Country from the Earliest Times up to the Present Day_ (London: Archibald Constable & Company, 1894), 153.\n\n51. B. H. Tremenheere, \"On Public Works in the Bengal Presidency,\" _Minutes of Proceedings of the Institute of Civil Engineers_ 17 (1858): 483\u2013513.\n\n52. Proby T. Cautley, _Report on the Ganges Canal Works: from their Commencement until the Opening of the Canal in 1854,_ 3 vols. (London: Smith, Elder & Co, 1860), 3:2.\n\n53. Jan Lucassen, \"The Brickmakers' Strike on the Ganges Canal in 1848\u20131849,\" _International Review of Social History_ 51 (2006) supplement: 47\u201383.\n\n54. Ganges Canal Committee, _A Short Account of the Ganges Canal_ (Calcutta: Ganges Canal Committee, 1854), 3; the Hindi version was published as _Ganga Ki Nahar Ka Sankshepa Varnana_ (Agra: Ganges Canal Committee, 1854).\n\n55. \"Short Account of the Ganges Canal,\" _North American Review,_ October 1855, 81.\n\n56. David Washbrook, \"Law, State and Agrarian Society in Colonial India,\" _Modern Asian Studies_ 15, no. 3 (1981): 648\u2013721; Mayo quoted in David Ludden, _India and South Asia: A Short History_ (London: Oneworld, 2014), 150.\n\n57. David Mosse (with assistance from M. Sivan), _The Rule of Water: Statecraft, Ecology, and Collective Action in South India_ (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003), 29; Terje Tvedt, \"'Water Systems': Environmental History and the Deconstruction of Nature,\" _Environment and History_ 16 (2010): 143\u2013166, quotation on p. 160.\n\n58. Amitav Ghosh, \"Of Fanas and Forecastles: The Indian Ocean and Some Lost Languages of the Age of Sail,\" _Economic and Political Weekly_ , June 21, 2008, 56\u201362.\n\n59. Henry T. Bernstein, _Steamboats on the Ganges: An Exploration in the History of India's Modernization through Science and Technology_ (Bombay: Orient Longmans, 1960), 7\u20138, 13\u201316.\n\n60. \"Impediments to the Traffic on the Ganges and Jumna, arising from the number of customs chokeys,\" (February 5, 1833), BL, IOR, F\/4\/1506.\n\n61. Bernstein, _Steamboats,_ 28\u201331.\n\n62. Bernstein, _Steamboats,_ 84\u201399.\n\n63. David Arnold, _Science, Technology and Medicine in Colonial India_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).\n\n64. Bernstein, _Steamboats,_ 99.\n\n65. William Cronon, _Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West_ (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991), 74; Richard White, _Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America_ (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011).\n\n66. Ian Kerr, _Engines of Change: The Railroads That Made India_ (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007).\n\n67. Minute by Lord Dalhousie to the Court of Directors, April 20, 1853, in _Railway Construction in India: Select Documents,_ ed. S. Settar (New Delhi: Indian Council of Historical Research, 1999), 2:23\u201357.\n\n68. MacGeorge, _Ways and Works,_ 221.\n\n69. Karl Marx, \"The Future Results of the British Rule in India,\" _New York Daily Tribune,_ August 8, 1853; Edwin Merrall, _A Letter to Col. Arthur Cotton, upon the Introduction of Railways in India upon the English Plan_ (London: E. Wilson, 1860), quotations on pp. 8 and 47.\n\n70. MacGeorge, _Ways and Works,_ 422\u2013426, quotation on p. 426; Ian J. Kerr, _Engines of Change: The Railroads That Made India_ (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007).\n\n71. C. H. Lushington, quoted in Tarasankar Banerjee, _Internal Market of India, 1834\u20131900_ (Calcutta: Academic Publishers, 1966), 90\u201391.\n\n72. Quotation from Banerjee, _Internal Market,_ 323; Dave Donaldson, \"Railroads of the Raj: Estimating the Impact of Transportation Infrastructure,\" (working paper, MIT\/NBER, 2010); Robin Burgess and Dave Donaldson, \"Railroads the Demise of Famine in Colonial India,\" (working paper, LSE\/MIT\/NBER, 2012).\n\n73. On immobility see Joya Chatterji, \"On Being Stuck in Bengal: Immobility in the 'Age of Mobility,'\" _Modern Asian Studies_ 51 (2017): 511\u2013541; quotation from Arnold, _Science, Technology and Medicine,_ 110.\n\n74. MacGeorge, _Ways and Works,_ 220\u2013221, 358; Madhav Rao, cited in Kerr, _Engines of Change,_ 4.\n\n75. Arnold, _Science, Technology, and Medicine_.\n\n76. MacGeorge, _Ways and Works,_ 328\u2013331; Kerr, _Engines of Change,_ 47\u201351.\n\n77. Rudyard Kipling, \"The Bridge Builders,\" in _The Day's Work_ (New York: Doubleday & McClure, 1899), 3\u201350.\n\n78. W. W. Hunter, _Statistical Account of Bengal_ (London: Trubner & Co., 1877), 14:31. On railways and the ecology of malaria: Iftekhar Iqbal, _The Bengal Delta: Ecology, State, and Social Change, 1840\u20131943_ (Basingstoke: Palgrave\/Macmillan, 2010), 117\u2013139.\n\n79. _New York Observer and Chronicle,_ December 8, 1864.\n\n80. J. E. Gastrell and Henry F. Blanford, _Report on the Calcutta Cyclone of the 5th of October 1864_ (Calcutta: O.T. Cutter, 1866), 11, 31\u201332.\n\n81. Gastrell and Blanford, _Calcutta Cyclone,_ 139.\n\n82. Gastrell and Blanford, _Calcutta Cyclone,_ 109, 127.\n\n83. Henry Piddington, _The Sailor's Horn-Book for the Law of Storms_ (London: John Wiley, 1848); description of \"storm wave\" in Henry Piddington, _The Horn-Book of Storms for the Indian and China Seas_ (Calcutta: Bishop's College Press, 1844), 20; Piddington's inspiration was William Reid, _An Attempt to Develop the Law of Storms By Means of Facts_ (London: John Weale, 1838).\n\n84. Gastrell and Blanford, _Calcutta Cyclone,_ 11\u201313.\n\n85. Gastrell and Blanford, _Calcutta Cyclone,_ 4.\n\n86. Gastrell and Blanford, _Calcutta Cyclone,_ 70.\n\n87. Gastrell and Blanford, _Calcutta Cyclone,_ 14\u201315.\n\n88. Gastrell and Blanford, _Calcutta Cyclone,_ 108.\n\n89. Hooker, _Himalayan Journals,_ 1:97.\n\nCHAPTER THREE: THIS PARCHED LAND\n\n1. Mike Davis, _Late Victorian Holocausts: El Ni\u00f1o Famines and the Making of the Third World_ (London: Verso, 2001); on the China famine, see Kathryn Edgerton-Tarpley, _Tears from Iron: Cultural Responses to Famine in Nineteenth-Century China_ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008).\n\n2. _The Constitution of the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha and its Rules_ (Poona, 1870); quote from S. R. Mehrotra, \"The Poona Sarvajanik Sabha: The Early Phase (1870\u20131880),\" _Indian Economic and Social History Review_ 9 (1969): 293\u2013321; C. A. Bayly, _Recovering Liberties: Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).\n\n3. Poona Sarvajanik Sabha, \"Famine Narrative, No. 1,\" October 21, 1876.\n\n4. _Medical and Sanitary Report of the Native Army of Madras, for the Year 1875_ (Madras: Government Press, 1876), 49; _Report of the Indian Famine Commission_ , 2 vols. (London: HM Stationery Office, 1880); William Digby, _The Famine Campaign in Southern India_ (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1878), 1:6; W. W. Hunter, _The Indian Empire: Its People, History and Products_ (London: Trubner & Co., 1886), 542. For a perspective from current climate science: Edward R. Cook et al., \"Asian Monsoon Failure and Megadrought over the Last Millennium,\" _Science_ 328 (2010): 486\u2013489.\n\n5. Arup Maharatna, \"Regional Variation in Demographic Consequences of Famines in Late 19th Century and Early 20th Century India,\" _Economic and Political Weekly_ 29 (June 4, 1994): 1399\u20131410; Arup Maharatna, _The Demography of Famines: An Indian Historical Perspective_ (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996); Tim Dyson, \"On the Demography of South Asian Famines, I,\" _Population Studies_ 45 (1991): 5\u201325.\n\n6. Richard Strachey, \"Physical Causes of Indian Famines,\" May 18, 1877, _Notices of the Proceedings of the Meetings of the Members of the Royal Institution of Great Britain_ 8 (1879): 407\u2013426.\n\n7. \"The Famine, Letter from the Affected Districts,\" _The Examiner,_ March 24, 1877, 363.\n\n8. Digby, _Famine Campaign,_ 1:67\u201368, 1:155\u2013156.\n\n9. Digby, _Famine Campaign,_ 1:174\u2013175.\n\n10. J. Norman Lockyer and W. Hunter, \"Sun-Spots and Famines,\" _The Nineteenth Century,_ (November 1877), 601.\n\n11. Strachey, \"Physical Causes,\" 411.\n\n12. Mark Elvin, \"Who Was Responsible for the Weather? Moral Meteorology in Late Imperial China,\" _Osiris_ 13 (1998): 213\u2013237; Richard White, _The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865\u20131896_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 425\u2013427.\n\n13. \"The Causes of Famine in India,\" _New York Times (NYT),_ August 25, 1878, 6.\n\n14. \"The Famine: Letter from the Affected Districts,\" _The Examiner,_ March 24, 1877, 363.\n\n15. \"Causes of Famine,\" _NYT,_ August 25, 1878.\n\n16. Villiyappa Pillai, _Panchalakshana Thirumukavilasam_ [1899] (Madurai: Sri Ramachandra Press, 1932).\n\n17. W. G. Pedder, \"Famine and Debt in India,\" _The Nineteenth Century_ (September 1877).\n\n18. Digby, _Famine Campaign,_ 1:172\u2013174.\n\n19. Letter from Sarvajanik Sabha Rooms to S. C. Bayley, Additional Secretary to the Government of India, April 1, 1878, in Poona Sarvajanik Sabha, _Journal_ 1 (1878).\n\n20. \"Letter from the Affected Districts\" (1877), 363.\n\n21. Richard H. Grove, _Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600\u20131860_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Diana K. Davis, _The Arid Lands: History, Power, Knowledge_ (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press [2016]).\n\n22. Cited in Davis, _Arid Lands,_ 83.\n\n23. \"Causes of Famine,\" _NYT,_ August 25, 1878.\n\n24. Philindus, \"Famines and Floods in India,\" _Macmillan's Magazine,_ November 1, 1877, 236\u2013256; George Perkins Marsh, _Man and Nature, or, Physical Geography As Modified by Human Action_ (New York: Scribner, 1865).\n\n25. \"Famine Narrative no. 1,\" October 21, 1876, in Poona Sarvajanik Sabha, _Journal_ 1.\n\n26. Ramachandra Guha, \"An Early Environmental Debate: The Making of the 1878 Forest Act,\" _Indian Economic and Social History Review_ 27 (1990): 65\u201384.\n\n27. Valentine Ball, \"On Jungle Products Used as Articles of Food in Chota Nagpur,\" in _Jungle Life in India: Or, the Journeys and Journals of an Indian Geologist_ (London: Thos. De La Rue & Co., 1880), 695\u2013699.\n\n28. George Chesney, \"Indian Famines,\" _Nineteenth Century_ 2 (November 1877): 603\u2013620.\n\n29. Digby, _Famine Campaign,_ 1:148\u2013150.\n\n30. Florence Nightingale, \"A Missionary Health Officer in India,\" _Good Words,_ January 20, 1879, 492\u2013496.\n\n31. \"Causes of Famine,\" _NYT,_ August 25, 1878.\n\n32. Dadabhai Naoroji, _Poverty of India_ (London: Vincent Brooks, Day and Son, 1878), 42\u201343, 66.\n\n33. See especially Davis, _Late Victorian Holocausts_.\n\n34. Chandrika Kaul, \"Digby, William (1849\u20131904),\" _Oxford Dictionary of National Biography_.\n\n35. _Report of the Indian Famine Commission, Part 1, Famine Relief_ (London: Stationery Office, 1880): 9\u201310; Jean Dr\u00e8ze, \"Famine Prevention in India\" (working paper 45, WIDER: United Nations University, Helsinki, 1988), 45.\n\n36. \"Wasting Public Money,\" _The Economist,_ July 4, 1874.\n\n37. _The Black Pamphlet of Calcutta. The Famine of 1874. By a Bengal Civilian_ (Calcutta: William Ridgeway, 1876).\n\n38. Digby, _Famine Campaign,_ 1:48.\n\n39. \"Letter from the Affected Districts,\" (1877), 363.\n\n40. Edgerton-Tarpley, _Tears from Iron,_ 152\u2013153.\n\n41. Lance Brennan, \"The Development of the Indian Famine Code,\" in _Famine as a Geographical Phenomenon,_ ed. Bruce Currey and Graeme Hugo (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1984), 91\u2013112.\n\n42. Dr\u00e8ze, \"Famine Prevention in India.\"\n\n43. On Caird, see Peter J. Gray, \"Famine and Land in Ireland and India, 1845\u20131880: James Caird and the Political Economy of Hunger,\" _Historical Journal_ 49 (2006): 193\u2013215.\n\n44. W. Stanley Jevons, \"Sun-Spots and Commercial Crises,\" _Nature_ 19 (1879): 588\u2013590; Lockyer and Hunter, \"Sun-Spots and Famines.\"\n\n45. _Report of the Indian Famine Commission, Part 1,_ 7.\n\n46. _Report of the Indian Famine Commission, Part 2, Measures of Protection and Prevention_ (London: Stationery Office, 1880), 9.\n\n47. _Report of the Indian Famine Commission, Part 2,_ 150\u2013151.\n\n48. Ira Klein, \"When the Rains Failed: Famine, Relief, and Mortality in British India,\" _Indian Economic and Social History Review_ 21 (1984): 185\u2013214, quotation on p. 185.\n\n49. _Report of the Indian Famine Commission, 1898_ (London: Stationery Office, 1898); _Report of the Indian Famine Commission, 1901_ (London: Stationery Office, 1901).\n\n50. George Lambert, _India, the Horror-Stricken Empire: Containing a Full Account of the Famine, Plague, and Earthquake of 1896\u20137; including a Complete Narrative of the Relief Work through the Home and Foreign Commission_ (Elkhard, IN: Mennonite Publishing Co., 1898).\n\n51. Cited in C. S. Ramage, _The Great Indian Drought of 1899_ (Boulder, CO: Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, 1977), 4.\n\n52. Vaughan Nash, _The Great Famine and Its Causes_ (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1900), 11\u201314, 18\u201319, 27, 47.\n\n53. Jon Wilson, _The Chaos of Empire: The British Raj and the Conquest of India_ (New York: Public Affairs, 2016), 341\u2013347; Georgina Brewis, \"'Fill Full the Mouth of Famine': Voluntary Action in Famine Relief in India, 1896\u20131901,\" _Modern Asian Studies_ 44 (2010): 887\u2013918.\n\n54. Davis, _Late Victorian Holocausts,_ 22, 9.\n\n55. Sanjoy Chakravorty, _The Price of Land: Acquisition, Conflict, Consequence_ (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2013), 88.\n\n56. Robin Burgess and Dave Donaldson, \"Railroads and the Demise of Famine in Colonial India\" (working paper, 2012), available at http:\/\/dave-donaldson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Burgess_Donaldson_Volatility_Paper.pdf.\n\n57. Jurgen Osterhammel, _The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century,_ trans. Patrick Camiller (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 208\u2013209.\n\n58. Mike Davis, _Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster_ (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1998).\n\nCHAPTER FOUR: THE AQUEOUS ATMOSPHERE\n\n1. J. Elliott, _Vizagapatam and Backergunge Cyclones_ (Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press, 1877), 165\u2013167. The most common spelling of his name is Eliot, which is the variant I use in the text, but in this publication it appears as Elliott.\n\n2. Elliott, _Vizagapatam,_ 158, 182.\n\n3. Elliott, _Vizagapatam,_ 159.\n\n4. Elliott, _Vizagapatam,_ 183.\n\n5. Paul N. Edwards, \"Meteorology as Infrastructural Globalism,\" _Osiris_ 21 (2006): 229\u2013250; on Britain's role, see Katharine Anderson, _Predicting the Weather: Victorians and the Science of Weather Prediction_ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).\n\n6. Luke Howard, _Essay On the Modification of Clouds_ [1803], 3rd ed. (London: John Churchill & Sons, 1865); Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, \"Nouvelle d\u00e9finition des termes que j'emploie pour exprimer certaines formes des nuages qu'il importe de distinguer dans l'annotation de l'\u00e9tat du ciel,\" _Annuaire M\u00e9t\u00e9orologique pour l'an XIII de la R\u00e9publique Fran\u00e7aise_ 3 (1805): 112\u2013133; H. Hildebrandsson, A. Riggenbach, and L. Teisserenc de Bort, eds., _Atlas International des Nuages_ (Paris: IMO, 1896); for further discussion, see Lorraine Daston, \"Cloud Physiognomy: Describing the Indescribable,\" _Representations_ 135 (2016): 45\u201371, and Richard Hamblyn, _Clouds: Nature and Culture_ (London: Reaktion, 2017).\n\n7. University of Madras, _Tamil Lexicon_ (Madras: University of Madras, 1924\u20131936), 219, 1680; William Crooke, _A Glossary of North Indian Peasant Life_ , ed. Shahid Amin (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989), Appendix D, \"A Calendar of Agricultural Sayings\"; C. A. Benson, \"Tamil Sayings and Proverbs on Agriculture,\" _Bulletin_ , Department of Agriculture, Madras No. 29, New Series (1933), paragraphs 144, 163, 168, 213, 311. I have modified some of the translations from the Tamil.\n\n8. Henry F. Blanford, \"Winds of Northern India, in Relation to the Temperature and Vapour-Constituent of the Atmosphere,\" _Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society_ 164 (1874): 563.\n\n9. India, Meteorological Department, _Report on the Meteorology of India in 1876_ (Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government, 1877).\n\n10. India, Meteorological Department, _Report on the Meteorology of India in 1877_ (Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of the Government, 1878).\n\n11. \"Administrative Report of the Meteorological Reporter to the Government of India, 1884\u201385,\" BL, IOR, V\/24\/3022, quotations on pp. 5\u201314.\n\n12. Kapil Raj, _Relocating Modern Science: Circulation and the Construction of Knowledge in South Asia and Europe, 1650\u20131900_ (Basingstoke: Palgrave\/Macmillan, 2007); Mandy Bailey, \"Women and the RAS: 100 Years of Fellowship,\" _Astronomy & Geophysics_ 57 (February 2016): 19\u201321.\n\n13. _Memoirs of Ruchi Ram Sahni: Pioneer of Science Popularisation in Punjab,_ ed. Narender K. Sehgal and Subodh Mahanti (New Delhi: Vigyan Prasar, 1997), 15\u201317.\n\n14. _Memoirs of Ruchi Ram Sahni,_ 16.\n\n15. Henry F. Blanford, _Meteorology of India: Being the Second Part of the Indian Meteorologist's Vade-Mecum_ (Calcutta: Government Printer, 1877), 48.\n\n16. Henry F. Blanford, _A Practical Guide to the Climates and Weather of India, Ceylon and Burmah and the Storms of the Indian Seas_ (London: MacMillan and Co., 1889), 42.\n\n17. Blanford, _Meteorology of India,_ 144\u2013145.\n\n18. Blanford, _Meteorology of India,_ 48.\n\n19. Blanford, _Practical Guide,_ 64.\n\n20. Henry F. Blanford, _The Rainfall of India,_ India Meteorological Memoirs vol. 3 (Calcutta: Government Printer, 1886\u20131888), 76.\n\n21. Blanford, _Rainfall of India,_ 79\u201381.\n\n22. Henry F. Blanford, \"On the Connexion of the Himalaya Snowfall with Dry Winds and Seasons of Drought in India,\" _Proceedings of the Royal Society of London_ 37 (1884): 3\u201322.\n\n23. List of library holdings in \"Administration Report of the Meteorological Department in Western India for the year 1880\u201381,\" BL, IOR, V\/24\/3023.\n\n24. Blanford, \"On the Connexion of the Himalaya Snowfall.\"\n\n25. Richard Grove, \"The East India Company, the Raj and El Ni\u00f1o: The Critical Role Played by Colonial Scientists in Establishing the Mechanisms of Global Climate Teleconnections, 1770\u20131930,\" in _Nature and the Orient: The Environmental History of South and Southeast Asia,_ ed. Richard Grove, Vineeta Damodaran, and Satpal Sangwan (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 301\u2013323.\n\n26. John Eliot, _Climatological Atlas of India_ (Edinburgh: J. Bartholomew & Co., 1906), xi\u2013xii.\n\n27. _Dictionary of National Biography,_ 1912 supplement (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1912).\n\n28. _Memoirs of Ruchi Ram Sahni,_ 23.\n\n29. John Eliot, _Handbook of Cyclonic Storms in the Bay of Bengal_ (Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press, 1890).\n\n30. Rev. Jose Algu\u00e9, _The Cyclones of the Far East,_ 2nd ed. (Manila: Philippines Weather Bureau, 1904), 219.\n\n31. Robert Hart, \"Documents Relating to 1. The Establishment of Meteorological Stations in China; and 2. Proposals for Co-operation in the Publication of Meteorological Observations and Exchange of Weather News by Telegraph along the Pacific Coast of Asia\" [1874], published in _Chinese Maritime Customs Project Occasional Papers,_ no. 3, ed. Robert Bickers and Catherine Ladds (Bristol: University of Bristol, 2008); for further discussion, see Robert Bickers, \"'Throwing Light on Natural Laws': Meteorology on the China Coast, 1869\u20131912,\" in _Treaty Ports in Modern China: Law, Land, and Power,_ ed. Robert Bickers and Isabella Jackson (London: Routledge, 2016), 179\u2013200.\n\n32. Agust\u00edn Udi\u00e1s, \"Meteorology of the Observatories of the Society of Jesus,\" _Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu_ 65 (1996): 157\u2013170; James Francis Warren, \"Scientific Superman: Father Jos\u00e9 Algu\u00e9, Jesuit Meteorology, and the Philippines under American Rule, 1897\u20131924,\" in _Colonial Crucible: Empire in the Making of the Modern American State,_ ed. Alfred W. McCoy and Francisco A. Scarano (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009), 508\u2013522.\n\n33. _Cosmos,_ no. 1091 (1906), 717\u2013719: cited in Warren, \"Scientific Superman,\" 515.\n\n34. Algu\u00e9, _Cyclones,_ 3.\n\n35. Algu\u00e9, _Cyclones,_ 219\u2013229; Eliot, _Handbook of Cyclonic Storms_.\n\n36. Charles Normand, \"Seasonal Monsoon Forecasting,\" _Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society_ 79 (1953): 463\u2013473; Eliot, _Climatological Atlas_ , xiii.\n\n37. Eliot, _Climatological Atlas_.\n\n38. _The Imperial Gazetteer of India,_ rev. ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901), 5\u20136, 19\u201322.\n\n39. Sven Hedin, _Trans-Himalaya: Discoveries and Adventures in Tibet_ (New York: Macmillan, 1909), 1:279, 1:284.\n\n40. Halford Mackinder, \"The Geographical Pivot of History,\" _Geographical Journal_ 4 (1904): 421\u2013444.\n\nCHAPTER FIVE: THE STRUGGLE FOR WATER\n\n1. Italo Calvino, _Invisible Cities,_ trans. William Weaver [1974] (London: Vintage, 1997), 17.\n\n2. Dadabhai Naoroji, _Poverty and Un-British Rule in India_ (London: Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., 1901), 648\u2013653.\n\n3. M. G. Ranade, _Essays in Indian Economics: A Collection of Essays and Speeches_ (Bombay: Thacker & Co., 1899), quotation on p. 66.\n\n4. R. C. Dutt, _Open Letters to Lord Curzon on Famines and Land Assessments in India_ (London: K. Paul, Trench & Tr\u00fcbner, 1900), quotations on pp. 1, 17; R. C. Dutt, _The Economic History of India in the Victorian Age_ (London: K. Paul, Trench & Tr\u00fcbner, 1904), 172.\n\n5. Mary Albright Hollings, _The Life of Colin Scott-Moncrieff_ (London: J. Murray, 1917), 298.\n\n6. Bernard S. Cohn, _Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India_ (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996); Nicholas B. Dirks, _Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India_ (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001).\n\n7. _Report of the Indian Irrigation Commission, 1901\u20131903_ (London: HM Stationery Office, 1903), 1:2\u20134; Hollings, _Colin Scott-Moncrieff,_ 299.\n\n8. _Report of the Indian Irrigation Commission_ , 1:5\u201314.\n\n9. _Report of the Indian Irrigation Commission_ , 1:16, 1:124\u2013125.\n\n10. Letter from W. C. Bennett, Director of the Department of Agriculture and Commerce, North-West Provinces and Oudh, to the Secretary, Board of Revenue, NW Provinces, May 27, 1883, Maharashtra State Archives Department, Mumbai [hereafter MSA], Public Works Department: Irrigation Branch [hereafter PWD: Irrigation], v. 406 (1868\u20131890), M167\u2013169.\n\n11. Bennett to Board of Revenue, NW Provinces, May 27, 1883, MSA, PWD: Irrigation, v. 406, M167\u2013169.\n\n12. Letter from W. W. Goodfellow, Superintending Engineer, Belgaum to the Secretary to the Government, Public Works Department, Bombay, October 17, 1883, MSA, PWD: Irrigation, v. 406, M199.\n\n13. V. Sriram, \"Made in Madras,\" _The Hindu,_ November 16, 2014.\n\n14. Letter from A. Chatterton to the Secretary to the Commissioner of Revenue Settlement, Department of Land Records and Agriculture, May 23, 1905, MSA, PWD: Irrigation, v. 272 (1904\u20131909), M164\u2013165.\n\n15. Letter from A. Chatterton to the Director of Agriculture, Poona, July 15, 1906, MSA, PWD: Irrigation, M199\u2013215.\n\n16. \"in reality part of the great desert\": in James Douie, \"The Punjab Canal Colonies,\" lecture delivered at the Royal Society of Arts on May 7, 1914, _Journal of the Royal Society of Arts_ 62 (1914): 611\u2013623, quotation on p. 612; \"irrigation was not designed\": in E. H. Calvert, _The Wealth and Welfare of the Punjab_ (Lahore, 1922), 123.\n\n17. Douie, \"Punjab Canal Colonies,\" 614.\n\n18. Mrinalini Sinha, _Colonial Masculinity: The 'Manly Englishman' and the 'Effeminate Bengali' in the Late Nineteenth Century_ (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995).\n\n19. Douie, \"Punjab Canal Colonies,\" 615\u2013616.\n\n20. M.W. Fenton, Financial Commissioner, in 1915: quoted in Indu Agnihotri, \"Ecology, Land Use, and Colonisation: The Canal Colonies of Punjab,\" _Indian Economic and Social History Review_ 33 (1996): 37\u201358.\n\n21. Quoted in David Gilmartin, _Blood and Water: The Indus River Basin in Modern History_ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015), 168.\n\n22. Gilmartin, _Blood and Water,_ 175\u2013176.\n\n23. Thomas Gottschang and Diana Lary, _Swallows and Settlers: The Great Migration from North China to Manchuria_ (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000).\n\n24. John F. Richards, _Unending Frontier: An Environmental History of the Early Modern World_ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).\n\n25. Hung Chung Chang, \"Crop Production in China, with Special Reference to Production in Manchuria\" (Master of Science thesis, University of Michigan Agricultural College, 1922).\n\n26. Indu Agnihotri, \"Ecology, Land Use, and Colonisation: The Canal Colonies of Punjab,\" _Indian Economic and Social History Review_ 33 (1996): 37\u201358.\n\n27. Petition from Sakharam Balaji, undated (ca. 1903), MSA, PWD: Irrigation, v. 124, \"Petitions\" (1899\u20131903).\n\n28. \"The humble memorial of the inhabitants of the within mentioned villages in the Belgaum Taluka, of the Belgaum District,\" [undated, 1903], MSA, PWD: Irrigation, v. 124, \"Petitions\" (1899\u20131903).\n\n29. J. Sion, _Asie Des Moussons,_ book 9 of the _G\u00e9ographie Universelle,_ ed. P. Vidal De La Blanche (Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1928), 2:363.\n\n30. Matthew Gandy, _The Fabric of Space: Water, Modernity and the Urban Imagination_ (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014), 114\u2013119; Ira Klein, \"Urban Development and Death: Bombay City, 1870\u20131914,\" _Modern Asian Studies_ 20 (1986): 725\u2013754; Hector Tulloch, _The Water Supply of Bombay_ (Roorkee: Thomason College Press, 1873).\n\n31. Indian Industrial Commission, _Report_ (Calcutta: Government Printing, 1918).\n\n32. Indian Industrial Commission, _Report,_ 57\u201362.\n\n33. M. Visvesvaraya, _Memoirs of My Working Life_ [1951] (New Delhi: Government of India Publications Division, 1960), 9.\n\n34. M. Visvesvaraya, _Reconstructing India_ (London: P.S. King & Son, 1920), 127.\n\n35. Visvesvaraya, _Memoirs,_ 115\u2013124.\n\n36. S. Muthiah, \"Madras Miscellany,\" _The Hindu,_ November 24, 2014.\n\n37. Extract from an Official Note of 1899 on the Desirability of Developing the Agricultural Department, _Madras Fisheries Bureau,_ Bulletin No. 1; F. A. Nicholson, \"The Marine Fisheries of the Madras Presidency,\" paper read at Lahore Industrial Conference, 1909: contained in BL, IOR, V\/25\/550\/3.\n\n38. F. A. Nicholson, _Note on Fisheries in Japan_ (Madras: Government Press, 1907).\n\n39. James Hornell, _A Statistical Analysis of the Fishing Industry of Tuticorin,_ Madras Fisheries Bulletin vol. 11, report no. 3 (Madras: Government Press, 1917). For another perspective, see the insightful discussion of Nicholson and Hornell in Ajantha Subramanian, _Shorelines: Space and Rights in South Asia_ (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), 107\u2013124.\n\n40. Edward Buck, \"Report on the Control and Utilization of Rivers and Draignage for the Fertilization of the Land and Mitigation of Malaria\" (1907), MSA, PWD: Irrigation, v. 267 (1904\u20131909).\n\n41. Christopher J. Baker, _An Indian Rural Economy: The Tamilnad Countryside, 1880\u20131955_ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984); Sugata Bose, _Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital: Rural Bengal Since 1770_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); the \"tide of indebtedness\" was a phrase used by a colonial official in Dhaka, quoted by Bose; Haruka Yanagisawa, _A Century of Change: Caste and Irrigated Lands in Tamilnadu, 1860s\u20131970s_ (New Delhi: Manohar, 1996). On low yields in rain-fed agriculture, see Latika Chaudhary, Bishnupriya Gupta, Tirthankar Roy, and Anand V. Swamy, eds., _A New Economic History of Colonial India_ (New York: Routledge, 2016), 100\u2013116.\n\n42. Royal Commission on Agriculture in India, _Abridged Report_ (Bombay: Government Central Press, 1928), 5.\n\n43. _Report of the United Provinces Provincial Banking Enquiry Committee, 1929\u201330_ (Allahabad: Government Press, 1930), 2:119, 234.\n\n44. _Report of the United Provinces Provincial Banking Enquiry Committee, 1929\u201330_ (Allahabad: Government Press, 1930), 3:137.\n\n45. Royal Commission on Agriculture in India, _Evidence Taken in the Bombay Presidency,_ vol. 2, part 1 (London: Stationery Office, 1927), 342.\n\n46. J. S. Chakravarti, \"Agricultural Insurance,\" _Agricultural Journal of India_ 12 (1917): 436\u2013441, quotations on pp. 436\u2013437; J. S. Chakravarti, _Agricultural Insurance: A Practical Scheme Suited to Indian Conditions_ (Bangalore: Government Press of Mysore, 1920). The comment on Chakravarti's prescience is from P. K. Mishra, \"Is Rainfall Insurance a New Idea? Pioneering Work Revisited,\" _Economic and Political Weekly_ 30 (1995): A84\u2013A88.\n\n47. Indian Industrial Commission, _Report,_ 4.\n\n48. P. A. Sheppard, revised by Isabel Falconer, \"Walker, Gilbert Thomas,\" _Oxford Dictionary of National Biography_ , https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/ref:odnb\/36692.\n\n49. G. I. Taylor, \"Gilbert Thomas Walker, 1868\u20131958,\" _Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society_ 8 (1962): 166\u2013174.\n\n50. D. R. Sikka, \"The Role of the India Meteorological Department, 1875\u20131947,\" in _Science and Modern India: An Institutional History, c.1784\u20131947,_ ed. Uma Das Gupta (New Delhi: Pearson, 2010), chapter 14.\n\n51. Gilbert T. Walker, \"The Meteorology of India,\" _Journal of the Royal Society of Arts_ 73 (July 1925): 838\u2013855, quotation on p. 839.\n\n52. Gilbert T. Walker, \"Correlation in Seasonal Variations of Weather, VIII. A Preliminary Study of World-Weather,\" _Memoirs of the Indian Meteorological Department_ 24, part 4 (1923): 75\u2013131, quotation on p. 75.\n\n53. Michael Bardecki, \"Walker Circulation,\" in _Encyclopedia of Global Warming and Climate Change_ , ed. S. George Philander, 2nd ed. (New York: Sage, 2005), 1:1073.\n\n54. Gilbert T. Walker, \"On the Meteorological Evidence for Supposed Changes of Climate in India,\" _Indian Meteorological Memoirs_ 21, part 1 (1910): 1\u201321.\n\n55. Gilbert T. Walker, \"Correlation in Seasonal Variations of Weather, II,\" _Indian Meteorological Memoirs_ 21, part 2 (1910): 21\u201345, quoted in J. M. Walker, \"Pen Portraits of Past Presidents\u2014Sir Gilbert Walker, CSI, ScD, MA, FRS,\" _Weather_ 52 (1997): 217\u2013220, quotation on p. 219.\n\n56. Richard W. Katz, \"Sir Gilbert Walker and a Connection Between El Ni\u00f1o and Statistics,\" _Statistical Science_ 17 (2002): 97\u2013112.\n\n57. Walker, \"Correlation, VIII\" (1923), 109.\n\n58. Walker, \"Meteorology of India,\" 843.\n\n59. Gilbert T. Walker, \"Correlation in the Seasonal Variations of Weather,\" _Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society_ 44 (1918): 223\u2013234; Gilbert T. Walker, \"The Atlantic Ocean,\" _Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society_ 53 (1927): 71\u2013113, quotations on p. 113.\n\n60. Priya Satia, \"Developing Iraq: Britain, India and the Redemption of Technology in the First World War,\" _Past and Present_ 197 (2007): 211\u2013255.\n\n61. Walker, \"Meteorology of India,\" 849.\n\n62. Taylor, \"Gilbert Thomas Walker,\" 171.\n\n63. Gilbert T. Walker, Review of _Climate Through the Ages: A Study of Climatic Factors and Climatic Variations_ by C.W.P. Brooks, _Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society_ 53 (1927): 321\u2013323.\n\n64. Gilbert T. Walker, \"On Monsoon Forecasting in India,\" _Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society_ 19 (1938): 297\u2013299.\n\n65. Charles Normand, \"Monsoon Seasonal Forecasting,\" _Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society_ 79 (1953): 463\u201373, quotations on p. 469.\n\n66. Walker, \"Meteorology of India,\" 838\u2013855, quotation on p. 848.\n\n67. Sikka, \"India Meteorological Department\"; the quotations from Walker and Field draw on their papers deposited in the office of the director-general of meteorology in India, which were not available for consultation by researchers.\n\n68. Calvino, _Invisible Cities_ , 17.\n\nCHAPTER SIX: WATER AND FREEDOM\n\n1. M. K. Gandhi, _Hind Swaraj and Other Writings,_ ed. Anthony J. Parel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 131.\n\n2. Jawaharlal Nehru to B. J. K. Hallowes (Deputy Commissioner, Allahabad, and President of the Famine Relief Fund of Gonda), June 26, 1929, in _The Essential Writings of Jawaharlal Nehru,_ ed. S. Gopal and Uma Iyengar (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003), 12.\n\n3. Jawaharlal Nehru, \"The Basis of Society,\" Presidential Address to Bombay Youth Congress, Poona, December 12, 1928, in _Essential Writings of Jawaharlal Nehru,_ 1:8\u201310.\n\n4. Sun Yat-sen, _The International Development of China_ (New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1922).\n\n5. Sun Yat-sen, \"Third Principle of the People: People's Livelihood,\" cited in Deirdre Chetham, _Before the Deluge: The Vanishing World of the Yangtze's Three Gorges_ (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 117.\n\n6. David A. Pietz, _The Yellow River: The Problem of Water in Modern China_ (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), chapter 3; quotations on pp. 93\u201394.\n\n7. This account of the Mahad protest draws on Christophe Jaffrelot, _Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability: Analysing and Fighting Caste_ (London: Hurst and Company, 2005), 47\u201348.\n\n8. Sudipta Kaviraj, \"Ideas of Freedom in Modern India,\" in _The Idea of Freedom in Asia and Africa,_ ed. Robert H. Taylor (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), 120\u2013121.\n\n9. M. K. Gandhi, \"Salt Tax,\" _Young India,_ February 27, 1930, in _Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi_ (New Delhi: Government of India Publications Division, 1970), 48:499\u2013500.\n\n10. Robert Carter and Erin McCarthy, \"Watsuji Tetsur\u00f4,\" in _The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,_ ed. Edward N. Zalta (Winter 2014 Edition), http:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/archives\/win2014\/entries\/watsuji-tetsuro\/.\n\n11. Watsuji Tetsuro, _A Climate: A Philosophical Study,_ trans. Geoffrey Bownas (Tokyo: Ministry of Education, 1961), 18\u201320.\n\n12. Watsuji, _Climate,_ 25\u201326.\n\n13. Watsuji, _Climate,_ 22\u201323, 38.\n\n14. Watsuji, _Climate,_ 39.\n\n15. Mukerjee makes an appearance in, among others: C. A. Bayly, _Recovering Liberties: Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), and Alison Bashford, _Global Population: History, Geopolitics, and Life on Earth_ (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014).\n\n16. Radhakamal Mukerjee, \"Social Ecology of a River Valley,\" _Sociology and Social Research_ 12 (1927): 341\u2013347, quotations on p. 342; Radhakamal Mukerjee, _Regional Sociology_ (New York and London: Century and Co., 1926); Radhakamal Mukerjee, _The Changing Face of Bengal: A Study in Riverine Economy_ (Calcutta: University of Calcutta Press, 1938).\n\n17. L\u00e9on Metchnikoff, _La Civilisation et Les Grands Fleuves Historiques_ (Paris: Hachette, 1889); Mukerjee, \"Social Ecology,\" quotation on 342; William Willcocks, _Ancient System of Irrigation in Bengal and its Application to Modern Problems_ (Calcutta: University of Calcutta Press, 1930).\n\n18. Mukerjee, \"Social Ecology,\" 345\u2013347.\n\n19. C. J. Baker, \"Economic Reorganization and the Slump in South and Southeast Asia,\" _Comparative Studies in Society and History_ 23 (1981): 325\u2013349.\n\n20. I explore these migrations in detail in Sunil S. Amrith, _Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants_ (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), especially chapters 4 and 5.\n\n21. Confidential letter from the Agent of the Government of India in British Malaya to the Government of India, April 3, 1933: NAI, Department of Education, Health and Lands: Overseas, file no. 206-2\/32\u2014L&O.\n\n22. J. S. Furnivall, _Netherlands India_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1939), 428.\n\n23. \"World's Largest Dam Opened,\" _The Statesman,_ August 22, 1934.\n\n24. Handwritten memo by \"SA,\" April 30, 1938, appended to the file of correspondence following the Chief Engineer's \"Note on the Beneficial Effects of the Stanley Reservoir to Cauvery Delta Irrigation,\" Tamil Nadu State Archives, Chennai, Government Order 547-I, 27\/2\/1936.\n\n25. Handwritten note in Government of Madras Public Works Department, Government Order number 375, February 24, 1938. Tamil Nadu State Archives, Chennai [TNSA].\n\n26. Pietz, _Yellow River,_ chapter 3.\n\n27. _National Planning Committee No. 2: Being an Abstract of the Proceedings and other Particulars Relating to the National Planning Committee_ (Bombay: K.T. Shah, 1940), 43.\n\n28. \"Burma-China Frontier: Chinese Claim to the Irrawaddy Triangle\" (1933), BL, IOR, L\/P&S\/12\/2231, enclosing William Credner's article in _Eastern Miscellany_ (Shanghai), January 10, 1931; P. M. R. Leonard and V. G. Robert, _Report on the Fourth Expedition to the \"Triangle\" for the Liberation of Slaves_ (Rangoon: Government Printing, 1930), quotation in text from notes in archival file.\n\n29. _Madras Fisheries Bulletin, 1918\u20131937_ (Madras: Government Printing, 1938), 2; see Ajantha Subramanian, _Shorelines: Space and Rights in South Asia_ (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), 120\u2013124.\n\n30. Micah Muscolino, \"Yellow River Flood, 1938\u201347,\" DisasterHistory.org, accessed March 3, 2018, www.disasterhistory.org\/yellow-river-flood-1938-47; Micah S. Muscolino, _The Ecology of War in China: Henan Province, the Yellow River, and Beyond, 1938\u20131947_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).\n\n31. Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, _Forgotten Armies: The Fall of British Asia, 1941\u201345_ (London: Allen Lane, 2004).\n\n32. Srinath Raghavan, _India's War: The Making of Modern South Asia, 1939\u201345_ (London: Allen Lane, 2016).\n\n33. India Meteorological Department, _Hundred Years of Weather Service (1875\u20131975)_ , bound typescript in the library of the Regional Meteorological Centre, Chennai, consulted in February 2015.\n\n34. Sunil S. Amrith, \"Food and Welfare in India, c. 1900\u20131950,\" _Comparative Studies in Society and History_ 50 (2008): 1010\u20131035; the quotation from Nehru is in a letter to B. J. K. Hallowes, June 26, 1929, see note 2 above.\n\n35. _The Ramakrishna Mission: Bengal and Orissa Cyclone Relief, 1942\u201344_ (Howrah: Ramakrishna Mission, 1944), 1\u20132.\n\n36. Bayly and Harper, _Forgotten Armies,_ 282\u2013291.\n\n37. Note to Famine Commission (1944): Papers of L. G. Pinnell, British Library, Asian and African Studies Collection, European Manuscripts: MSS Eur D 911\/7.\n\n38. On ecological decline, see Iftekhar Iqbal, _The Bengal Delta: Ecology, State, and Social Change, 1840\u20131943_ (Basingstoke: Palgrave\/MacMillan, 2010), chapter 8. On famine, see Sugata Bose, \"Starvation Amidst Plenty: The Making of Famine in Bengal, Honan and Tonkin, 1942\u201345,\" _Modern Asian Studies_ 24, no. 4 (1990): 699\u2013727; Amartya Sen, _Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation_ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981); Paul Greenough, _Prosperity and Misery in Modern Bengal: The Famine of 1943\u20134_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982); and Bayly and Harper, _Forgotten Armies,_ 282\u2013291.\n\n39. Jawaharlal Nehru, _The Discovery of India_ [1946] (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003), 496\u2013498; S. G. Sardesai, _Food in the United Provinces_ (Bombay: People's Publishing House, 1944), 19, 36\u201337.\n\n40. V. D. Wickizer and M. K. Bennett, _The Rice Economy of Monsoon Asia_ (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1941), 1, 189.\n\n41. Nehru, _Discovery of India,_ 535; Gyan Chand, _Problem of Population_ (London: Oxford University Press, 1944), 10.\n\n42. File note on Bhakra Dam Project, February 23, 1945, NAI, Political Department, I A Branch: file no. 21(22)\u2014IA\/45.\n\n43. File note by T.A.W. Foy, October 31, 1946, NAI, 21(22)\u2014IA\/45.\n\n44. Meghnad Saha, editorial, _Science and Culture_ 1 (1935): 3\u20134.\n\n45. Meghnad Saha, \"Flood,\" _Science and Culture_ 9 (September 1943): 95\u201397.\n\n46. Meghnad Saha and Kamalesh Ray, \"Planning for the Damodar Valley\" (originally published in _Science and Culture,_ 10 [1944]), in _Collected Works of Meghnad Saha,_ ed. Santimay Chatterjee (Bombay: Orient Longman, 1987), 2:115\u2013144, quotations on pp. 116, 132, 135.\n\n47. Saha and Ray, \"Planning for the Damodar Valley,\" 132, 135.\n\nCHAPTER SEVEN: RIVERS DIVIDED, RIVERS DAMMED\n\n1. The best narrative account of the period is in Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, _Forgotten Wars: The End of Britain's Asian Empire_ (London: Allen Lane, 2007); on the early Cold War in Asia, see Odd Arne Westad, _The Cold War: A World History_ (New York: Basic Books, 2017), chapter 5.\n\n2. For a concise overview, see Yasmin Khan, _The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan_ (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007).\n\n3. Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar, _The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, Histories_ (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007); Joya Chatterji, _The Spoils of Partition: Bengal and India, 1947\u201367_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); for a moving set of testimonies, see Urvashi Butalia, _The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India_ (London: Hurst, 2000).\n\n4. David Gilmartin, _Blood and Water: The Indus River Basin in Modern History_ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015), 206.\n\n5. Government of India, Press Information Bureau, \"Facts about Canal Dispute\"\u2014enclosure in a letter from S. V. Sampath to all Indian Missions abroad, September 27, 1949: National Archives of India [hereafter NAI], Ministry of External Affairs [hereafter MEA], File 6\/1\/7-XP (P)\/49.\n\n6. Joya Chatterji, \"The Fashioning of a Frontier: The Radcliffe Line and Bengal's Border Landscape, 1947\u201352,\" _Modern Asian Studies_ 33, no. 1 (1999): 185\u2013242.\n\n7. Rammanohar Lohia, _The Guilty Men of India's Partition_ (Allahabad: Kitabistan, 1960).\n\n8. Ayesha Jalal, _The Pity of Partition: Manto's Life, Times, and Work Across the India-Pakistan Divide_ (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013).\n\n9. Saadat Hasan Manto, \"Yazid,\" in _Naked Voices: Stories and Sketches_ , trans. Rakhshanda Jalil (New Delhi: Roli Books, 2008), 106.\n\n10. India Meteorological Department, _Hundred Years of Weather Service (1875\u20131975)_ , bound typescript in the library of the Regional Meteorological Centre, Chennai, consulted in February 2015, p. 55.\n\n11. C. N. Vakil, _Economic Consequences of the Partition,_ 2nd ed. (Bombay: National Information and Publications, 1949), 3\u20134.\n\n12. Gilmartin, _Blood and Water,_ 206.\n\n13. Daniel Haines, _Rivers Divided: Indus Basin Waters in the Making of India and Pakistan_ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), chapter 3.\n\n14. Cited in Haines, _Rivers Divided,_ 51.\n\n15. India, Ministry of External Affairs, Directive on Canal Water Dispute Between India and Pakistan, NAI, MEA, File 6\/1\/7-XP (P)\/49.\n\n16. Directive on Canal Water Dispute, NAI, MEA, File 6\/1\/7-XP (P)\/49.\n\n17. Manu Goswami, _Producing India: From Colonial Economy to National Space_ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004).\n\n18. Gilmartin, _Blood and Water,_ 212; Bashir A. Malik, _Indus Waters Treaty in Retrospect_ (Lahore: Brite Books, 2005), 104.\n\n19. David E. Lilienthal, \"Kashmir: Another 'Korea' in the Making?,\" _Collier's_ 128, no. 5 (1951): 58.\n\n20. \"Today in Earthquake History: Assam, 1950,\" Seismo Blog, Berkeley Seismology Lab, accessed March 1, 2018, http:\/\/seismo.berkeley.edu\/blog\/2017\/08\/15\/today-in-earthquake-history-assam-1950.html; M. C. Podder, \"Preliminary Report on the Assam Earthquake of 15th August 1950,\" _Bulletin of the Geological Survey of India,_ Series B 2 (1950): 1\u201340; Francis Kingdon Ward, \"Aftermath of the Assam Earthquake of 1950,\" _The Geographical Journal_ 121 (1955): 290\u2013303.\n\n21. _Census of India, 1951,_ vol. 1, Part 1A (New Delhi: Government Press, 1953).\n\n22. Georges Canguilhem, _The Normal and the Pathological,_ trans. Carolyn R. Fawcett (New York: Zone Books, 1989), 161.\n\n23. _Census of India 1951,_ vol. 1, Part 1A: 126\u2013131.\n\n24. _Census of India 1951,_ vol. 1, Part 1A: 150.\n\n25. Sanjoy Chakravorty, _The Price of Land: Acquisition, Conflict, Consequence_ (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2013), see especially chapter 7.\n\n26. Report of American Famine Mission to India, led by T. W. Schultz, cited in Henry Knight, _Food Administration in India, 1939\u201347_ (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1954), 253; Government of India, Foodgrains Policy Committee, _Interim Report_ (New Delhi, 1948); Government of India, Foodgrains Policy Committee, _Final Report_ (New Delhi, 1948); _Report of the Foodgrains Enquiry Committee, 1957_ (New Delhi: Ministry of Food & Agriculture, 1957), 26\u201327.\n\n27. Jawaharlal Nehru's letter to India's chief ministers, April 15, 1948, in _Letters for a Nation: From Jawaharlal Nehru to His Chief Ministers, 1947\u20131963,_ ed. Madhav Khosla (New Delhi: Allen Lane, 2014), 147\u2013148. On the Hirakud Dam, see Rohan D'Souza, \"Damming the Mahanadi River: The Emergence of Multi-Purpose River Valley Development in India (1943\u201346),\" _Indian Economic and Social History Review_ 40 (2003): 81\u2013105.\n\n28. Henry C. Hart, _New India's Rivers_ (Bombay: Orient Longmans, 1956), 250.\n\n29. India, Central Water-Power, Irrigation & Navigation Commission, _Quinquennial Report, April 1945\u2013March 1950_ , p. 2: BL, IOR, V\/24\/4496.\n\n30. There is an illuminating account of Khosla's career in Daniel Klingensmith, _One Valley and a Thousand: Dams, Nationalism, and Development_ (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007).\n\n31. A. N. Khosla, \"Our Plans,\" _Indian Journal of Power and River Valley Development_ [ _IJPRVD_ ], June 1951: 1\u20134.\n\n32. India, Central Water & Power Commission, _Major Water & Power Projects of India_ (Bhagirath Pamphlet 1, June 1957).\n\n33. Jawharlal Nehru, speech at the opening of the Nangal Canal, July 8, 1954, in _Jawaharlal Nehru: An Anthology,_ ed. Sarvepalli Gopal (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1980), 213\u2013215.\n\n34. \"Nehru Shows Chou India's Dam Project,\" _New York Times,_ January 1, 1957, 4.\n\n35. On the history of the Films Division, see Peter Sutoris, _Visions of Development: Films Division of India and the Imagination of Progress, 1948\u201375_ (London: Hurst, 2016), which includes a discussion of Ezra Mir's career; see also, Judith Pernin et al., \"The Documentary Film in India, 1948\u20131975,\" undated, Hong Kong Baptist University, last accessed May 13, 2018, http:\/\/digital.lib.hkbu.edu.hk\/documentary-film\/india.php#footnote.\n\n36. _Bhakra Nangal,_ dir. N.S. Thapa, Government of India Films Division (1958).\n\n37. On Lilienthal, see Klingensmith, _One Valley and a Thousand._\n\n38. Hart, _New India's Rivers,_ 97.\n\n39. Hugh Tinker, \"A Forgotten Long March: The Indian Exodus from Burma, 1942,\" _Journal of Southeast Asian Studies_ 6 (1975): 1\u201315; Sunil S. Amrith, _Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants_ (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), chapter 6.\n\n40. Letter from the Secretary to the Government of Punjab, Public Works Department, to the Secretary to the Governor General, June 18, 1945, NAI, file no. 21(22)\u2014IA\/45; Proceedings of a meeting held on January 31, 1946, between representatives of Madras and Hyderabad: Government of India, Political Branch: Hyderabad Residency; NAI, file no. 92(2), 1946.\n\n41. Hart, _New India's Rivers,_ 115.\n\n42. \"Lathi Charge on Strikers,\" _Times of India,_ January 31, 1954, 9.\n\n43. Hart, _New India's Rivers,_ 178\u2013184.\n\n44. Ashis Nandy, \"Dams and Dissent: India's First Modern Environmental Activist and His Critique of the DVC Project,\" _Futures_ 33 (2001): 709\u2013731.\n\n45. World Bank Group Archives, Washington DC [hereafter WBA], File no. 1787276, Indus Basin Dispute, General Negotiations, 1949\u201352, Correspondence; File no, 1787280, Notes of Mission, September 1\u201316, 1954; File no. 1787263, Chronology of Indus Waters Dispute. Files 1787269 and 1787270 (Indus Basin Dispute, Working Party, Correspondence vol. 3 & 4), for example, both had several items that had been removed as unsuitable for declassification.\n\n46. M. V. V. Ramana, _Inter-State River Water Disputes in India_ (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 1992), chapter 4.\n\n47. Sumathi Ramaswamy, _The Goddess and the Nation: Mapping Mother India_ (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009), 244.\n\n48. _Mother India,_ dir. Mehboob (1957).\n\n49. Quoted in Ramaswamy, _Goddess and the Nation,_ 243.\n\n50. Sangita Gopal and Sujata Moorti, _Global Bollywood: Travels of Hindi Song and Dance_ (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008), 60.\n\n51. Brian Larkin, \"Bollywood Comes to Nigeria,\" accessed November 14, 2017, www.samarmagazine.org\/archive\/articles\/21.\n\n52. James C. Scott, _Seeing Like a State: Why Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed_ (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998); Arturo Escobar, _Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World_ (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).\n\n53. Chakravorty, _Price of Land,_ 113\u2013114; Rohan D'Souza, \"Framing India's Hydraulic Crises: The Politics of the Modern Large Dam,\" _Monthly Review_ 60 (2008): 112\u2013124.\n\n54. File note, February 23, 1945, Bhakra Dam Project, Government of India, Political Department, IA Branch, NAI, file no. 21(22)\u2014IA\/45.\n\n55. File note, Anon., March 12, 1945, Bhakra Dam Project, Government of India, Political Department, IA Branch: NAI, file no. 21(22)\u2014IA\/45.\n\n56. File note, Anon., March 12, 1945, NAI, file no. 21(22)\u2014IA\/45.\n\n57. Proceedings of a meeting held on January 31, 1946, between representatives of Madras and Hyderabad: Government of India, Political Branch: Hyderabad Residency; NAI, file no. 92(2), 1946, quotations from this file.\n\n58. P. Chaturvedi and A. Dalal, _Law of Special Economic Zone: National and International Perspective_ (Kolkata: Eastern Law House, 2009), 342, cited in Chakravorty, _Price of Land,_ 115.\n\n59. Walter Fernandes and Enakshi Ganguly Thukral, eds., _Development, Displacement and Rehabilitation_ (New Delhi: Indian Social Institute, 1989); Esther Duflo and Rohini Pande, \"Dams,\" _Quarterly Journal of Economics_ 122 (2007): 601\u2013646; Satyajit Singh, _Taming the Waters: The Political Economy of Large Dams in India_ (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), 182\u2013203; Chakravorty, _Price of Land,_ quotations on pp. 123\u2013130.\n\n60. Singh, _Taming the Waters,_ 133\u2013158.\n\n61. Jawaharlal Nehru, \"Social Aspects of Small and Big Projects,\" Inaugural address at the 29th annual meeting of the Central Board of Irrigation and Power, New Delhi, November 17, 1958, in Baldev Singh, _Jawaharlal Nehru on Science and Society: A Collection of His Writings and Speeches_ (New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, 1990), 172\u2013175.\n\n62. United Nations, Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE), _Economic Survey of Asia and the Far East, 1948_ (Bangkok: ECAFE, 1949); C. Hart Schaaf, \"The United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East,\" _International Organization_ 7 (1953): 463\u2013481, quotation on p. 468.\n\n63. Hart Schaaf, \"Economic Commission for Asia\" (1953).\n\n64. Hart Schaaf, \"Economic Commission for Asia\" (1953), 481.\n\n65. UN, ECAFE, _Economic Survey of Asia and the Far East, 1954_ (Bangkok: ECAFE, 1955); chapter 10 covers the People's Republic of China.\n\n66. Kanwar Sain and K. L. Rao, _Report on the Recent River Valley Projects in China_ (New Delhi: Government of India Central Water and Power Commission, 1955), their full itinerary appears in Appendix F; \"Mao is our Buddha\" reported in Kanwar Sain, _Reminiscences of an Engineer_ (New Delhi: Young Asia Publications, 1978), 208\u2013209.\n\n67. Sain, _Reminiscences of an Engineer,_ 208\u2013209.\n\n68. Sain and Rao, _River Valley Projects in China,_ 206\u2013207; list of Chinese officials in Appendix G.\n\n69. Sain and Rao, _River Valley Projects in China,_ 154.\n\n70. Judith Shapiro, _Mao's War Against Nature: Politics and Environment in Revolutionary China_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), chapter 1.\n\n71. Cited in Philip Ball, _Water Kingdom: A Secret History of China_ (Oxford: The Bodley Head, 2016), 225.\n\n72. Sain and Rao, _River Valley Projects in China,_ 162.\n\n73. For an elaboration of the continuity argument, see Ball, _Water Kingdom,_ chapter 8.\n\n74. Sain and Rao, _River Valley Projects in China._ Hao's speech is reproduced in Appendix A.\n\n75. Sain, _Reminiscences of an Engineer,_ 210.\n\n76. Christopher Sneddon, _Concrete Revolution: Large Dams, Cold War Geopolitics, and the US Bureau of Reclamation_ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015); David Biggs, _Quagmire: Nation-Building and Nature in the Mekong Delta_ (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010).\n\n77. Biggs, _Quagmire,_ 172.\n\n78. Sneddon, _Concrete Revolution_.\n\n79. Sain, _Reminiscences of an Engineer,_ 388\u2013392.\n\n80. Nehru's letter to Zhou Enlai, September 26, 1959, published in _India-China Conflict_ (New Delhi: Indian Ministry of External Affairs, 1964).\n\n81. Letter from B. C. Mishra, Ministry of External Affairs to Apa B. Pant, Political Officer of the Government of India, Gangtok, Sikkim, October 7, 1960, in India, Ministry of External Affairs, \"Construction of dam on Brahmaputra and Indus group of rivers by the Chinese\": NAI, MEA, file F no. 4(75)\u2014T 60.\n\n82. Letter from R. S. Kapoor, Indian trade agent, Gyantse, Tibet to Apa Pant, Political Officer of the Government of India, Gangtok, Sikkim, December 15, 1960: NAI, MEA, file F no. 4(75)\u2014T 60.\n\n83. Letter marked \"top secret,\" from K. K. Framji, Chief Engineer & Joint Secretary, Ministry of Irrigation and Power to B. C. Mishra, DS (China), Ministry of External Affairs, January 5, 1961: NAI, MEA, file F no. 4(75)\u2014T 60.\n\n84. Rohinton Mistry, _Such a Long Journey_ (London: Faber & Faber, 1991), 10.\n\nCHAPTER EIGHT: THE OCEAN AND THE UNDERGROUND\n\n1. Neel Mukherjee, _The Lives of Others_ (London: Vintage, 2014), 195\u2013197.\n\n2. Indian National Committee on Oceanic Research [hereafter INCOR], _International Indian Ocean Expedition: Indian Scientific Programmes, 1962\u20131965_ (New Delhi: Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, 1962), 15.\n\n3. Bernard Bailyn, \"The Challenge of Modern Historiography,\" _American Historical Review_ 87 (1982): 1\u201324, quotations on pp. 10\u201311.\n\n4. Sunil S. Amrith, _Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants_ (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), chapter 7.\n\n5. India, Ministry of External Affairs, Memorandum on the International Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Law of the Sea [undated, probably late 1957]. NAI, MEA: UN II Section, file no. 9(6) UN II\/57.\n\n6. Daniel Behrman, _Assault on the Largest Unknown: The International Indian Ocean Expedition_ (Paris: UNESCO Press, 1981), 10\u201311; G. E. R. Deacon, \"The Indian Ocean Expedition,\" _Nature_ 187 (August 13, 1960): 561\u2013562.\n\n7. Warren S. Wooster, \"Indian Ocean Expedition,\" _Science,_ n.s., 150 (October 15, 1965): 290\u2013292.\n\n8. INCOR, _International Indian Ocean Expedition,_ 15.\n\n9. _The Indian Ocean Bubble_ , issue 5, March 1, 1960, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Open Access Server, last accessed March 10, 2018, https:\/\/darchive.mblwhoilibrary.org\/handle\/1912\/218.\n\n10. Behrman, _Assault,_ 27.\n\n11. Behrman, _Assault,_ 52.\n\n12. INCOR, _International Indian Ocean Expedition,_ 1\u20135.\n\n13. Klaus Wyrtki, _Oceanographic Atlas of the International Indian Ocean Expedition_ (Washington, DC: National Science Foundation, 1971).\n\n14. Behrman, _Assault,_ 64.\n\n15. INCOR, _International Indian Ocean Expedition,_ 44.\n\n16. Gilbert T. Walker, \"The Atlantic Ocean,\" _Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society_ 53 (1927): 113.\n\n17. Deacon, \"Indian Ocean Expedition\"; INCOR, _International Indian Ocean Expedition,_ 12; Wyrtki, _Oceanographic Atlas,_ 7.\n\n18. C. S. Ramage, _Monsoon Meteorology_ (London: Academic Press, 1971), 1; Thomas A. Schroeder, \"A Personal View of the History of the Department of Meteorology, University of Hawaii at Manoa\" (2006), accessed June 1, 2016, www.soest.hawaii.edu\/met\/history.pdf.\n\n19. Sanchari Pal, \"Anna Mani Is One of India's Greatest Woman Scientists,\" _The Better India,_ January 21, 2017, accessed May 1, 2018, https:\/\/www.thebetterindia.com\/83063\/anna-mani-scientist-meteorology-ozone-wind-energy\/.\n\n20. C. S. Ramage, _Meteorology in the Indian Ocean_ (Geneva: World Meteorological Association, 1965).\n\n21. Ramage, _Meteorology in the Indian Ocean_.\n\n22. Behrman, _Assault,_ 67.\n\n23. Behrman, _Assault,_ 65; C. S. Ramage and C. R. Raman, _Meteorological Atlas of the International Indian Ocean Expedition_ (Washington, DC: US Government Printer, 1972).\n\n24. Behrman, _Assault,_ 66.\n\n25. Ramage, _Meteorology in the Indian Ocean_.\n\n26. Roger Revelle and H. E. Suess, \"Carbon Dioxide Exchange Between Atmosphere and Ocean and the Question of an Increase of Atmospheric CO2 During the Past Decades, \" _Tellus_ 9 (1957): 18\u201327, quotation on pp. 19\u201320. On oceanography and the discovery of climate change, see Naomi Oreskes, \"Changing the Mission: From the Cold War to Climate Change,\" in _Science and Technology in the Global Cold War,_ ed. Naomi Oreskes and John Krige (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014), 141\u2013187.\n\n27. Behrman, _Assault,_ 11\u201312.\n\n28. P. K. Das, _The Monsoons_ (New Delhi: National Book Trust, 1968), 6.\n\n29. Francine Frankel, _India's Political Economy, 1947\u20131977: The Gradual Revolution_ (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), 247\u2013248.\n\n30. Statistics on Indian wheat imports from Nick Cullather, _The Hungry World: America's Cold War Battle Against Poverty in Asia_ (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 144; _Economic Survey of Indian Agriculture for 1966\u201367_ (New Delhi: Government of India, 1969); Frankel, _India's Political Economy,_ 293.\n\n31. David Ludden, _An Agrarian History of South Asia_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), especially chapter 4.\n\n32. David C. Engerman, _The Price of Aid: The Economic Cold War in India_ (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018); Cullather, _Hungry World_.\n\n33. Cullather, _Hungry World,_ 207.\n\n34. C. Subramaniam, _Hand of Destiny,_ vol. 2, _The Green Revolution_ (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1993), 137\u2013138.\n\n35. Frankel, _India's Political Economy,_ 270.\n\n36. Subramaniam, _Hand of Destiny,_ vol. 2, 154, 165\u2013167.\n\n37. \"Years Before a Revolution,\" _Times of India,_ August 22, 1965.\n\n38. Quoted in Mahesh Rangarajan, \"Striving for a Balance: Nature, Power, Science and Indira Gandhi's India, 1917\u20131984,\" _Conservation and Society_ 7 (2009): 299\u2013312.\n\n39. Cullather, _Hungry World,_ 223.\n\n40. Paul R. Brass, \"The Political Uses of Crisis: The Bihar Famine of 1966\u20131967,\" _Journal of Asian Studies_ 45 (1986): 245\u2013267, 249.\n\n41. Ronald E. Doel and Kristine C. Harper, \"Prometheus Unleashed: Science as a Diplomatic Weapon in the Lyndon B. Johnson Administration,\" _Osiris_ 21 (2006): 66\u201385.\n\n42. James R. Fleming, _Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control_ (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010); Kristine C. Harper, _Make It Rain: State Control of the Atmosphere in Twentieth Century America_ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017).\n\n43. Lyndon B. Johnson, _The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963\u20131969_ (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), 226.\n\n44. Doel and Harper, \"Prometheus Unleashed,\" 80, 83.\n\n45. Rajni Kothari, \"The Congress 'System' in India,\" _Asian Survey_ 4 (1964): 1161\u20131173; Confidential Despatch from British High Commission, Delhi to London, 3 March 1967, in United Kingdom National Archives (UKNA), \"India\u2014Political Affairs\u2014Internal\" FO 37\/35.\n\n46. Ashutosh Varshney, _Democracy, Development, and the Countryside: Urban-Rural Struggles in India_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 57.\n\n47. Geoffrey Parker, _Global Crisis: War, Climate Change & Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century_ (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013); Sam White, _The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).\n\n48. Indira Gandhi, \"Man and Environment,\" speech at the Plenary Session of United Nations Conference on Human Environment, Stockholm, June 14, 1972: full text available at http:\/\/lasulawsenvironmental.blogspot.com\/2012\/07\/indira-gandhis-speech-at-stockholm.html, last accessed May 14, 2018.\n\n49. Paul Ehrlich, _The Population Bomb_ (New York: Ballantine Books, 1968), 15\u201316.\n\n50. Indira Gandhi, \"Man and Environment,\" speech at the Plenary Session of United Nations Conference on Human Environment, Stockholm, June 14, 1972; Jairam Ramesh, \"Poverty Is the Greatest Polluter: Remembering Indira Gandhi's Stirring Speech in Stockholm,\" _The Wire,_ June 7, 2017, accessed November 30, 2017, https:\/\/thewire.in\/144555\/indira-gandhi-nature-pollution\/.\n\n51. On coercive population control in India, see Matthew Connelly, _Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population_ (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008); Emma Tarlo, _Unsettling Memories: Narratives of the Emergency in Delhi_ (London: Hurst, 2003).\n\n52. Shyam Divan and Armin Rosencranz, eds., _Environmental Law and Policy in India: Cases, Materials and Statutes_ (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), 167\u2013241; the case cited is Aggarwal Textile Industries v. State of Rajasthan, S.B.C. Writ Petition No. 1375\/80, March 2, 1981, presented in Divan and Rosencranz, _Environmental Law,_ 187.\n\n53. Anthony Acciavatti, \"Re-imagining the Indian Underground: A Biography of the Tubewell,\" in _Places of Nature in Ecologies of Urbanism,_ ed. Anne Rademacher and K. Sivaramakrishnan (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2017), 206\u2013237, quotation on p. 207.\n\n54. Tushaar Shah, _Taming the Anarchy: Groundwater Governance in South Asia_ (New York: Routledge, 2008); Tushaar Shah, \"Climate Change and Groundwater: India's Opportunities for Mitigation and Adaptation,\" _Environmental Research Letters_ 4 (2009): 1\u201313.\n\n55. Roger Revelle and V. Lakshminarayana, \"Ganges Water Machine,\" _Science,_ n.s., 188 (1975): 611\u2013616, quotation on p. 611; K. L. Rao, _India's Water Wealth: Its Assessment, Uses, and Projections_ (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1975).\n\n56. Joshua Eisenman, \"Building China's 1970s Green Revolution: Responding to Population Growth, Decreasing Arable Land, and Capital Depreciation,\" in _China, Hong Kong, and the Long 1970s: Global Perspectives,_ ed. Priscilla Roberts and Odd Arne Westad (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 55\u201386.\n\n57. Sigrid Schmalzer, _Red Revolution, Green Revolution: Scientific Farming in Socialist China_ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), quotation on p. 13.\n\n58. Francine Frankel, _India's Green Revolution: Economic Gains and Political Costs_ (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971); N. K. Dubash, _Tubewell Capitalism: Groundwater Development and Agrarian Change in Gujarat_ (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002); Shah, \"Climate Change and Groundwater.\"\n\n59. L. J. Walinsky, ed., _Agrarian Reform As Unfinished Business: The Selected Papers of Wolf Ladejinsky_ (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1977); G. Rosen, \"Obituary: Wolf Ladejinsky (1899\u20131975),\" _Journal of Asian Studies_ 36 (1976): 327\u2013328.\n\n60. Wolf Ladejinsky, \"Drought in Maharashtra (Not in a Hundred Years),\" typescript contained in World Bank Archives (WBA), file number 1167800, Drought Prone Areas Project\u2014India\u2014Correspondence vol. 1.\n\n61. Jean Dr\u00e8ze, \"Famine Prevention in India\" (working paper 45, WIDER: United Nations University, Helsinki, 1988), 69\u201375.\n\n62. John A. Young, \"Physics of the Monsoon: The Current View,\" in _Monsoons,_ ed. Jay S. Fein and Pamela L. Stephens (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1987), 211\u2013243, quotation on p. 211; see the discussion of \"moist processes\" in Peter J. Webster, \"Monsoons,\" _Scientific American_ 245 (1981): 108\u2013119; on modeling, see Kirsten Hastrup and Martin Skrydstrup, eds., _The Social Life of Climate Change Models: Anticipating Nature_ (London: Routledge, 2012).\n\n63. Jacob Bjerknes, \"A Possible Response of the Atmospheric Hadley Circulation to Equatorial Anomalies of Ocean Temperature,\" _Tellus_ 18 (1966): 820\u2013829; Jacob Bjerknes, \"Atmospheric Teleconnections from the Equatorial Pacific,\" _Journal of Physical Oceanography_ 97 (1969): 163\u2013172.\n\n64. P. J. Webster, H. R. Chang, and V. E. Toma, _Tropical Meteorology and Climate_ (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, in press), chapter 14.\n\n65. R. A. Madden and P. R. Julian, \"Detection of a 40\u201350 Day Oscillation in the Zonal Wind in the Tropical Pacific,\" _Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences_ 28 (1971): 702\u2013770; R. A. Madden and P. R. Julian, \"Description of Global-Scale Circulation Cells in the Tropics with a 40\u201350 Day Period,\" _Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences_ 29 (1972): 1109\u20131123.\n\n66. David M. Lawrence and Peter J. Webster, \"The Boreal Summer Intraseasonal Oscillation: Relationship between Northward and Eastward Movement of Convection,\" _Journal of the Atmopheric Sciences_ 59 (2002): 1593\u20131606.\n\n67. Adam Sobel, _Storm Surge: Hurricane Sandy, Our Changing Climate, and Extreme Weather of the Past and Future_ (New York: Harper Wave, 2014), 9\u201320.\n\n68. On MONEX, see Behrman, _Assault,_ 64; Webster, Chang, and Toma, _Tropical Meteorology,_ chapter 14.\n\n69. C. S. Ramage, _The Great Indian Drought of 1899,_ Occasional Paper, Aspen Instiute for Humanistic Studies, Program on Science, Technology, and Humanism (1977), quotations on pp. 4, 6.\n\n70. _Declaration of the Climate Conference_ (Geneva: World Meteorological Organization, 1979), 1.\n\nCHAPTER NINE: STORMY HORIZONS\n\n1. World Bank Group, \"China Overview,\" accessed February 12, 2018, www.worldbank.org\/en\/country\/china\/overview.\n\n2. Sumit Ganguly and Rahul Mukherjee, _India Since 1980_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), chapter 3.\n\n3. Anil Agarwal, Kalpana Sharma, and Ravi Chopra, _The State of India's Environment, 1982: A Citizens' Report_ (New Delhi: Centre for Science and Environment, 1982), 20.\n\n4. Naomi Oreskes, \"The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,\" _Science_ 306 (December 2004): 1686.\n\n5. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, _Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability_ (Geneva: IPCC, 2014); World Bank, _Turn Down the Heat: Climate Extremes, Regional Impacts, and the Case for Resilience_ (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013).\n\n6. Andreas Malm, _The Progress of This Storm: Nature and Society in a Warming World_ (London: Verso, 2018), 5.\n\n7. Angus Deaton, _The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality_ (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013).\n\n8. Hannah Ritchie, \"Yields vs. Land Use: How the Green Revolution Enabled Us to Feed a Growing Population,\" _Our World in Data,_ August 22, 2017, accessed February 10, 2018, https:\/\/ourworldindata.org\/yields-vs-land-use-how-has-the-world-produced-enough-food-for-a-growing-population.\n\n9. Khushwant Singh, \"The Indian Monsoon in Literature,\" in _Monsoons,_ ed. Jay S. Fein and Pamela L. Stephens (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1987), 35\u201350, quotations on p. 48.\n\n10. Jyoti Bhatt, \"Divination of Rainy Days: An Annual Festival in Gujarat\" [1987], in Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong: Jyoti Bhatt Archive, last accessed April 24, 2018, https:\/\/aaa.org.hk\/en\/collection\/search\/archive\/jyoti-bhatt-archive-english\/object\/divination-of-rainy-days-an-annual-festival-in-gujarat.\n\n11. University of Hawaii at Manoa Economics Department, \"Harry T. Oshima (1918\u20131998),\" accessed February 16, 2018, www.economics.hawaii.edu\/history\/faculty\/oshima.html.\n\n12. Harry T. Oshima, _Economic Growth in Monsoon Asia: A Comparative Survey_ (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1987); Harry T. Oshima, \"Seasonality and Underemployment in Monsoon Asia,\" _Philippine Economic Journal_ 19 (1971): 63\u201397.\n\n13. Statistics from A. Vaidyanathan, _Water Resources of India_ (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2013); T. Shah, \"Climate Change and Groundwater: India's Opportunities for Mitigation and Adaptation,\" _Environmental Research Letters_ 4 (2009): 1\u201313, quotation on p. 3.\n\n14. Meera Subramanian, _A River Runs Again: India's Natural World in Crisis, from the Barren Cliffs of Rajasthan to the Farmlands of Karnataka_ (New York: PublicAffairs, 2015), 9\u201366, on Punjab; on Gujarat, see David Hardiman, \"The Politics of Water Scarcity in Gujarat,\" in Amita Baviskar ed. _Waterscapes: The Cultural Politics of a Natural Resource_ (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2006), 39\u201362.\n\n15. Daniyal Mueenuddin, \"Nawabdin Electrician,\" in _In Other Rooms, Other Wonders_ (New York: W.W. Norton, 2009), 13\u201328, quotation on p. 13.\n\n16. Jane Qiu, \"China Faces Up to Groundwater Crisis,\" _Nature_ 466 (2010): 308.\n\n17. David A. Pietz, _The Yellow River: The Problem of Water in Modern China_ (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), 264\u2013265; M. Webber et al., \"The Yellow River in Transition,\" _Environmental Science and Policy_ 11 (2008): 422\u2013429.\n\n18. M. Rodell, I. Velicogna, and J. S. Famiglietti, \"Satellite-Based Estimates of Groundwater Depletion in India,\" _Nature_ 460 (2009): 999\u20131002.\n\n19. M. K. Gandhi, \"Some Mussooree Reminiscences,\" _Harijan,_ June 23, 1946, 198; Ramachandra Guha, _The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Political Protest in the Himalaya_ (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989).\n\n20. Kathleen D. Morrison, \"Dharmic Projects, Imperial Reservoirs, and New Temples of India: An Historical Perspective on Dams in India,\" _Conservation and Society_ 8 (2010): 184.\n\n21. Ambedkar's statement was delivered in India's Constituent Assembly on November 4, 1948; for research on the complexity of water management in pre-modern India, see David Mosse, _The Rule of Water: Statecraft, Ecology, and Collective Action in South Asia_ (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003); Haruka Yanagisawa, _A Century of Change: Caste and Irrigated Lands in Tamil Nadu, 1860s\u20131970s_ (New Delhi: Manohar, 1996); for an overview that is skeptical of the idea that colonial rule was an absolute ecological watershed, see Mahesh Rangarajan, \"Environmental Histories of India: Of States, Landscapes, and Ecologies,\" in _The Environment and World History,_ ed. Kenneth Pomeranz and Edmund Burke III (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 229\u2013254.\n\n22. Agarwal, Chopra, and Sharma, _The State of India's Environment, 1982_ ; A. Agarwal and Sunita Narain, eds., _The State of India's Environment, 1984\u201385: A Second Citizens' Report_ (New Delhi: Centre for Science and Environment, 1985), quotation from \"Statement of Shared Concern\"; The Centre for Science and Environment also produced a documentary film on water harvesting: _Harvest of Rain,_ dir. Sanjay Kak (1995), Centre for Science and Environment, 1995; Tim Forsyth, \"Anil Agarwal,\" in _Fifty Key Thinkers on Development,_ ed. D. Simon (London: Routledge, 2005), 9\u201314.\n\n23. Vandana Shiva, _The Violence of the Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture, Ecology and Politics_ (London: Zed Books, 1991), 11.\n\n24. The authors of the first Indian report cite the inspiration of Penang in their preface: Agarwal, Chopra, and Sharma, _State of India's Environment, 1982_ ; on the Third World Network, see its website, accessed February 1, 2018, www.twn.my\/twnintro.htm; on the Consumers' Association of Penang, see Matthew Hilton, _Prosperity for All: Consumer Activism in an Era of Globalization_ (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009); on the rise and fall of the New International Economic Order, see Nils Gilman, \"The New International Economic Order: A Reintroduction,\" _Humanity_ (Spring 2015): 1\u201316.\n\n25. Anil Agarwal and Sunita Narain, _Global Warming in an Unequal World: A Case of Environmental Colonialism_ (Delhi: Centre for Science and Environment, 1991).\n\n26. P. Sainath, _Everybody Loves a Good Drought: Stories from India's Poorest Districts_ (New Delhi: Penguin, 1996), quotations on pp. 319\u2013320.\n\n27. Aseem Shrivastava and Ashish Kothari, _Churning the Earth: The Making of Global India_ (New Delhi: Viking, 2012), 176\u2013183; P. Sainath, \"Farm Suicides: A 12-Year Saga,\" _The Hindu,_ January 25, 2010; P. Sainath, \"The Largest Wave of Suicides in History,\" _The Hindu,_ February 16, 2009; Akta Kaushal, \"Confronting Farmer Suicides in India,\" _Alternatives_ 40 (2016): 46\u201362.\n\n28. Gyansham Shah, Harsh Mander, Sukhadeo Thorat, Satish Deshpande, and Amita Baviskar, _Untouchability in Rural India_ (New Delhi: Sage, 2006), 75.\n\n29. Agarwal, Chopra, and Sharma, _State of India's Environment, 1982,_ 20\u201323.\n\n30. Darryl D'Monte, _Temples of Tombs? Industry versus Environment, Three Controversies_ (New Delhi: Centre for Science and Environment, 1985), 15.\n\n31. M. C. Mehta v. Union of India (Kanpur Tanneries), _All India Reporter_ (1988), SC 1037; M. C. Mehta v. Union of India (Municipalities), _All India Reporter_ (1988), SC 1115: cases cited in _Environmental Law and Policy in India: Cases, Materials and Statutes,_ ed. Shyam Divan and Armin Rosencranz (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), 210\u2013225. Mehta's biography from the M. C. Mehta Foundation, http:\/\/mcmef.org\/m-c-mehta\/; details of his career are available in his citation for the Goldman Prize, which he won in 1996, www.goldmanprize.org\/recipient\/mc-mehta\/.\n\n32. Judith Shapiro, _China's Environmental Challenges_ (London: Polity, 2012), 112\u2013118.\n\n33. Ma Jun, _China's Water Crisis_ , trans. Nancy Yang Liu and Lawrence R. Sullivan (Norwalk, CT: EastBridge\/International Rivers, 2004), quotations on pp. vii\u2013xi, 79\u201380; first published in Chinese as _Zhongguo shui weiji_ (Beijing: China Environmental Sciences Publishing House, 1999).\n\n34. \"India\u2014Mr McNamara's Meeting with the Indian Finance Minister,\" Memorandum of September 27, 1978: WBA, Contacts with Member Countries: India\u2014Correspondence 09, folder 1771081.\n\n35. See the entry on Medha Patkar on the website of the Goldman Environmental Prize, which she won in 1992. Accessed March 1, 2018, www.goldmanprize.org\/recipient\/medha-patkar\/.\n\n36. \"Bankwide Lessons Learned from the Experience with the India Sardar Sarovar (Narmada) Project,\" World Bank report, May 19, 1993, accessed March 19, 2018, http:\/\/documents.worldbank.org\/curated\/en\/221941467991015938\/Lessons-learned-from-Narmada.\n\n37. Smita Narula, \"The Story of Narmada Bachao Andolan: Human Rights in the Global Economy and the Struggle against the World Bank,\" _New York University Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers_ 106 (2008); Balakrishnan Rajagopal, \"The Role of Law in Counter-hegemonic Globalization and Global Legal Pluralism: Lessons from the Narmada Valley Struggle in India,\" _Leiden Journal of International Law_ 18 (2005): 345\u2013355; Alf Gunvald Nilsen, _Dispossession and Resistance in India: The River and the Rage_ (London: Routledge, 2010). Modi's comments quoted in \"54 Years On, Modi Opens Sardar Sarovar Dam,\" _FirstPost,_ September 18, 2017, accessed March 20, 2018, www.firstpost.com\/politics\/sardar-sarovar-dam-inaugurated-narendra-modi-alleges-conspiracy-to-stop-project-congress-calls-it-election-gimmick-4054251.html.\n\n38. A synthesis of the research of the 1980s and 1990s appears in Satyajit Singh, _Taming the Waters: The Political Economy of Large Dams in India_ (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), especially 133\u2013163 on ecological consequences.\n\n39. On displacement, see Sanjoy Chakravorty, _The Price of Land: Acquisition, Conflict, Consequence_ (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2013), especially Appendix A9.2; and Singh, _Taming the Rivers,_ 182\u2013203. For a global perspective on dam displacement, see International Committee of the Red Cross, _World Disasters Report 2012: Focus on Forced Migration and Displacement_ (Geneva: Red Cross, 2012). On the disproportionate impact of dams on marginalized communities, see Esther Duflo and Rohini Pande, \"Dams,\" _Quarterly Journal of Economics_ 122 (2007): 601\u2013646.\n\n40. Arundhati Roy, \"The Greater Common Good,\" _Outlook,_ May 24, 1999; for a critique, see Ramachandra Guha, \"The Arun Shourie of the Left,\" _The Hindu,_ November 26, 2000.\n\n41. Vairamuthu, _Kallikaatu Ithihaasam_ (Chennai: Thirumagal, 2001).\n\n42. _Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision Making. The Report of the World Commission on Dams_ (London: Earthscan, 2000).\n\n43. Ramaswamy R. Iyer, \"The Story of a Troubled Relationship,\" _Water Alternatives_ 6 (2013): 168\u2013176, quotations on pp. 169, 175; on Iyer's career, see Amita Baviskar's obituary: \"He Watered the Arid Fields of Administration with Intellectual Rigour and Honesty,\" _The Wire,_ September 11, 2015, last accessed May 2, 2018, https:\/\/thewire.in\/environment\/watering-the-arid-fields-of-administration-with-intellectual-rigour-and-honesty.\n\n44. Ravi S. Jha, \"India's River Linking Project Mired in Cost Squabbles and Politics,\" _The Guardian,_ February 5, 2013, accessed May 4, 2018, www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2013\/feb\/05\/india-river-link-plan-progress-slow; Supreme Court of India. Writ Petition (Civil) No. 512 of 2002 in Re. Networking of Rivers, judgment, accessed May 14, 2018, http:\/\/courtnic.nic.in\/supremecourt\/temp\/512200232722012p.txt; Y. A. Alagh, G. Pangare, and B. Gujja, _Interlinking of Rivers in India: Overview and Ken-Betwa Link_ (New Delhi: Academic Foundation, 2006).\n\n45. Ramaswamy R. Iyer, \"River Linking Project: A Disquieting Judgment,\" _Economic and Political Weekly,_ April 7, 2012, 33\u201340, quotations on p. 37.\n\n46. Meera Subramanian, _A River Runs Again: India's Natural World in Crisis, from the Barren Cliffs of Rajasthan to the Farmlands of Karnataka_ (New York: PublicAffairs, 2015).\n\n47. \"China Has Built the World's Largest Water Diversion Project,\" _The Economist,_ April 5, 2018; on the scheme in historical perspective, see Kenneth Pomeranz, \"The Great Himalayan Watershed: Water Shortages, Mega-Projects and Environmental Politics in China, India, and Southeast Asia,\" _Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus_ 7 (2009), accessed February 1, 2018, https:\/\/apjjf.org\/-Kenneth-Pomeranz\/3195\/article.html.\n\n48. C. J. V\u00f6r\u00f6smarty et al, \"Battling to Save the World's River Deltas,\" _Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists_ , 65, 2 (2009): 31\u201343; James Syvitski, \"Sinking Deltas Due to Human Activities,\" _Nature Geoscience_ 2 (2009): 681\u2013686; Roger L. Hooke, \"On the History of Humans as Geomorphic Agents,\" _Geology_ 28 (2000): 843\u2013846.\n\n49. Pomeranz, \"The Great Himalayan Watershed.\"\n\n50. Shripad Dharmadhikary, _Mountains of Concrete: Dam Building in the Himalayas_ (Berkeley: International Rivers, 2008); Douglas Hill, \"Trans-boundary Water Resources and Uneven Development: Crisis Within and Beyond Contemporary India,\" _South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies_ 36 (2013): 243\u2013257; John Vidal, \"China and India 'Water Grab' Dams Put Ecology of the Himalayas in Danger,\" _The Observer_ , August 10, 2013.\n\n51. Dharmadhikary, _Mountains of Concrete_.\n\n52. Dharmadhikary, _Mountains of Concrete_ ; R. Grumbine and M. Pandit, \"Threats from India's Himalaya Dams,\" _Science_ 339 (2013): 36\u201337; Rohan D'Souza, \"Pulses Against Volumes: Transboundary Rivers and Pan-Asian Connectivity,\" in _Heading East: Security, Trade, and Environment Between India and Southeast Asia,_ ed. Karen Stoll Farrell and Sumit Ganguly (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016); Jane Qiu, \"Flood of Protest Hits Indian Dams,\" _Nature_ 492 (2012): 15\u201316; Fan Xiao quoted in Charlton Lewis, \"China's Great Dam Boom: A Major Assault on Its Rivers,\" _Yale Environment 360_ , November 4, 2013, accessed March 1, 2018, https:\/\/e360.yale.edu\/features\/chinas_great_dam_boom_an_assault_on_its_river_systems.\n\n53. T. Bolch et al., \"The State and Fate of the Himalayan Glaciers,\" _Science_ 336 (2012): 310\u2013314; World Bank, _Turn Down the Heat_ ; Dexter Filkins, \"The End of Ice: Exploring a Himalayan Glacier,\" _New Yorker,_ April 4, 2016.\n\n54. S. P. Xie et al., \"Towards Predictive Understanding of Regional Climate Change,\" _Nature Climate Change_ 5 (2015): 921\u2013930.\n\n55. A. Turner and H. Annamalai, \"Climate Change and the South Asian Monsoon,\" _Nature Climate Change_ 2 (2012): 587\u2013595; M. Bollasina, Y. Ming, and V. Ramaswamy, \"Anthropogenic Aerosols and the Weakening of the South Asian Summer Monsoon,\" _Science_ 334 (2011): 502\u2013505; Deepti Singh, \"South Asian Monsoon: Tug of War on Rainfall Changes,\" _Nature Climate Change_ 6 (2016): 20\u201322; R. Krishnan et al., \"Deciphering the Desiccation Trend of the South Asian Monsoon Hydroclimate in a Warming World,\" _Climate Dynamics_ 47 (2016): 1007\u20131027.\n\n56. J. Lelieveld, P. J. Crutzen, V. Ramanathan et al., \"The Indian Ocean Experiment: Widespread Air Pollution from South and Southeast Asia,\" _Science_ 291 (2001): 1031\u20131036; P. J. Crutzen and E. F. Stoermer, \"The Anthropocene,\" _Global Change Newsletter_ 41 (2000): 17\u201318.\n\n57. V. Ramanathan, \"Atmospheric Brown Clouds: Impact on South Asian Climate and Hydrological Cycle,\" _Proceedings of the National Academy of Science_ 102 (2005): 5326\u20135333; H. V. Henriksson et al., \"Spatial Distributions and Seasonal Cycles of Aerosols in India and China seen in Global Climate-Aerosol Model,\" _Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics_ 11 (2011): 7975\u20137990.\n\n58. Bollasina, Ming, and Ramaswamy, \"Anthropogenic Aerosols\"; Theodore G. Shepherd, \"Atmospheric Circulation as a Source of Uncertainty in Climate Change Projections,\" _Nature Geoscience_ 7 (2014): 703\u2013708.\n\n59. Singh, \"South Asian Monsoon,\" 21; Krishnan et al., \"Deciphering the Desiccation Trend\"; D. Niyogi, C. Kishtawal, S. Tripathi, and R. Govindaraju, \"Observational Evidence that Agricultural Intensification and Land Use Change May Be Reducing the Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall,\" _Water Resources Research_ 46 (2010), https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1029\/2008WR007082.\n\n60. D. Singh, M. Tsiang, B. Rajaratnam, and N. Diffenbaugh, \"Observed Changes in Extreme Wet and Dry Spells During the South Asian Summer Monsoon,\" _Nature Climate Change_ 4 (2014): 456\u2013461; Krishnan et al., \"Deciphering the Desiccation Trend\"; B. N. Goswami, S. A. Rao, D. Sengupta, and S. Chakravorty, \"Monsoons to Mixing in the Bay of Bengal: Multiscale Air-Sea Interactions and Monsoon Predictability,\" _Oceanography_ 29 (2016): 28\u201337.\n\n61. Adam Sobel, _Storm Surge: Hurricane Sandy, Our Changing Climate, and Extreme Weather of the Past and Future_ (New York: Harper Wave, 2014), 203\u2013232; Amitav Ghosh, _The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable_ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), 41\u201343.\n\n62. Data from the EM-DAT International Disaster Database, last accessed April 22, 2018, www.emdat.be.\n\n63. Ubydul Haque et al., \"Reduced Deaths from Cyclones in Bangladesh: What More Needs to Be Done?,\" _Bulletin of the World Health Organization_ 90 (2012): 150\u2013156, doi: 10.2471\/BLT.11.088302.\n\n64. A. Mahadevan et al., \"Freshwater in the Bay of Bengal: Its Fate and Role in Air-Sea Heat Exchange,\" _Oceanography_ 29 (2016): 72\u201381.\n\n65. \"Seafloor Holds 15 Million Years of Monsoon History,\" accessed April 10, 2018, https:\/\/news.brown.edu\/articles\/2015\/02\/monsoons.\n\n66. Concerned Citizens' Commission, _Mumbai Marooned: An Inquiry into the Mumbai Floods, 2005_ (Mumbai: Conservation Action Trust, 2006).\n\n67. Ghosh, _Great Derangement,_ 50\u201351.\n\n68. Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha, \"The Sea and Monsoon Within: A Mumbai Manifesto,\" in _Ecological Urbanism,_ ed. Mohsen Mostafavi with Gareth Doherty (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Graduate School of Design\/Lars M\u00fcller, 2010), 194\u2013207.\n\n69. Susan Hanson et al., \"A Global Ranking of Port Cities with High Exposure to Climate Extremes,\" _Climatic Change_ 104 (2011): 89\u2013111; Orrin H. Pilkey, Linda Pilkey-Jarvis, and Keith C. Pilkey, _Retreat from a Rising Sea: Hard Choices in an Age of Climate Change_ (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), 65\u201374.\n\n70. International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, \"Indonesia: Jakarta Floods,\" Information Bulletin 4.2007, September 26, 2007; Pilkey, Pilkey-Jarvis, and Pilkey, _Retreat from a Rising Sea,_ 70\u201371.\n\n71. On the contemporary geopolitics of the Bay, see Sunil S. Amrith _Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants_ (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), chapter 8.\n\n72. A. Mahadevan et al., \"Bay of Bengal: From Monsoons to Mixing,\" _Oceanography_ 29 (2016): 14\u201317, map on p. 16.\n\n73. International Federation of Red Cross Societies, _World Disasters Report 2012: Focus on Forced Migration and Displacement_ (Geneva: IFRC, 2013), 231.\n\n74. Amrith, _Crossing the Bay of Bengal,_ chapter 8.\n\n75. Joya Chatterji, \"Dispositions and Destinations: Refugee Agency and 'Mobility Capital' in the Bengal Diaspora, 1947\u20132007,\" _Comparative Studies in Society and History_ 55 (2013): 273\u2013304; IFRC, _World Disasters Report 2012,_ 38.\n\n76. _Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration_ (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2018).\n\n77. World Bank, \"Policy Note #2: Internal Climate Migration in South Asia\" (2018), accessed May 14, 2018, https:\/\/openknowledge.worldbank.org\/bitstream\/handle\/10986\/29461\/GroundswellPN2.pdf?sequence=7&isAllowed=y.\n\n78. ASEAN, _Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2025_ (Jakarta: Asean Secretariat, 2016); Constantino Xavier, _Bridging the Bay of Bengal: Towards a Stronger BIMSTEC_ (New Delhi: Carnegie India, February 2018).\n\n79. Aparna Roy, \"Bay of Bengal Diplomacy,\" _The Hindu,_ October 10, 2017.\n\n80. Season Watch, accessed May 1, 2018, www.seasonwatch.in\/.\n\n81. Prasenjit Duara, _The Crisis of Global Modernity: Asian Traditions and a Sustainable Future_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).\n\n82. Gandhi quoted in Singh, \"Indian Monsoon in Literature,\" 50.\n\nEPILOGUE: HISTORY AND MEMORY AT THE WATER'S EDGE\n\n1. Zadie Smith, \"Elegy for a Country's Seasons,\" _New York Review of Books,_ April 3, 2014.\n\n2. Namrata Kala, \"Learning, Adaptation, and Climate Uncertainty: Evidence from Indian Agriculture,\" working paper, August 2017, accessed March 3, 2018, https:\/\/namratakala.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/08\/kala_learning_aug2017_final.pdf, last.\n\n3. Suprabha Seshan, \"Once, the Monsoon,\" June 22, 2017, accessed March 10, 2018, https:\/\/countercurrents.org\/2017\/06\/22\/once-the-monsoon\/.\n\n4. M. Rajshekhar, \"Why Tamil Nadu's Fisherfolk Can No Longer Find Fish,\" _Scroll,_ July 8, 2016, accessed April 15, 2018, https:\/\/scroll.in\/article\/808960\/why-tamil-nadus-fisherfolk-can-no-longer-find-fish, the quotation in the text is from Rajshekhar's report; E. Vivekanandan, \"Impact of Climate Change in the Indian Marine Fisheries and Potential Adaptation Options,\" in _Coastal Fishery Resources of India: Conservation and Sustainable Utilisation_ (Cochin, India: Society of Fisheries Technologists, 2010), 169\u2013184; Amitav Ghosh and Aaron Savio Lobo, \"Bay of Bengal: Depleted Fish Stocks and Huge Dead Zone Signal Tipping Point,\" _The Guardian,_ January 31, 2017.\n\n# INDEX\n\naerial video, 239\u2013240\n\naerosols (brown cloud), 2\u20133, 305\u2013307\n\nAgarwal, Anil, 282\u2013283, ,\n\nagriculture\n\nCanal Colonies, 122\u2013124,\n\nand climate change,\n\nclouds,\n\ncontrol of water,\n\ncyclone of 1942 and WWII, 168\u2013169\n\nand drought, 68\u201369,\n\ndrought insurance,\n\nand economy, , 133\u2013136\n\nand electricity, 257\u2013258, ,\n\nand famine, 73\u201374,\n\nfood aid from US,\n\nfood prices, 68\u201369\n\nfood production, , 279\u2013280\n\nfoodgrain self-sufficiency, 243\u2013244\n\nfrontier colonization, 122\u2013125\n\ngovernment policy in 1950s and 60s, 243\u2013247\n\nand Green Revolution, 245\u2013247, , , , 283\u2013284\n\ngroundwater and wells, 256\u2013258, , 276\u2013280\n\nand inequalities,\n\nintensification in India, 192\u2013193, ,\n\nand irrigation, , , 133\u2013135, , , 258\u2013259\n\nland redistribution and _zamindari_ abolition,\n\nand meteorology, 36\u201338\n\nand migration within Asia, 160\u2013161\n\nand money lending, 73\u201374, ,\n\nand monsoons, , , , ,\n\nPartition and canals, ,\n\nrain and rainfall, , 134\u2013136, ,\n\nrice economies in WWII,\n\nsuicide problem,\n\nwater as resource,\n\nAkbar, Emperor, ,\n\n_Akbar Nama,_\n\nAlgu\u00e9, Jos\u00e9, 104\u2013107\n\nAmbedkar, Bhimrao\/B.R., 154\u2013155,\n\nArthur Cotton museum, ,\n\nAsia\n\nclimate change, , , 303\u2013304,\n\ncontrol of water, 5\u20138,\n\ndam building post-WWII, 177\u2013179\n\nearthquake of 1950,\n\neconomic conditions post-WWII, 213\u2013214\n\nend of imperial rule, 175\u2013177\n\ngroundwater resources,\n\nhistory and history-writing, 5\u20138, 9\u201310\n\nidentity and freedom,\n\nas integrated climatic system, 108\u2013109, 173\u2013174\n\nmegacities by the ocean, 270\u2013271 (map)\n\nmigration and agriculture, 160\u2013161\n\nnationalism, 147\u2013148, 151\u2013153\n\nrivers, , , , 289\u2013292, 290 (fig.) ( _see also_ specific areas' rivers)\n\nrole of monsoons, 155\u2013157,\n\nshared water resources,\n\nwater crisis of 1980s, , 272\u2013274, 280\u2013281\n\nwater schemes and regional cooperation, 214\u2013215\n\nweather control schemes by US, 250\u2013251\n\nAsiatic Society of Bengal, 60\u201361\n\natmospheric pressure, 140\u2013141\n\nAttlee, Clement,\n\nAustralia, drought science,\n\n_Awaara_ (movie),\n\nBabur (Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babar), 27\u201328,\n\nBailyn, Bernard,\n\nBaker, Christopher, 159\u2013160\n\nBalaji, Sakharam, 126\u2013127\n\nBall, Valentine,\n\nBanerji, S. K.,\n\nBangladesh, , 309\u2013310\n\nBari Doab canal,\n\n_Baur Nama,_\n\nBay of Bengal\n\ncyclones, , 60\u201361, , 308\u2013309\n\nand monsoon science, ,\n\nBayly, Christopher,\n\nBelgaum district (Bombay),\n\nBengal\n\nborders and nature, 181\u2013182\n\nBritish control and trade, , 47\u201348\n\ncyclones and storms, 58\u201359, 60\u201363, 91\u201392, 168\u2013169,\n\nfamine and crisis in WWII, 168\u2013170\n\nand Partition, 148\u2013149, 179\u2013180, 181\u2013182\n\nBennett, M. K.,\n\nBennett, W. C., 119\u2013120\n\nBhakra Dam and Bhakra Nangal project, 197 (fig.), 202 (fig.)\n\nconstruction and workers, 199\u2013201, 201 (fig.), 202 (fig.)\n\ndedication, 196 (fig.)\n\ndescription and background, , 196\u2013198\n\ndisplacement of people, 210\u2013211\n\nfilm, 198\u2013201\n\nBhatt, Jyoti, 275\u2013276\n\nBhattacharjee, Kapil Prasad,\n\nBihar\n\nfamines, 79\u201380, 248\u2013250\n\nrain control,\n\nBjerknes, Jacob, , 262\u2013264\n\nBjerknes, Vilhelm, ,\n\nBlanford, Henry Francis\n\nclimate and rainfall reports,\n\nmonsoon and storm science, 60\u201363, 99\u2013103, ,\n\nscience and geology, 59\u201360,\n\nBlanford, William Thomas,\n\nBloch, Marc,\n\nBombay (now Mumbai), 67\u201368, 126\u2013127, ,\n\nborders\n\nAsia as integrated climatic system, 108\u2013109, 173\u2013174\n\nand climate change, 317\u2013319, 329\u2013330\n\ncompetition for water resources, 162\u2013163\n\ncontrol of water, 164\u2013165\n\ncooperation for water schemes and climate, 319\u2013323\n\nand dams,\n\nand fisheries,\n\nand Himalayan rivers, ,\n\nIndia\u2013China border, 164\u2013165, 177 (map), 225\u2013226, 227\u2013228\n\nand Partition, 180\u2013182\n\nBoreal Summer Intraseasonal Oscillation,\n\nBowles, Chester,\n\nBrahmaputra, , 35 (map), , 226\u2013227\n\nBraudel, Fernand,\n\nBRBD (Bambanwala-Ravi-Bedian-Dibalpur) project,\n\n\"bread riots\" (1960s),\n\n\"The Bridge Builders\" (Kipling),\n\nbridges for railway, 56\u201357\n\nBritain, , 175\u2013176\n\nBritish India\n\nin 1900, 18 (map)\n\narmy,\n\nborder with China, 164\u2013165\n\nBritish self-interest in India, 77\u201378, 114\u2013116\n\nBritish expansion, 33\u201334\n\ncaste relations, 154\u2013155\n\ncities expansion, 127\u2013128\n\ncivil society and humanitarian aid, 84\u201385, 86\u201387\n\nclimatology atlas, 108\u2013109\n\nclouds and rain,\n\ncontrol of water, , , 38\u201345, 46\u201347, , 164\u2013165\n\ncustoms duties, 48\u201349\n\ndata collection on India, 96\u201397, 117\u2013118, 134\u2013135\n\ndessicationism, 74\u201375,\n\ndrain of wealth by British, 77\u201378\n\ndrought science, , , 72\u201373\n\neconomy, 11\u201312, 38\u201339, 133\u2013134, 160\u2013161\n\nend of imperial rule, 175\u2013176, 180\u2013181\n\nfamine ( _see_ famines)\n\nfishing industry, 131\u2013133\n\nGanges, , 34\u201335\n\nGanges canal, 41\u201342, 43\u201345\n\ngeology, 59\u201360\n\ngeopolitics of water, 110\u2013111\n\nhydroelectricity, 128\u2013129\n\nimpact on water in India and Asia, 11\u201313\n\nIndian Rebellion of 1857, 45\u201346\n\nIndianization of officials, 143\u2013144\n\nindustrial development, 128\u2013129,\n\nirrigation schemes, 19\u201320, , , , 122\u2013124,\n\nland acquisition and displacement of people, 126\u2013127,\n\nmeteorology of cyclones and monsoon, 36\u201338, 60\u201364, 92\u201393, 98\u2013104, , , 139\u2013143\n\nmigration for agriculture in 1930s, 160\u2013161\n\nand monsoon, 21\u201322, 36\u201337, , 58\u201359\n\nmunicipal water supply,\n\nnationalism, 114\u2013115, 148\u2013153\n\nas oceanic realm, 131\u2013132,\n\npolitical reforms, ,\n\nprincely states breakup, 206\u2013207\n\nracial relations,\n\nrailway, 51\u201358\n\nsources of water, 113\u2013114\n\nstate-directed settlement, 122\u2013125\n\nsteamboats, 49\u201351\n\nSwadeshi movement, 148\u2013149\n\ntaxation, ,\n\ntechnological development, 56\u201357\n\nunderground water, 119\u2013121\n\nvessels for trade, 47\u201348, 49\u201350\n\nwater transportation, 38\u201339\n\nWWII period, 166\u2013167\n\nYamuna Canal restoration, 42\u201343\n\nbrown cloud, 2\u20133, 305\u2013307\n\nBurma, dam workers in India, 203\u2013205\n\nBurma Meteorological Department,\n\nBurma (under British rule), 164\u2013165, , 175\u2013176\n\nCaird, James,\n\nCalcutta (now Kolkata), 49\u201351, 58\u201359\n\nCalvino, Italo, ,\n\nCanal Act (1568, India),\n\nCanal Colonies, 122\u2013124, 125\u2013126, , ,\n\ncanals\n\nin India, 41\u201345, 197\u2013198\n\nand Partition, 184\u2013185, , 187\u2013188\n\n_See also_ specific canals\n\ncapitalism\n\nand famines, 73\u201374, 87\u201388\n\nand fisheries, 328\u2013329\n\nin India, 11\u201312, ,\n\ncarbon and CO2 in ocean, 241\u2013242\n\ncaste, 154\u2013155, 287\u2013288\n\nCautley, Proby, 41\u201343\n\nCentral Water and Power Commission of India, ,\n\nCentre for Science and Environment, ,\n\nCeylon (later Sri Lanka), fisheries and borders,\n\nChakravarti, J. S., 135\u2013136\n\nChakravorty, Sanjoy, ,\n\nChatterton, Alfred, ,\n\nChennai. _See_ Madras\n\nChiang Kai-shek, ,\n\nChina\n\nagricultural growth and irrigation in 1970s\u201380s,\n\nborder with India, 164\u2013165, 177 (map), 225\u2013226, 227\u2013228\n\ncivil war and creation of PRC, 176\u2013177\n\ncontrol of water,\n\ncyclone and storm forecasts, 104\u2013105\n\ndam building, , , 300\u2013302\n\ndam financing, 301\u2013302\n\ndroughts and famines, , ,\n\neconomic growth of 1980s,\n\nenvironmental movement, , 290\u2013291\n\nflood control, , 217\u2013218\n\nfood production, ,\n\nfood security,\n\ngroundwater and wells,\n\nlife expectancy,\n\nmigration for agriculture in 1930s, 160\u2013161\n\n\"moral\" meteorology,\n\nnationalism, , 152\u2013153\n\npopulation growth,\n\nrelationship with India, 215\u2013218, 220\u2013223,\n\nresource planning for water,\n\nriver pollution, 291\u2013292\n\nstate-directed settlement, 124\u2013125\n\nTibet interests, 226\u2013227,\n\nwar with Japan, 165\u2013166\n\nwater crisis, 278\u2013279, 291\u2013292\n\nwater diversion project, 298\u2013299\n\nwater schemes and management, , 218\u2013222, , 298\u2013299\n\nworkers mobilization, 219\u2013220\n\n_China Environment Yearbook,_\n\n_China's Water Crisis_ (Ma Jun),\n\ncities, 127\u2013128, 270\u2013271 (map)\n\n_See also_ coastal regions and cities\n\ncitizen scientists,\n\ncivil society\n\nenvironmental cooperation, 320\u2013322\n\nfamines of 1890s, 84\u201385, 86\u201387\n\nclimate (weather)\n\nagency of climate, 70\u201371\n\nAsia as climatic system, 108\u2013109, 173\u2013174\n\nand clouds,\n\ncomplexity, 265\u2013266\n\nand culture, 155\u2013158\n\ncycles changed by human actions, , 74\u201376\n\ndessicationism, 74\u201375,\n\nand Indian Ocean Expedition, 230\u2013231,\n\ninternational cooperation, 320\u2013322\n\nmigration and refugees, 317\u2013319\n\nand monsoons, 15\u201316\n\nas moral concern, 71\u201373\n\nand politics, 252\u2013253\n\nand population of India, 190\u2013191\n\nrisks, 313\u2013315\n\nand understanding of Asia, 155\u2013157\n\n_See also_ meteorology\n\nclimate change\n\nand activism, 285\u2013286\n\nand agriculture,\n\nand borders, 317\u2013319, 329\u2013330\n\ncarbon and CO2 in ocean, 241\u2013242\n\nand cyclones' intensity, 308\u2013309\n\nimpact in Asia, , , 303\u2013304,\n\ninternational cooperation, 319\u2013320\n\nland cover and forests,\n\nand life cycles,\n\nand loss, 325\u2013330\n\nand monsoons, 304\u2013305, , 308\u2013309\n\nas risk, , 273\u2013274, 303\u2013304\n\nand water crisis, , 316\u2013317\n\n_Climatological Atlas of India_ (Eliot), 108\u2013109\n\nclouds, 93\u201395, ,\n\ncoastal regions and cities\n\nchanges and losses, 326\u2013330\n\nclimate change impact,\n\nstorm risks and preparation, 312\u2013313, 315\u2013316\n\ncolonialism, 11\u201312\n\n_See also_ British India\n\nColvin, John, ,\n\nCongress party (Indian National Congress), , , 166\u2013167, , ,\n\nresource planning for water, 163\u2013164\n\ncontrol of water\n\nin agrarian history,\n\nin Asia, 5\u20138,\n\nand borders, 164\u2013165\n\nBritish India, , , 38\u201345, 46\u201347, , 164\u2013165\n\nand colonialism,\n\nGodavari River, , 39\u201340\n\nin India's history, 26\u201327,\n\nas quest, 5\u20136\n\n_See also_ irrigation\n\nCotton, Arthur Thomas, 19 (fig.)\n\ncontrol of water and irrigation, 39\u201341, , , ,\n\nGanges canal, 41\u201342\n\nGodavari River, 17\u201320, 39\u201340\n\nlegacy of, , ,\n\nand railway,\n\nCredner, William,\n\nCrutzen, Paul,\n\ncultivators. _See_ agriculture\n\nculture, and climate, 155\u2013158\n\nCurzon, Lord,\n\ncyclones and storms\n\n1864 storm, 58\u201359, 60\u201363\n\n1876 storm, 91\u201392\n\n1891 and 1897 storms, 106\u2013107\n\n1942 storm, 168\u2013169\n\nBangladesh, 309\u2013310\n\nand climate change, 308\u2013309\n\n\"cyclone\" as new word,\n\nradar tracking,\n\nscience and forecasting, 60\u201363, 104\u2013106, , , 314\u2013315\n\n_See also_ monsoons\n\n_The Cyclones of the Far East_ (Algu\u00e9), 105\u2013106, 107 (fig.)\n\nDalai Lama, ,\n\nDalhousie, Marquess, 51\u201352\n\nDalits, , , 287\u2013288\n\nDamodar River and Valley, and project, 172\u2013173, ,\n\ndams\n\nand borders,\n\nbuilding in Asia, 177\u2013179\n\nin China, , , 300\u2013302\n\ncosts, 179\u2013180\n\ndevelopment in India, 177\u2013178, , 193\u2013196, 201\u2013203, 207\u2013208, , , 297\u2013298,\n\ndisplacement of people, 210\u2013211, 212\u2013213, , 295\u2013296\n\nenvironmental impact, , 296\u2013297, , 302\u2013303\n\nfinancing, 301\u2013302\n\nin India, 178 (map)\n\nproblems from, , 294\u2013297, , 302\u2013303\n\nprotests and resistance, 292\u2013294,\n\nsymbolism,\n\nworkers in India, 199\u2013201, 202 (fig.), 203\u2013205\n\n_See also_ hydroelectricity; specific dams and projects\n\nDas, P. K.,\n\nDavis, Mike,\n\ndeforestation, 74\u201376, , 172\u2013173,\n\ndessicationists, 74\u201375,\n\n_Diana_ (steamboat),\n\nDigby, William, 78\u201379,\n\ndisplacement of people\n\ndams, 210\u2013211, 212\u2013213, , 295\u2013296\n\nand land acquisition, 126\u2013127, 210\u2013211,\n\ndiversion of rivers, , 297\u2013299\n\nD'Monte, Darryl,\n\nDoel, Ronald, ,\n\nDonaldson, Dave,\n\nDouie, James, 122\u2013123,\n\nDowleswaram dam, ,\n\nDr\u00e8ze, Jean,\n\ndrought of 1876\u20131879 in India\n\ndescription, 65\u201367\n\ndrought science, , , 72\u201373, ,\n\nand famine, 65\u201374\n\nand human intervention, 73\u201376\n\nrain and rainfall, , 67\u201369\n\nsunspots theory, 82\u201383\n\ndroughts\n\n1896, 84\u201386\n\n1899\u20131900,\n\n1950s to today,\n\nmid-1960s, 230\u2013231, 242\u2013243, ,\n\n1970 to 1973, 260\u2013262\n\nagricultural _vs._ meteorological droughts,\n\nand agriculture, 68\u201369, ,\n\nand El Ni\u00f1o events,\n\nforecasts,\n\ninsurance in agriculture,\n\nand monsoons, 68\u201369, 230\u2013231\n\nand politics, 252\u2013253\n\nscience of, , , 72\u201373, , 95\u201396, , , 230\u2013231\n\nand water distribution, 286\u2013287\n\nDutt, Romesh Chander, 115\u2013116\n\nearthquake of 1950,\n\nEast India Company, , 45\u201346, 48\u201349\n\nEconomic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE), 213\u2013215, 223\u2013224\n\neconomy\n\nagriculture and cultivators, , 133\u2013136\n\nin British India, 11\u201312, 38\u201339, 133\u2013134, 160\u2013161\n\nconditions in post-WWII Asia, 213\u2013214\n\nfood economy and control, , ,\n\ngrowth of 1980s in India, 272\u2013273\n\nand irrigation, 133\u2013135\n\nand land, 160\u2013161\n\nmarket collapse of 1930s, 159\u2013161\n\nand Partition, 183\u2013184, 186\u2013187\n\npolicy in 1950s and 60s, 243\u2013244,\n\nand railway, , 53\u201355\n\nrice economies in WWII,\n\nEhrlich, Paul,\n\nEl Ni\u00f1o, , , 263 (fig.), 264\u2013265\n\nEl Ni\u00f1o Southern Oscillation (ENSO), 264\u2013265\n\nelectricity. _See_ hydroelectricity\n\nEliot, John\n\natlas of climatology of India, 108\u2013109\n\ncyclone and storm science, , , ,\n\nmeteorology, 103\u2013104\n\nmonsoons forecasts, 107\u2013108, ,\n\nenvironment and nature\n\nactivism and environmental movement, 281\u2013286, , 290\u2013291, 321\u2013322\n\nclimate and culture, 157\u2013159\n\nconference of 1972, 253\u2013255\n\ncooperation cross-border, 320\u2013322\n\ndams' impact, , 296\u2013297, , 302\u2013303\n\nimpact of post-WWII changes,\n\nimpact on history of Asia, 6\u20137\n\nmigration and migrant workers, 329\u2013330\n\nand Partition, 181\u2013182\n\nproblems in 1970s India, 253\u2013254,\n\nprotests against dams, 292\u2013294\n\ntraditional water management, 281\u2013283\n\nvulnerability of India, , , 134\u2013135, , 207\u2013208,\n\nwater legislation in India, 255\u2013256\n\nenvironmental crises, impact,\n\nepidemics of 1890s in India,\n\nerosion, 327\u2013328\n\nEurope, trade to India and Asia, 31\u201333\n\nFamine Codes, , ,\n\nFamine Enquiry Commission (1880), 81\u201382,\n\nfamine of 1876\u20131878 in India\n\ndescription, 65\u201366, 68\u201369\n\nand drought, 65\u201374\n\nenquiry commission, 81\u201383\n\nand human intervention, 72\u201376\n\nand inequality, 73\u201374\n\nin Madras, 78\u201379\n\nand meteorology, 69\u201370, 82\u201383, 102\u2013103\n\nand monsoon, ,\n\nrelief and response, 78\u201381, 82\u201383\n\nand state failure, 76\u201379, 81\u201382\n\nfamines\n\nagriculture and cultivators, 73\u201374,\n\nand capitalism, 73\u201374, 87\u201388\n\nconsequences,\n\nand food imports,\n\nand irrigation, ,\n\nand meteorology, 69\u201370, 82\u201383, 102\u2013103\n\nresponsibility for, , , , 87\u201388, 115\u2013116, 169\u2013170,\n\nsolutions to, 136\u2013137\n\nand water schemes,\n\n_See also_ specific famines\n\nfamines of 1890s in India, 84\u201387\n\nfarmers and farming. _See_ agriculture\n\nField, J. H.,\n\nFilms Division of India,\n\n_First Citizen's Report on the State of India's Environment_ (Agarwal and Narain), 282\u2013283\n\nfisheries, 131\u2013133, , 328\u2013329\n\nfood\n\nfeeding challenge in India, 191\u2013193\n\nfood aid, , , 249\u2013250\n\nimports in famines,\n\npolicy and strategy in India, 243\u2013247\n\nprices, 68\u201369,\n\nproduction, 274\u2013275, 279\u2013280\n\nriots of 1964, 274\u2013275\n\nsecurity and control, , ,\n\nself-sufficiency, , 243\u2013244, 322\u2013323\n\nFood Corporation of India, 261\u2013262\n\nForest Act (1878, India),\n\nforests and deforestation, 74\u201376, , 172\u2013173,\n\nFreeman, Orville,\n\nFriends of Nature, ,\n\nfrontiers. _See_ borders\n\nfunctionalism,\n\nFurnivall, John,\n\nGandhi, Indira, 248\u2013249, 249 (fig.), 253\u2013255,\n\nGandhi, Mohandas Karamchand \"Mahatma,\" 149\u2013151, , ,\n\nGanges, 35 (map)\n\nand British power, , 34\u201335\n\ncanal, 41\u201342, 43\u201345\n\ncentrality and reverence in India, 25\u201326, 44\u201345,\n\nchanges in course,\n\ncustom duties and taxation, 48\u201349\n\ncyclone of 1876,\n\nmonsoons' power, 57\u201358\n\nnavigation and trade, 47\u201348,\n\npollution, 289\u2013290\n\nand spirituality,\n\nsteamboats, 49\u201350\n\nGangetic plain, and brown cloud, 305\u2013306\n\nGastrell, James, 61\u201363\n\nGeological Survey of India,\n\ngeology, 1\u20132, 59\u201360,\n\nGhosh, Amitav,\n\nGinsburg, Norton,\n\nglaciers, and climate change,\n\n_Global Warming in an Unequal World_ (Agarwal and Narain), ,\n\nGlobal Weather Experiment,\n\nGodavari River, irrigation and control of water, 18\u201320, , 39\u201341\n\nGondwana,\n\nGopalaswami, R. A., 188\u2013189,\n\nGovernment of India Act (1919),\n\ngroundwater, for irrigation and food production, 256\u2013258, , 276\u2013280\n\nGujarat, groundwater and water table,\n\nHalley, Edmund,\n\nHaridwar headworks,\n\nHarper, Kristine, ,\n\nHart, Henry, 202\u2013203,\n\nHart, Robert,\n\nHart Schaaf, C., 214\u2013215\n\nhaze (brown cloud), 2\u20133, 305\u2013307\n\nHedin, Sven,\n\nHem Raj, R. B.,\n\nHildebrandsson, Hugo, and colleagues, 93\u201394\n\nHimalayan rivers, x\u2013xi (map), xviii (fig.)\n\nborders and countries, ,\n\nclimate change impact, , 303\u2013304\n\ndams and dam building, , 299\u2013303\n\ndata and information sharing, ,\n\ndescription and history,\n\nearthquake of 1950,\n\nenvironmental crises,\n\nexploration and mapping,\n\nin geopolitical view, 110\u2013112\n\nand pollution, 2\u20133,\n\nas shared water resources, , 303\u2013304\n\nHimalayas, , 63\u201364, 109\u2013112, 303\u2013304\n\nHirakud Dam, 193\u2013194, 204\u2013205\n\nhistory and history-writing\n\nlatent and manifest events,\n\nviews on water and its impact, 5\u201310\n\nHooker, Joseph, 63\u201364\n\nHornell, James, 132\u2013133\n\nHuang Wanli,\n\nHumboldt, Alexander von,\n\n\"Hundred Flowers\" campaign,\n\nHunter, William Wilson, 109\u2013111\n\nhydroelectricity, 128\u2013129, 257\u2013258, , ,\n\nIltutmish, Sultan,\n\nImperial India. _See_ British India\n\nimperialism, impact on Asia, 11\u201312\n\nIndia \/ Indian subcontinent\n\nambition post-independence, 193\u2013195, , 197\u2013198, 207\u2013208\n\nclimatology and politics, 108\u2013109\n\nelections of 1967,\n\ninfrastructure neglect,\n\nas inspiration for water schemes, 223\u2013224\n\nlife expectancy, 189\u2013190\n\npolitical awakening, 114\u2013115, 148\u2013149\n\npopulation history and growth, 190\u2013191, ,\n\nrepresentative politics, 67\u201368\n\nstate of emergency of 1975,\n\nas \"subcontinent,\" 109\u2013110\n\ntraditional water management, 281\u2013283\n\nas vantage point for water history, 10\u201316\n\nvulnerability towards nature, , , 134\u2013135, , 207\u2013208,\n\nwater crisis, 278\u2013283,\n\nwater debates post-independence,\n\nwater diversion project, 297\u2013298\n\nwater legislation, 255\u2013256\n\nwater schemes post-WWII, 171\u2013173, 194\u2013195, , 221\u2013222, 292\u2013293\n\nwater table,\n\nwet and dry\/arid line,\n\n_See also_ British India; specific topics, events, and waters\n\nIndian Industrial Commission, ,\n\nIndian Irrigation Commission, 117\u2013120,\n\nIndian Meteorological Office\/Department\n\nchanges at, 141\u2013142, 143\u2013144,\n\ndirectors, , , ,\n\nIndian staff and Indianization, 97\u201399,\n\nin International Meteorological Centre,\n\nfor military in WWII,\n\nmonsoon forecasts,\n\nand Partition, 182\u2013183\n\nIndian National Congress. _See_ Congress party\n\nIndian Ocean\n\ncoastal megacities, 270\u2013271 (map),\n\nknowledge and study ( _see_ Indian Ocean Expedition)\n\ntsunami of 2004, 327\u2013328\n\nIndian Ocean Expedition\n\ncarbon and CO2, 241\u2013242\n\nand climate science, 230\u2013231,\n\nforecasts of monsoons, 240\u2013241\n\nIndian ships in study,\n\ninternational cooperation, 234\u2013235\n\nmeteorology study, 236\u2013237\n\nmonsoons and winds, 233\u2013234, 236\u2013237, 239\u2013241,\n\ntechnology in study, 239\u2013241\n\nIndian Rebellion of 1857, 45\u201346\n\nIndian Supreme Court,\n\nIndianization of officials, 143\u2013144\n\nIndonesia, end of imperial rule,\n\nIndus Treaty, , 319\u2013320\n\nIndus waters\n\ndivision, , 319\u2013320\n\nand Partition, 185\u2013186, 187\u2013188, 205\u2013206,\n\nsource in China,\n\nindustrial capitalism. _See_ capitalism\n\nindustrial development in British India, 128\u2013129,\n\ninequality\n\nand agriculture,\n\nand famine, 73\u201374\n\nand railway, , 55\u201356\n\nrural India, 280\u2013281\n\nand water, , , 287\u2013288\n\nInternational Conference on the Law of the Sea (1958),\n\nInternational Meteorological Centre (at Colaba), , 238\u2013239\n\nInternational Meteorological Organisation (IMO), 93\u201394\n\nIrrawaddy triangle, borders and control of water, 164\u2013165\n\nirrigation\n\nand agriculture, , , 133\u2013135, , , 258\u2013259\n\nand economy, 133\u2013135\n\nand famine, ,\n\nGodavari River, 18\u201320, 39\u201341\n\ngroundwater and wells, 119\u2013121, 256\u2013258, , 276\u2013280\n\ninvestment and intervention, , 118\u2013119\n\noverview as problem,\n\nand Partition,\n\nPunjab and Canal Colonies, 122\u2013124, 125\u2013126, , , 184\u2013185,\n\nrain and rainfall,\n\nirrigation schemes\n\nearly India, 26\u201327, ,\n\nBritish India, 19\u201320, , , , 122\u2013124,\n\nindependent India, 194\u2013196, 256\u2013257, 258\u2013259\n\nIyer, Ramaswamy, 296\u2013297,\n\nJakarta,\n\nJammu and Kashmir, and Partition,\n\nJapan, , , 165\u2013166,\n\nJinnah, Muhammad Ali, ,\n\nJohnson, Lyndon Baines \"LBJ,\" , 250\u2013251\n\n_JOIDES Resolution_ (ship),\n\nJulian, Paul,\n\nKashmir, , 247\u2013248\n\nKaveri River, dispute, 162\u2013163, 206\u2013207\n\nKhan, Mehboob, , 208\u2013209\n\nKhosla, A. N., 195\u2013196\n\nKipling, Rudyard,\n\nKolkata. _See_ Calcutta\n\nKrishnamachari, T. T.,\n\nKrishnarajasagar dam, , ,\n\nLa Ni\u00f1a, 264\u2013265\n\nLadejinsky, Wolf, 260\u2013261,\n\nLakshminarayana, V.,\n\nland\n\nacquisition and displacement of people, 126\u2013127, 210\u2013211,\n\nand economy, 160\u2013161\n\nredistribution and _zamindari_ abolition,\n\nLand Acquisition Act (1894, India) and officers, , ,\n\nLarkin, David, ,\n\nlaw of the sea, and territorial waters, 232\u2013233\n\nlegislation in India, 255\u2013256\n\nLi Yizhi,\n\nLiang Congjie, 290\u2013291\n\nLilienthal, David, 187\u2013188, , ,\n\nLokanathan, P., ,\n\nMa Jun, 291\u2013292\n\nMacGeorge, George W., , ,\n\nMackinder, Halford, 111\u2013112\n\nMadden, Roland,\n\nMadden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), 265\u2013266\n\nMadras (now Chennai)\n\nfamine, 78\u201379, 80\u201381\n\nfisheries, , ,\n\nwater mining, 120\u2013121\n\nMadras Presidency, 162\u2013163, , 206\u2013207\n\nMahad (India), struggle for freedom,\n\nMahalanobis, Prasanta Chandra, ,\n\nMaharashtra, drought, 260\u2013262,\n\nmalaria,\n\nMalaya (now Malaysia), migrant workers,\n\nManchuria, 124\u2013125\n\nMani, Anna, 237\u2013238\n\nManila Observatory, , 105\u2013106\n\nManto, Saadat Hasan,\n\nMao Zedong, , , , 219\u2013220\n\nMaoist insurgency, 280\u2013281\n\nMarsh, George Perkins,\n\nMarx, Karl,\n\nmegacities in Asia, 270\u2013271 (map),\n\nmegaprojects in India, 193\u2013194\n\nMehta, M. C., 289\u2013290\n\nMekong River, 178\u2013179, 223\u2013225,\n\nMelaka, textiles, 30\u201331\n\nMerrall, Edwin, 52\u201353\n\nmeteorology\n\nand agriculture, 36\u201338\n\nAsia as integrated climatic system, 108\u2013109\n\nclouds study, 93\u201395\n\ndata collection and sharing, 96\u201397, 101\u2013102, 104\u2013105, , ,\n\ndrought science, , , 72\u201373\n\nand famines, 69\u201370, 82\u201383, 102\u2013103\n\nmonsoon science, 36\u201338, 60\u201364, 92\u201393, 98\u2013104, , , 139\u2013143, 236\u2013237, 304\u2013306, , ,\n\n\"moral\" meteorology, 72\u201373\n\nand Partition,\n\npolitics and climate, 108\u2013109\n\nas science,\n\nships in research, , , 61\u201362, , , 104\u2013105, ,\n\nin WWII, 167\u2013168\n\n_See also_ climate; Indian Meteorological Office\/Department\n\nMettur Dam, 161\u2013162\n\nmigration and migrant workers, 160\u2013161, 317\u2013319\n\nmilitary,\n\n_See also_ Second World War (WWII)\n\nModi, Narendra, 293\u2013294\n\n_Moneka_ (ship),\n\n\"Monsoon Asia,\" ,\n\nMonsoon Experiment (MONEX), 266\u2013267\n\nmonsoons, xiv\u2013xv (maps)\n\nand agriculture, , , , ,\n\nand Asia, 155\u2013157,\n\nin British India, 21\u201322, 36\u201337, , 58\u201359\n\nchanges and shifts, , 327\u2013328\n\nand climate, 15\u201316\n\nclimate change, 304\u2013305, , 308\u2013309\n\nand culture, 155\u2013158\n\ndata collection, 61\u201362, , 101\u2013102, 104\u2013105, , ,\n\ndefinition and terminology, ,\n\ndescription, 13\u201314, 23\u201324\n\nand disease,\n\nand drought, 68\u201369, 230\u2013231\n\nand ENSO, 264\u2013265\n\nfailure of 1965 and 1966, 242\u2013243, ,\n\nfamine of 1876\u20131878 in India, ,\n\nforecasts, 102\u2013103, 107\u2013108, , 139\u2013140, 142\u2013143, 240\u2013241, 266\u2013267, , ,\n\nhistory and evolution, 22\u201323\n\nimpact and human responses to,\n\nas lived experience, 229\u2013230\n\nand meteorological science, 36\u201338, 60\u201364, 92\u201393, 98\u2013104, , , 139\u2013143, 236\u2013237, 304\u2013306, , ,\n\nplanning and preparation for,\n\npower and dangers, 57\u201358\n\npredictability and patterns, , , 306\u2013307, ,\n\nand railway in India, 52\u201353\n\nand rain science, 95\u201396, 100\u2013101, 140\u2013141, 304\u2013305\n\nrice economies in WWII,\n\nand rivers in India, 25\u201326\n\nrole and influence in India, 13\u201316, 24\u201325, 156\u2013157, 275\u2013276\n\nscience of, 63\u201364, 92\u201393, 262\u2013266,\n\nand seabed,\n\nstatistical analysis, 139\u2013140\n\nas system and pattern, 23\u201325\n\nand transportation, , 52\u201353\n\nwet and dry line in India,\n\nand wind, 23\u201324, 99\u2013100, , 236\u2013237\n\n_See also_ cyclones and storms\n\n_Mother India_ (movie), 207\u2013208, 209\u2013210\n\nMueenuddin, Daniyal,\n\nMughal Empire, 27\u201330,\n\nMukerjee, Radhakamal, 157\u2013159\n\nMukherjee, H. N.,\n\nMukherjee, Neel, 229\u2013230\n\nMumbai (was Bombay), 310\u2013312, 311 (map), 312 (fig.),\n\nmunicipal water supply,\n\nMuslim League, ,\n\nMysore, , , 162\u2013163,\n\nNangal Canal, 197\u2013198\n\n_See also_ Bhakra Dam\n\nNaoroji, Dadabhai, 77\u201378,\n\nNarain, Sunita, ,\n\nNarmada Bachao Andolan (NBA or \"Save Narmada Movement\"), 293\u2013294\n\nNarmada project, 292\u2013294,\n\nNash, Vaughan, ,\n\nnationalism\n\nawakening in India, 114\u2013115, 148\u2013149\n\nand castes, 154\u2013155\n\nin China, , 152\u2013153\n\ndevelopment in Asia, 147\u2013148, 151\u2013153\n\nfractures between states, ,\n\nGandhi's rise and work, 149\u2013151\n\nand power and freedom, , 154\u2013155\n\nand self-sufficiency,\n\nand water, , 152\u2013154\n\nwater schemes post-WWII, 171\u2013173\n\nnature. _See_ environment and nature\n\nNehru, Jawaharlal\n\nannexation of Tibet, ,\n\nBhakra Dam and Nangal Canal, 196\u2013197 (figs.), 197\u2013198\n\neconomic strategy,\n\nfamine in Bengal in WWII, 169\u2013170\n\non freedom,\n\nHirakud Dam, 193\u2013194\n\nland redistribution and _zamindari_ abolition,\n\nand Partition, ,\n\npolitical waning and death,\n\nrelationship with China, , , ,\n\nresource planning,\n\non size of projects,\n\nand starvation problem, ,\n\nwater schemes in China,\n\nNicholson, Frederick, 131\u2013132\n\nNightingale, Florence, ,\n\nNile River,\n\nNormand, Charles, , , 142\u2013143, ,\n\n_North American Review,_ and Ganges Canal, 44\u201345\n\nnortheast monsoon, xiv (map),\n\noceans\n\nchanges and erosion, 327\u2013328\n\nseabed and monsoons,\n\nterritorial waters and law of the sea, 232\u2013233\n\n_See also_ Indian Ocean\n\noil engines for water extraction, 120\u2013121\n\nOshima, Harry, ,\n\nOsterhammel, J\u00fcrgen,\n\nPacific Ocean, and monsoons,\n\nPakistan\n\ncanals, 184\u2013185, , 187\u2013188\n\neconomy, 186\u2013187\n\nIndus waters, 185\u2013186\n\nirrigation and agriculture,\n\nKashmir clashes, 247\u2013248\n\nmeteorology,\n\nPartition, 180\u2013181, 183\u2013188\n\nPartition, 176 (map)\n\nand borders, 180\u2013182\n\ncanals and water schemes, , 184\u2013185, , 187\u2013188\n\ndescription, , 180\u2013181\n\nimpact on government and institutions of India, 182\u2013184\n\nand Indus waters, 185\u2013186, 187\u2013188, 205\u2013206,\n\nPatkar, Medha, , 294 (fig.),\n\nPedder, W. G.,\n\nPersian Wheel method,\n\n\"Philindus,\"\n\nPhilippines, cyclone science, , 105\u2013106\n\nphotography of droughts, 84\u201385\n\nPiddington, Henry,\n\nPillai, Vellu,\n\nPillai, Villiyappa,\n\nPires, Tom\u00e9, 30\u201331\n\nPL-480 (Public Law 480), , ,\n\nplants, impact of climate change,\n\nPogson, Elizabeth Isis, 96\u201397,\n\npollution\n\nbrown cloud, 2\u20133, 305\u2013306\n\nimpact on water cycle, 2\u20133\n\nrivers, 2\u20133, 289\u2013292, 290 (fig.)\n\nwater legislation in India, 255\u2013256\n\nPomeranz, Kenneth,\n\nPondicherry, changes and erosion, , 328 (fig.)\n\nPoona Sarvajanik Sabha (\"the Sabha\"), 67\u201368, , 75\u201376, 86\u201387\n\npopulation growth, 190\u2013191, , , ,\n\nPortugal, trade in India, 31\u201332\n\npoverty, and ecological problems,\n\nProject Gromet,\n\nPublic Law 480 (PL-480), , ,\n\nPunjab\n\nagricultural problems, 277\u2013278, 283\u2013284\n\ndisplacement of people, 210\u2013211\n\ngroundwater and wells, 277\u2013278\n\nirrigation and canals, 121\u2013124, 125\u2013126, , , 184\u2013185,\n\nPartition, 180\u2013181, 184\u2013185, 186\u2013187\n\nQuit India Movement,\n\nRadcliffe, Cyril, ,\n\nRadcliffe's line, 176 (map),\n\nRaghavan, S., 314\u2013315\n\nrailway in India\n\ndevelopment and expansion, 51\u201352, , 54\u201356\n\nand hydrology, 56\u201357\n\ninequality and change, , 55\u201356\n\nmonsoons and climate, 52\u201353\n\nand technology, 56\u201357\n\nin trade and economy, , 53\u201355\n\nrain and rainfall\n\nand agriculture, , 134\u2013136, ,\n\ncloud injections,\n\ndata collection in British India, 96\u201397, , 134\u2013135\n\ndecline in India,\n\ndrought of 1876\u201379, , 67\u201369\n\nand El Ni\u00f1o, 264\u2013265\n\nfailure in India and China, 66\u201367, , , 242\u2013243, , ,\n\nand irrigation,\n\n\"moral\" meteorology,\n\nMumbai storm of 2005, 310\u2013312\n\npattern and description, 13\u201314, 23\u201324, ,\n\nplanning and preparation for,\n\nrainfall insurance,\n\nscience and monsoons, 95\u201396, 100\u2013101, 140\u2013141, 304\u2013305\n\nand water infrastructure,\n\nRamage, Colin, , 239\u2013241, ,\n\nRaman, C. R.,\n\nRamanathan, Veerabhadran,\n\nRanade, Mahadev Govind,\n\nRao, K. L.\n\nirrigation plans, ,\n\nwater schemes in China, 216\u2013218, , 220\u2013222\n\nRennell, James, 34\u201336\n\nresource planning, for water, 163\u2013164\n\nRevelle, Roger, , ,\n\nrice economies in WWII,\n\nrivers\n\nchanges and diversions, , 29\u201330, 297\u2013299\n\nand monsoon, 25\u201326\n\npollution, 2\u20133, 289\u2013292, 290 (fig.)\n\nvessels for trade, 47\u201348, 49\u201350\n\n_See also_ specific rivers and areas\n\nRoxburgh, William, 36\u201338\n\nRoy, Arundhati,\n\nRuchi Ram, Lala, 98\u201399,\n\nrural India\n\ndrought, 286\u2013287\n\ninequalities, 280\u2013281\n\nmonsoon rains and water problems, , 281\u2013283, 286\u2013287\n\nRussia, water schemes, 218\u2013219, 222\u2013223\n\nSaha, Meghnad, 171\u2013173\n\nSain, Kanwar\n\nBhakra Dam,\n\nMekong River commission, 223\u2013225\n\nwater schemes in China, 216\u2013218, , 220\u2013223\n\nSainath, Palagummi, 286\u2013287,\n\n\"salt march,\"\n\nSanmenxia Dam, 218\u2013219\n\nsatellite photography, for science, , 240\u2013241\n\nScott-Moncrieff, Colin, ,\n\nseabed and monsoons,\n\nSeason Watch,\n\nSecond World War (WWII), 166\u2013169, ,\n\nSeuss, Hans,\n\nShah, Firoz,\n\nShah, Gyansham, and colleagues, 287\u2013288\n\nShah, Tushaar,\n\nShastri, Lal Bahadur, ,\n\nships, information on monsoons and meteorology, , , 61\u201362, , , 104\u2013105, ,\n\nShiva, Vandana, 283\u2013284\n\nSimpson, G. C.,\n\nSingh, Deepti,\n\nSingh, Khushwant, ,\n\nSingh, Manmohan,\n\nSion, Jules,\n\nSlocum, Harvey, , 200 (fig.)\n\nSmith, Zadie,\n\nSolani aqueduct,\n\nSouth Africa, 149\u2013150\n\nSouth Asia's rivers, xii\u2013xiii (map)\n\nSouth to North line project, 298\u2013299\n\nSouthern Oscillation, , ,\n\nsouthwest monsoon, xv (map), 13\u201314, 23\u201324\n\nSoviet Union. _See_ Russia\n\nSrinivasan, B., 199\u2013200\n\nsteamboats, 49\u201351\n\nStommel, Henry,\n\nstorms. _See_ cyclones and storms\n\nStrachey, Richard, , , 81\u201382\n\nSubramaniam, C., 244\u2013247,\n\nsuicides of cultivators,\n\nSullivan, H. E.,\n\nSun Yat-sen, 152\u2013153\n\nSundara Raj, V.,\n\nsunspots theory of drought, 82\u201383\n\nSupratik (in _The Lives of Others_ ), 229\u2013230\n\nSutlej River,\n\nSwadeshi movement, 148\u2013149\n\nTansa project,\n\nTata and Sons,\n\ntaxation, 48\u201349,\n\nTchernia, Paul,\n\ntechnology, impact on water, ,\n\nTemple, Richard, , 80\u201381\n\nterritorial waters, and law of the sea, 232\u2013233\n\ntextiles trade, 30\u201331\n\nThird Pole,\n\nThird World, 284\u2013285\n\nThird World Network, 284\u2013285\n\nTibet, , , 226\u2013227,\n\nTibetan Plateau, xviii (fig.), 1\u20132, 188\u2013189\n\nTodd, Charles,\n\ntrade\n\nboats for, 47\u201348, 49\u201350\n\nearly trade, 30\u201333\n\nand railway, , 53\u201355\n\ntransportation, and monsoons, , 52\u201353\n\nTrevelyan, Charles, 48\u201349\n\ntsunami of 2004, 327\u2013328\n\ntubewells, , 256\u2013257, 257 (fig.),\n\nTungabhadra Dam and River, , ,\n\ntyphoons. _See_ cyclones and storms\n\nUN conference on environment (1972), 253\u2013255\n\nUN Convention on the Law of the Sea,\n\nunderground aquifers. _See_ groundwater\n\nUnited Nations, Indus dispute,\n\nUnited States\n\nagricultural policy in India,\n\nBihar famine of 1966\u20131967, , 249\u2013250\n\nfood aid to India, ,\n\nMekong River and interests in Asia, , ,\n\nin monsoon study, ,\n\nweather control schemes, 250\u2013251\n\nVairamuthu, 295\u2013296\n\nVakil, C. N., 183\u2013184\n\nVasco da Gama, 31\u201332\n\nVietnam, , 178\u2013179,\n\n_The Violence of the Green Revolution_ (Shiva), 283\u2013284\n\nVisvesvaraya, Mokshagundam, 129\u2013131,\n\nWalker, Gilbert\n\nbackground and interests, 137\u2013138,\n\nbreakthroughs in weather science, , 140\u2013141, ,\n\nclimate in India, 15\u201316\n\nIndianization of staff,\n\nmonsoon science and forecasts, 139\u2013140, 142\u2013143, ,\n\nrainfall in India, 140\u2013141\n\nWater Act (1974, India), 255\u2013256,\n\nwater control. _See_ control of water\n\nwater crisis, , 272\u2013274, 278\u2013283, 291\u2013292, 316\u2013317\n\nwater mining. _See_ groundwater\n\nwater table in India,\n\nWatsuji Tetsuro, 155\u2013157\n\nweather. _See_ climate\n\nweather control schemes, 250\u2013251\n\nWebster, Peter, ,\n\nwells, for irrigation, 119\u2013121, 256\u2013258,\n\nWheeler, Raymond,\n\nWickizer, V. D.,\n\nwind\n\nand monsoons, 23\u201324, 99\u2013100, , 236\u2013237\n\nand trade to India, 31\u201332\n\nWittfogel, Karl,\n\nWorld Bank\n\nagricultural policy in India,\n\nclimate migration,\n\nand dams, , , , ,\n\nMaharashtra drought, 260\u2013261\n\nWorld Commission on Dams, ,\n\nWorld War II. _See_ Second World War\n\nYamuna River and Canal, , 42\u201343\n\nYangzi River, 40\u201341, 291\u2013292\n\nYarlung Tsangpo. _See_ Brahmaputra\n\nYellow River, , , , 218\u2013219,\n\nYunnan, control of water, 164\u2013165\n\nZhou Enlai, 197 (fig.), , , , \n\n# CONTENTS\n\n 1. Cover\n 2. Title Page\n 3. Copyright\n 4. Table of Contents\n 5. Dedication\n 6. List of Maps\n 7. Maps\n 8. A Note on Names and Terminology\n 9. ONE The Shape of Modern Asia\n 10. TWO Water and Empire\n 11. THREE This Parched Land\n 12. FOUR The Aqueous Atmosphere\n 13. FIVE The Struggle for Water\n 14. SIX Water and Freedom\n 15. SEVEN Rivers Divided, Rivers Dammed\n 16. EIGHT The Ocean and the Underground\n 17. NINE Stormy Horizons\n 18. EPILOGUE History and Memory at the Water's Edge\n 19. Acknowledgments\n 20. About the Author\n 21. Also by Sunil Amrith\n 22. Archives and Special Collections\n 23. Notes\n 24. Index\n\n# Navigation\n\n 1. Begin Reading\n 2. Table of Contents\n\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}} +{"text":" \n#\n\n_By the same author_\n\nA Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian \nTwo Caravans\n\n# We Are All Made \nof Glue\n\n## MARINA LEWYCKA\n\n### FIG TREE \n_an imprint of_ \nPENGUIN BOOKS\n\n# Contents\n\n1 Adhesives in the Modern World\n\n1 The gluey smell\n\n2 Pheromones\n\n3 Shelf life\n\n4 Bonding dissimilar materials\n\n5 Fish\n\n6 Sticky brown stuff\n\n2 Adventures with Polymers\n\n7 Pick and mix\n\n8 Biopolymer\n\n9 Rubber\n\n10 Polymerisation\n\n11 Black treacle\n\n12 Marine biological glues\n\n13 No job too small\n\n14 Reindeer meat and dried fish\n\n15 The Bad Eel\n\n16 The handyman\n\n17 The care package\n\n18 Sherry\n\n3 Bonding\n\n19 Christmas with all the trimmings\n\n20 The festive season\n\n21 The Adhesives party\n\n22 Changing the locks\n\n23 Stress fractures\n\n24 Experimenting with Velcro\n\n25 The attraction between adhesives and adherends\n\n26 A gummy smile\n\n4 Adhesives Around the Home\n\n27 The breeze-block fortress\n\n28 Ancient and inexplicable\n\n29 The Abomination\n\n30 The broken gutter\n\n31 The epoxy hardener\n\n32 UPVC\n\n33 Avocados and strawberries\n\n34 The glue exhibition\n\n35 Uses of superglue\n\n36 The adhesion consultant\n\n37 A trip to B&Q\n\n38 Without walls\n\n39 Home improvements\n\n5 If Only It Came in Tubes\n\n40 Heavy as watermelons\n\n41 Cyanoacrylate AXP-36C\n\n42 The right glue for the materials\n\n43 Unpromising adherends\n\n44 Water creases\n\n45 The dance of the polymers\n\n46 Smoke circles\n\n47 The penthouse party\n\n48 A lot of bargains\n\nAcknowledgements\nFIG TREE\n\nPublished by the Penguin Group\n\nPenguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England\n\nPenguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA\n\nPenguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 \n(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)\n\nPenguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)\n\nPenguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia \n(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)\n\nPenguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi \u2013 110 017, India\n\nPenguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand \n(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)\n\nPenguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, \nRosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa\n\nPenguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England\n\nwww.penguin.com\n\nFirst published 2009\n\nCopyright \u00a9 Marina Lewycka, 2009\n\nThe moral right of the author has been asserted\n\n'I Will Survive' words and music by Dino Fekaris and Freddie Perren \u00a9 copyright 1978 \nPerren-Vibes Music Company\/PolyGram International Publishing Incorporated, USA. \nUniversal Music Publishing Limited. Used by permission of Music Sales Limited. \nAll rights reserved. International copyright secured.\n\nAll rights reserved\n\nWithout limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this \npublication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, \nor transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, \nrecording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the \ncopyright owner and the above publisher of this book\n\nISBN: 978-0-14-192134-1\nTo my father, Petro Lewyckyj \nPoet, engineer, eccentric \nOctober 1912 \u2013 November 2008\n\n# 1 \n_Adhesives in the \nModern World_\n\n# 1\n\n# The gluey smell\n\nThe first time I met Wonder Boy, he pissed on me. I suppose he was trying to warn me off, which was quite prescient when you consider how things turned out.\n\nOne afternoon in late October, somewhere between Stoke Newington and Highbury, I'd ventured into an unfamiliar street, and come upon the entrance of a cobbled lane that led in between two high garden walls. After about fifty metres the lane opened out into a grassy circle and I found myself standing in front of a big double-fronted house, half derelict and smothered in ivy, so completely tucked away behind the gardens of the neighbouring houses that you'd never have guessed it was there, crouched behind a straggly privet hedge and a thicket of self-seeded ash and maple saplings. I assumed it was uninhabited \u2013 who could live in a place like this? Something was carved on the gatepost. I pulled the ivy aside and read: Canaan House. Canaan \u2013 even the name exuded a musty whiff of holiness.\n\nA cloud shifted and a low shaft of sunshine made the windows light up momentarily like a magic show. Then the sun slipped away and the flat dusky light exposed the crumbling stucco, the bare wood where the paint had peeled away, rag-patched windows, sagging gutters, and a spiny monkey puzzle tree that had been planted far too close to the house. Behind me, the gate closed with a clack.\n\nSuddenly a long wailing sob, like the sound of a child crying, uncoiled in the silence. It seemed to be coming from the thicket. I shivered and drew back towards the gate, half expecting Christopher Lee to appear with blood on his fangs. But it was only a cat, a great white bruiser of a tomcat, with three black socks and an ugly face, who emerged from the bushes, tail held high, and came towards me with a purposeful glint in his eye.\n\n'Hello, cat. Do you live here?'\n\nHe sidled up, as though to rub himself against my legs, but just as I reached down to stroke him, his tail went up, his whole body quivered, and a strong squirt of eau-de-tomcat suffused the air. I aimed a kick, but he'd already melted into the shadows. As I picked my way back through the brambles I could smell it on my jeans \u2013 it had a pungent, faintly gluey smell.\n\nOur second encounter was about a week later, and this time I met his owner, too. One evening at about eleven o'clock, I heard a noise in the street, a scraping and scuffling followed by a smash of glass. I looked out of the window. Someone was pulling stuff out of the skip in front of my house.\n\nAt first I thought it was just a boy, a slight sparrowy figure wearing a cap pulled down low over his face; then he moved into the light and I saw it was an old woman, scrawny as an alley cat, tugging at some burgundy velour curtains to get at the box of my husband's old vinyls half buried under the other junk. I waved from the window. She waved back gaily and carried on tugging. Suddenly the box came free and she fell backwards on to the ground, scattering the records all over the road, smashing a few of them. I opened the door and rushed out to help her.\n\n'Are you okay?'\n\nScrambling to her feet, she shook herself like a cat. Her face was half hidden under the peak of the cap \u2013 it was one of those big jaunty baker boy caps that Twiggy used to wear, with a diamant\u00e9 brooch pinned on one side.\n\n'I don't know what type of persons is throwing away such music. Great Russian composers.' A rich brown voice, crumbly like fruitcake. I couldn't place the accent. 'Must be some barbarian types living around here, isn't it?'\n\nShe stood chin out, feet apart, as if sizing me up for a fight.\n\n'Look! Tchaikovsky. Shostakovich. Prokofiev. And they throw all in a bin!'\n\n'Please take the records,' I said apologetically. 'I don't have a record player.'\n\nI didn't want her to think I was a barbarian type.\n\n'Thenk you. I adore especially the Prokofiev piano sonatas.'\n\nNow I saw that behind the skip was an old-fashioned pram with big curly springs into which she'd already loaded some of my husband's books.\n\n'You can have the books, too.'\n\n'You heff read them all?' she asked, as though quizzing me for barbarian tendencies.\n\n'All of them.'\n\n'Good. Thenk you.'\n\n'My name's Georgie. Georgie Sinclair.'\n\nShe tipped her head in a stiff nod but said nothing.\n\n'I've not lived here long. We moved down from Leeds a year ago.'\n\nShe extended a gloved hand \u2013 the gloves were splitting apart on the thumbs \u2013 like a slightly dotty monarch acknowledging a subject.\n\n'Mrs Naomi Shapiro.'\n\nI helped her gather the scattered records and stow them on top of the books. Poor old thing, I was thinking, one of life's casualties, carting her worldly possessions around in a pram. She pushed it off down the road, swaying a little on her high heels as she went. Even in the cold outside air I could smell her, pungent and tangy like ripe cheese. After she'd gone a few yards I spotted the white tomcat, the same shaggy bruiser with three black socks, leeching out of the undergrowth of next door's garden and trailing her down the pavement, ducking for cover from time to time. Then I saw there was a whole cohort of shadowy cats slipping off walls and out of bushes, slinking along behind her. I stood and watched her go until she turned a corner and disappeared from sight, the Queen of the Cats. And I forgot about her instantly. I had other things to worry about.\n\nFrom the pavement I could see the light still on in Ben's bedroom window and the computer monitor winking away as he surfed the worldwide waves. Ben, my baby boy, now sixteen, a paid-up citizen of the web-wide world. 'I'm a cyber-child, Mum. I grew up with hypertext,' he'd once told me, when I complained about the time he was spending online. The square of light blinked from blue to red to green. What seas was he travelling tonight? What sights did he see? Up so late. On his own. My heart pinched \u2013 my gentle, slightly-too-serious Ben. How is it that children of the same parents turn out so differently? His sister Stella, at twenty, had already grabbed life by the horns, wrestled it to the ground, and was training it to eat out of the palm of her hand (along with a changing m\u00e9nage of hopeful young men) in a shared rented house near Durham University which, whenever I phoned, seemed always to have a party going on or a rock band practising in the background.\n\nIn the upstairs window the coloured square winked and disappeared. Bedtime. I went in and wrote my husband a curt note asking him to come and remove his junk, and I put it in an envelope with a second-class stamp. First thing next day, I telephoned the skip hire company.\n\nSo let me explain why I was putting my husband's stuff on a skip \u2013 then you can decide for yourself whose fault it was. We're in the kitchen one morning \u2013 the usual rush of Rip getting off to work and Ben getting off to school. Rip's fiddling with his BlackBerry. I'm making coffee and frothing milk and burning toast. The air is full of smoke and steam and early-morning bustle. The news is on the radio. Ben is thumping around upstairs.\n\nMe: I've bought a new toothbrush holder for the bathroom. Do you think you might find a moment to fix it on the wall?\n\nHim: (Silence.)\n\nMe: It's really nice. White porcelain. Sort of Scandinavian style.\n\nHim: What?\n\nMe: The toothbrush holder.\n\nHim: What the fuck are you talking about, Georgie?\n\nMe: The toothbrush holder. It needs fixing on to the wall. In the bathroom. (A helpless little simper in my voice.) I think it's a rawplug job.\n\nHim: (Deep manly sigh.) Some of us are trying to do something really worthwhile in the world, Georgie. You know, something that will contribute to human progress and shape the destiny of future generations. And you witter on about a toothbrush.\n\nI can't explain what came over me next. My arm jerked and suddenly there were flecks of milky froth everywhere \u2013 on the walls, on him, all over his BlackBerry. A gob of froth had caught in the blond hairs of his left eyebrow and hung there, quivering goopily with his rage.\n\nHim: (Furious.) What's got into you, Georgie?\n\nMe: (A shriek.) You don't care, do you? All you care about is your bloody world-changing destiny-shaping bloody work!\n\nHim: (Shaking his head in disbelief.) As it happens, I do care very much. I care about what happens in the world. Though I can't say I care deeply about a toothbrush.\n\nMe: (Watching, fascinated, as the gob of froth works itself loose and starts to slide.) A toothbrush _holder_.\n\nHim: What the fuck's a toothbrush _holder_?\n\nMe: It's... ah! (There she goes... Splat!)\n\nHim: (Self-righteously rubbing his eye.) I don't see why I should put up with this.\n\nMe: (Flushed with achievement.) No one's asking you to put up with it. Why don't you just go? And take your bloody BlackBerry with you. (Not that there was the slightest chance that he'd have left _that_ behind.)\n\nHim: (Hoity-toity.) Your outbursts of hysteria are not very attractive, Georgie.\n\nMe: (Lippy.) No, and you're not attractive either, you big self-inflated fart.\n\nBut he was attractive. That's the trouble \u2013 he was. And now I've well and truly blown it, I thought, as I pictured Mrs Shapiro pootling away up the street with his precious collection of great Russian composers tucked away in her pram. \n\n# 2\n\n# Pheromones\n\nI was sitting at my desk, staring at the rain and trying to finish off the November edition of _Adhesives in the Modern World_ , when the skip lorry arrived. Adhesives can sometimes, I admit, be quite boring, so it was nice to be distracted. I watched it reversing and clanking into position, lowering the chain loops to winch up the overflowing skip, dangling it in the air with the damp spare mattress, the dishevelled papers, limply flapping magazines, the bin bags of clothes and the boxes that contained all the soggy detritus of his Really Important Work, and crashing it down on the back of the truck with a satisfying thud. When it was ready I went out and paid the skip man, and I must confess I did feel a pang of extreme apprehension as it trundled out of view. I knew Rip would be furious.\n\nWhen he'd got back from work that day \u2013 the day of the toothbrush holder \u2013 I'd calmed down but he was still in a rage. He started piling up his stuff in his car.\n\nMe: (Nervous.) What are you doing?\n\nHim: (Stony-faced.) I'm leaving. I'm going to stay with Pete.\n\nMe: (Clinging. Pathetic. Despicable. Self-hating.) Don't go, Rip. I'm sorry. It's only a toothbrush holder. I'll put it up myself. Tell you what (little giggle), I'll learn to do rawplugs.\n\nHim: (Clenched jaw.) But it's not just that, is it?\n\nMe: What d'you mean? (A terrible truth dawns on me.) Are you...?\n\nHim: (Sigh of boredom.) There's no one else, if that's what you're thinking. Just...\n\nMe: (Relief.) Just... me?\n\nHim: (Looking at his watch.) I'd better get going. I told Pete I'd be there at seven.\n\nMe: (Feeling like a despicable worm too low even to crawl out of its miserable hole, but putting on a show of nonchalance.) Fine. If that's what you feel. Fine by me. Give my regards to Pete.\n\nPete was Australian, Rip's squash partner, and a senior colleague on the Progress Project. We called him Pectoral Pete, because he always wore tight white T-shirts and big white trainers and made loud jokes about lesbians. In spite of that, I quite liked him. He and his wife Ottoline lived in a tall-windowed house overlooking a square in Islington, with a top-floor flat that they sometimes rented out. I went and stood outside one evening, looking up into the lighted windows. They couldn't see me standing down there in the dark with tears pouring down my face.\n\nIt lasted for a few weeks, the crying phase. Then rage took over.\n\n'I'll come back for the rest of my things,' Rip had said as he left.\n\nBut he didn't. The shoes in the hall \u2013 I gave them a kick each time I went past \u2013 the old clothes in the wardrobe \u2013 they still carried a faint whiff of him \u2013 the back copies of _The Economist_ and the _New Statesman_ stacked up against the wall, the filing cabinets bulging with progress. Even his used underpants he'd left in the laundry basket. What was I supposed to do \u2013 take them out and wash them?\n\nI didn't want him cluttering up my new independent life with his old discarded stuff. I'll be fine, I told myself. I'll get over it. I'll meet someone else. And just to convince myself that I really meant it, I hired a skip. Perhaps I should have taken it all to Oxfam, but I didn't have a car and it just seemed too complicated. And besides, if I had done, this story might never have been written, because it was the skip that brought Mrs Shapiro into my life.\n\nAbout an hour after the skip had gone, the doorbell rang. So soon! I stood frozen, paralysed by the enormity of what I'd done. I listened as the bell rang again, a long, persistent, I-know-you're-in-there ring. No, best not to answer it. But what if he looked in through the window and saw me standing there? Maybe I should take my shoes off and silently sneak up to the bedroom. But what if he looked in through the letter box and saw me creeping up the stairs? What if he saw my silhouette in the window? I tiptoed into the corridor, lay down on the floor out of the sight line of any of the windows, and held my breath.\n\nThe doorbell rang again and again and again. Obviously he wasn't fooled. Then the letter box clattered. Then silence. As I lay stretched out on the floor watching the light fade on the ceiling, I could feel my heartbeat slowing down and my breathing getting calmer. After a while, a song drifted into my head.\n\n' _You thought I'd lay down and die_. _Oh no, not I! I will survive!'_ Gloria Gaynor. It was one of Mum's favourites. How did it go? ' _At first I was afraid, I was petrified.'_ I started to sing. ' _I didn't know if I could something something without you by my side_... _something change the locks_... _I will survive!_ ' I'd forgotten most of the other words, but I still knew the chorus, ' _I will survive! I will survive!_ ' I belted it out over and over again.\n\nThat's how Ben found me when he got back from school, lying flat on my back in the corridor, singing at the top of my voice. He must have let himself in so quietly that I didn't hear the door; then I looked up and saw his face looking down at me.\n\n'Are you all right, Mum?' His eyes squinted with concern.\n\n'Course I am, love. Just... enjoying a musical interlude.'\n\nI clambered up from the floor and looked out of the window. The street was empty. It was raining again. There were no signs the skip had ever been there apart from a few shards of black vinyl on the road. Then I noticed a leaflet on the doormat. Ben picked it up curiously. _The Watchtower. Watch and pray for ye know not when the time is._\n\n'What's this about?'\n\n'It's the Jehovah's Witness magazine. It's about the end of the world, when Jesus returns, and all the true believers get whisked up to heaven.'\n\n'Hm.' He flicked through it, and to my surprise he stuck it in his pocket and clomped upstairs to his room.\n\nWhat a shame. I could have done with a comforting heart-to-heart with some nice Jehovah's Witnesses.\n\nThe doorbell rang again as Ben and I were about to sit down for tea. Ben answered it.\n\n'Hi, Dad.'\n\n'Hi, Ben. Is your mother in?'\n\nNowhere to hide this time. I had to face him across the table. Pectoral Pete was with him. They were both wearing their jogging gear. They must have run all the way over from Islington. I could smell the sweat on them. The whole kitchen reeked of pheromones, and I felt a mortifying stab of lust \u2013 my traitor hormones letting me down just when I thought I was beginning to get things under control.\n\nHim: (Lounging in his chair and stretching his legs out as if he owned the place.) Hi, Georgie. I got your message. I've come to rescue my stuff.\n\nMe: (Oh, help! What have I done?) It's too late. They took the skip away this morning.\n\nHim: (Eyes round and blinky. Mouth open in a little round O that makes him look like a hooked trout.) You're kidding. (Yes, definitely more trouty than destiny-shaping. Ha ha!)\n\nMe: Why would I be kidding? (His hair seems to have receded a bit, too. Good. He's not as gorgeous as he thinks he is.)\n\nHim: (Disbelieving.) They took the records? My great Russian composers?\n\nMe: (A sly smirk.) Mmhm.\n\nHim: (Even more disbelieving.) My first-fifteen rugby boots?\n\nMe: All the junk. (How can a man who discards his loyal and devoted wife without a frisson of sentiment get all dewy-eyed about a pair of mouldy old football boots?)\n\nHim: (World-weary sigh.) Why are you being so childish, Georgie?\n\nChildish? Me? I picked up a plate of pasta. I could feel that twitching in my arm again. Pete was grinning with embarrassment, trying to bury his face in the _Guardian_. Then I caught the frightened look in Ben's eyes \u2013 poor Ben, he didn't need to see his parents behaving like this. I put the pasta down, bolted out of the room and ran up the stairs; I threw myself on to my bed, blinking the tears out of my eyes. I will survive. I will grow strong. I will change the locks. Look at Gloria Gaynor \u2013 she turned her heartbreak into a song that sold millions. As I sat there listening to the voices down below, and wishing I'd kept my cool, an appealing thought floated into my head. I can't sing, but I can write.\n\nIn fact I was already halfway there. I had a working title and a terrific nom de plume. My mind lingered on a seductive image of myself as a published author, trendy in crumpled linen with a stylish leather bag full of proofs slung casually over my shoulder, jetting around the world with an entourage of poet toyboys. Rip would be revealed to the world as a self-obsessed workaholic, pitifully underendowed, with an insatiable Viagra habit and dandruff. His wife would be beautiful and long-suffering, with a fabulous bum.\n\n' _Forget! Survive!_ ' Gloria Gaynor's voice seemed to chide in my head. ' _You'll waste too many nights thinking how he did you wrong. Change the locks! Grow strong!'_\n\nAnd to be fair, she had a point. My previous attempts at fiction, twelve and a half full exercise books, were stowed away in a drawer, along with a file of hoity-toity rejection slips.\n\nDear Ms Firestorm,\n\nThank you for sending _The Splattered Heart_ for our consideration. Your book has some colourful characters and displays an impressive array of adjectives, but I regret to say I was unable to summon sufficient enthusiasm...\n\nThat sort of thing is bad for morale, and my morale was already low. But it was no use \u2013 a seed of optimism had lodged itself in my heart, and the opening lines were already sprouting in my head. There was one empty exercise book left.\n\n# The Splattered Heart \nChapter I\n\n_It was past midnight when Rick rolled exhaustedly on to his broad, muscular slightly podgy back and casually ran his powerful fingers with their chewed-down fingernails through his thick curly, naturally blond discreetly highlighted hair._\n\nOkay, I know it's not your Jane Austen. Maybe Ms Insufficient Enthusiasm had a point about the adjectives. I sat staring at the page. Had I developed writer's block already? Downstairs I heard voices in the hall and the click of the latch. Then my bedroom door opened a crack.\n\n'Are you all right, Mum? Aren't you having any dinner?'\n\n# 3\n\n# Shelf life\n\nAfter Rip moved into Pectoral Pete's top-floor flat we agreed that Ben should spend half a week with each of us. One day I noticed him with his watch and his pencil ticking off the days on the calendar. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday: Dad. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: Mum. Saturday \u2013 that's the tricky one \u2013 one week with Dad, one week with Mum. We broke him in half and divided him between us. I could see the frown of concentration on his face as he tried to work out which week we were in. He was determined to be fair to both of us.\n\nAs the rage against Rip congealed in my heart, I was sometimes taken over by a numbness so intense it felt like pain. On the days when Ben wasn't here I found it almost unbearable to be in the house alone. The silence had an intrusive jangling quality, like a persistent tinnitus. When I walked from room to room I could hear my footsteps on the laminate floor. When I ate, I could hear the scraping of my knife and fork on the plate in the echoing kitchen. At first I tried having the radio on or playing music, but that made it worse: I knew the silence was there even though I couldn't hear it.\n\nWhen the silence got too much I'd take a walk, just to get out of the house. Wearing my comfy trodden-down trainers and an ancient brown duffel coat with a wide flapping hood and sleeves like bat's wings, I flitted about at dusk, peeping through lighted windows into other people's lives, catching them eating an evening meal, or sitting on a sofa watching TV, and tried to remember what it felt like to be still stuck together. Maybe I should have been prettying myself up and keeping my eye open for another man, but the wing-sleeves of the coat enfolded me like arms, and at that time, it was the only comfort I had. The look was not so much Bat Woman as batty-woman, but it didn't matter because I never met anyone I knew, and anyway, the coat made me invisible.\n\nOne afternoon I went as far as Islington, thinking I'd get a few things I needed from Sainsbury's and catch the bus back. It was about four o'clock, and the sticker lady was doing her end-of-day reductions. A crowd was milling around her like a piranha tank at feeding time. Mum had always been a great advocate of sell-by-date shopping, and I remembered with a twist of nostalgia how, when I was little, she used to send me scampering along the aisles looking out for the bright red REDUCED stickers that pouted like scarlet kisses on the cling film. She didn't think much of Listernia and Saminella, and even an unpleasant experience with some mature crabstix didn't dampen her enthusiasm. She would pat her elasticated middle. 'Waste not, want not.' Mum always looked after her pennies as if they came from heaven. Funny how long after you leave home you still carry a bit of your parents around inside you. Now, without the certainty of Rip's salary landing in our joint bank account with a generous kerchung! each month, I understood that sharp edge of insecurity that Mum must have felt all her life. Or maybe I was just so dejected at the time that I felt a queasy kinship with the curled-at-the-corners pastries, the sad rejected chicken wings. Anyway, I pushed forward to join the crush.\n\nThe sticker lady was working incredibly slowly, spewing out labels that kept jamming the machine. No sooner had she stuck a new label on something than a hand reached out of the throng and grabbed it from her. The reduced items weren't even reaching the shelf. I noticed it always seemed to be the same hand \u2013 a bony, gnarled, jewel-encrusted hand, darting out and snatching. Turning to follow it with my eyes, I spotted an old woman diving in low beneath the shoulders of two fat ladies. Her hair was tucked up into a jaunty Scotch plaid cap with a heart-and-arrow diamant\u00e9 brooch pinned on one side, and a straggle of black curls escaping under the brim. She was reaching and grabbing like a virago. It was Mrs Shapiro.\n\n'Hello!' I called.\n\nShe looked up and stared at me for a moment. Then she recognised me.\n\n'Georgine!' she cried. She pronounced it with hard 'G's and an 'eh' sound at the end. Gheorghineh! 'Good afternoon, my darlink!'\n\n'Good to see you, Mrs Shapiro.'\n\nI leaned and gave her a peck on each cheek. In the enclosed space of the groceries aisle, her smell was ripe and farty like old cheese, with a faint hint of Chanel No. 5. I could see the looks on the faces of the other shoppers as they backed away and let her through. They thought she was just a bag lady, a batty-woman. They didn't know she collected books and listened to the great Russian composers.\n\n'Plenty good bargains today, darlink!' Her voice was breathless with excitement. 'One minute full price, next minute half price \u2013 same thing, no difference. Always tastes better when you pay less, isn't it?'\n\n'You should meet my mum. She always likes a bargain. She says it's because of the war.'\n\nI guessed she was a bit older than Mum \u2013 in her late seventies, maybe. More wrinkled, but more energetic. She was of the age when she should have been wearing those extra-wide-fitting bootees held on with Velcro, but in fact she was tottering about daintily on peep-toe high-heeled shoes like a lady of style, the grubby toes of her grey-white cotton ankle socks poking out in front.\n\n'Not only the war, darlink. I heff learnt in my life to make the ends meet. A hard life is a good teacher, isn't it?'\n\nHer cheeks were flushed, her eyes focused and alert, her brow slightly furrowed with the effort of mental arithmetic as the new labels were stuck on top of the old.\n\n'Come on, Georgine \u2013 you must grebbit!'\n\nI squeezed in beside one of the big ladies and grabbed at a passing chicken korma, reduced from \u00a32.99 to \u00a31.49. Mum would have been proud of me.\n\n'You heff to be quick! You like sossedge? Here!'\n\nMrs Shapiro snatched a pack of sausages reduced to 59p out of the hand of a bewildered pensioner, and tossed it into my basket.\n\n'Oh... thanks.'\n\nThey looked unappetisingly pink. Seizing me by the wrist, she pulled me towards her and whispered in my ear, 'Is okay. Jewish. No sossedge.' The pensioner was staring at the sausages in my basket.\n\n'You Jewish also, Georgine?' She must have noticed me eyeing the sausages with distaste.\n\n'No. Not Jewish. Yorkshire.'\n\n'Ach, so. Never mind. Can't help it.'\n\n'Have you been playing the records, Mrs Shapiro? Are they all right? Not too scratched?'\n\n'Great records. Glinka. Rimsky-Korsakov. Mussorgsky. Such a music. Take you straight up into heaven.' Her bony hands spread theatrically in the air, the rings glittering, the varnished fingernails bright like little bunches of cherries. Close up I saw that the red highlights in her cheeks, which I'd mistaken for a flush of excitement, were actually two circles of rouge, one with a clear thumbprint in the middle.\n\n'Shostakovich. Prokofiev. Myaskovsky. My Arti has played with them all.'\n\n'Who's Arti?' I asked, but she was distracted by a 79p quiche Lorraine.\n\nI didn't like to admit that classical music wasn't my thing \u2013 I always thought of it as Rip's look-at-me-I'm-doing-the-hoovering music. I'm a Bruce Springsteen and Joan Armatrading fan myself.\n\n'I don't think I have much of an ear for music.'\n\nRip used to tease me that I was tone deaf and even my singing-in-the-bath efforts were painful to the cultivated ear.\n\n'Not all great art is for the messes, darlink. But you would like to learn, would you?' She batted her azure eyelids. 'I will play for you. You like the fish?'\n\nAs she said the word, I noticed a fishy undernote welling up through the cheese-and-Chanel. It was coming from her trolley. I saw that among her bargain produce were several packs of fish, all REDUCED. I hesitated. This fish definitely smelled off. Even Mum would have given it a miss.\n\n'You come in my house, I will cook them for you.'\n\nPoor old thing, she must be lonely, I thought.\n\n'I'd love to, but...' But what?\n\nI was trying to muster an excuse when she let out a blood-curdling shriek.\n\n'No no! You teef!'\n\nThere was a sudden angry scuffle in the aisle and a clang of shopping trolleys being barged. The pensioner from whose hand she'd grabbed the sausages had sneakily tried to pinch them back out of my basket. Mrs Shapiro snatched them from him and brandished them in the air.\n\n'Teef! You pay for you own sossedge full price if you want it!'\n\nDefeated and humiliated the pensioner slunk away. She turned towards me, flushed with triumph.\n\n'I am liffing not far from you. Big house. Big garden. Too many trees. Totley Place. Kennen House. You come on Saturday seven o'clock.'\n\n'Have you got a Nectar Card?' asked the girl at the checkout, swiping my bargains over the bar-code reader (where did that vile-looking cheese sauce come from?).\n\nI shook my head, and muttered something Rip-like about the surveillance society. Behind me, Mrs Shapiro had got into an argument with someone else in the queue and I was planning a quick getaway.\n\n'Bravo, darlink! These surveyors are getting everywhere,' she cried, barging her way towards the exit, bashing the legs of the man in the next queue with her trolley. He was a big man with a stubble of close-cropped blond hair, built like a rugby player. He turned round and gave her an unsmiling stare.\n\n'Sorry, sorry, darlink.' The crimson lipstick flashed. The blue eyelids fluttered. The man shook his head, as though saddened by the presence of lunatics.\n\nHe made his way through the checkout and out into the car park. I watched him load his purchases into a massive black tinted-windowed four-by-four parked in a disabled bay in front of Mrs Shapiro's pram. Immediately behind him, a blue Robin Reliant had pulled in tight, sideways on. It had a disabled badge in the window. He put the four-by-four \u2013 it looked like one of those American military Humvee things \u2013 into reverse and started to back up, but the Robin Reliant was blocking him in. On the other side, Mrs Shapiro was loading her purchases into her pram. He edged forward and stuck his head out of the window.\n\n'Can you just shift your pram, lady, so I can pull round?'\n\n'One moment, please!' Mrs Shapiro cried. 'I need a new reduction!' She'd found a bruise on a not-reduced apple, and was heading off back into the shop to negotiate a discount.\n\nWhile I was waiting, the owner of the Robin Reliant returned. He was a little shrivelled man, propping himself up with a stick. He got into the Reliant, took a meat pie out of a paper bag, and started to eat. The man in the Humvee beeped his horn loud and long, but the meat-pie man carried on eating. The Humvee started to reverse, slowly slowly, until its rear bumper touched the door panel of the Reliant. Tunk! There was a distinct jolt as it made contact. By now a few people had gathered on the pavement to watch. I spotted the two fat ladies from the sticker scrum, eating biscuits out of a bag. The _Big Issue_ seller had come round from the front of the store, and a girl who'd been handing out leaflets when I arrived. They were all yelling at him to stop. The meat-pie man was taking his time, savouring every bite.\n\nSuddenly the Humvee driver slammed into forward, swung the wheel round as far as it would go, and started inching his chrome bumper towards where I was standing by Mrs Shapiro's pram. There was something about the fixed set of his jaw and the way his eyes stared straight ahead, refusing to look at me, that made me livid. I positioned myself defiantly in front of the pram, gripping the handle tight, with my own shopping bags wedged between my feet. I hadn't picked this fight, but I was prepared for martyrdom. The driver beeped his horn and carried on inching. He was going to barge the pram right out of the way with his bully bull bars!\n\nThen Mrs Shapiro emerged beaming from the super-market, brandishing the apple, which now had a REDUCED sticker on it.\n\n'They give me five pence off!'\n\nShe pulled a packet of cigarettes and a box of matches out from under the hood of the pram, offered me one \u2013 which I declined \u2013 and lit up.\n\n'Thenk you, Georgine, for waiting.' She nodded in the direction of the _Big Issue_ salesman and the leaflet girl, and whispered loud enough for them to hear, 'Looks like gypsies, isn't it? They want to steal my shoppings?'\n\n'No, they're...'\n\n'Just shift your bloody pram, you old bat!' snarled the Humvee driver out of his window.\n\n'Don't you dare talk to her like that, you big bully!' I hissed back.\n\n'What he is saying, Georgine?'\n\n'I think he wants you to move the pram, Mrs Shapiro, so that he can get his car out. But just take your time.'\n\nShe fluttered her azure eyelids at him.\n\n'Sorry, sorry, darlink.'\n\nSwaying a little on her heels, she manoeuvred the pram out of the way and tottered off down the road towards Chapel Market, still puffing away. \n\n# 4\n\n# Bonding dissimilar materials\n\nWhen I got home, I put the kettle on for a cup of tea and phoned Mum to tell her about my pram adventure. I knew she'd be as intrigued by Mrs Shapiro as I was. (Dad, on the other hand, would approve of my befriending a vulnerable old lady.) Mum had turned seventy-three in October and time was weighing down on her. Her eyesight was beginning to deteriorate ('immaculate degeneration') and the doctor had told her she shouldn't drive any more. Dad had been struck down with the 'waterworks mither'. Her son, my brother Keir, five years divorced, with two sons he hardly ever saw, was posted in Iraq. And now I was splitting up with my husband. Just at the time when she should have been sailing into a rosy sunset, everything on her horizon seemed stormy and unsettled.\n\nTo cheer her up, I launched into a description of my bargains.\n\n'Chicken korma, Mum. Reduced from \u00a32.99 to \u00a31.49.'\n\n'Oh, lovely. What's a chicken corner?'\n\nMum isn't stupid, but she's partially deaf \u2013 my nana had measles during her pregnancy. Dad and I tease her because she refuses to wear a hearing aid. ('People'll say I'm an alien if I start going around wi' bits of wire coming out of my head.' Actually, where I come from, in Kippax, they might.)\n\n'Chicken korma. It's Indian. Sort of spicy and creamy.'\n\n'Oah, I don't know if your dad'd fancy that.' Her voice sounded flat and defeated.\n\nI tried another tack.\n\n'Have you read any good books recently, Mum?'\n\nIn the right mood, this is her favourite topic, a guilty pleasure we share. When I was sixteen, Dad had given me a copy of _The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists_ , which I'd pretended to enjoy but had secretly found depressing and tedious, and Mum had introduced me to Georgette Heyer and Catherine Cookson, whom I pretended to despise, but secretly devoured.\n\n'Always look out for the underdog,' Dad had said.\n\n'There's nowt to beat a happy ending,' said Mum.\n\n'I just finished _Turquoise Temptation_ ,' she sighed down the phone. 'But it were rubbish. Too much heavy breathing and ripped-up underwear.' A pause. 'Have you seen owt of Euridopeas?'\n\nI knew she secretly hoped we would get together again. I didn't tell her he'd been round to pick up his stuff.\n\nWhen Rip and I first fell in love, I sometimes used to imagine us as romantic characters in a great tempestuous love story set against the turbulent background of the miners' strike, transgressing boundaries of wealth and class to be together. I was his door into an exotic world where noble savages discussed socialism while soaping each other's backs in t' pit baths. He was my door into Pemberley Hall and Mansfield Park. We were so full of illusions about each other, maybe it was bound to end in a splattering.\n\nAfter Mum had rung off, I made myself a cup of tea and picked up my pen.\n\n#\n\n# The Splattered Heart \nChapter 2\n\n_It was a sunny October day, and Rip ck's mind was on carnal things as his mini Porsche nosed its way roared up over the Roaches hills still brilliant with dazzling autumn colour. After a few miles after Leek..._ (Should I change the location as well as the names? I tried to cast my mind back to my journalism course with frisky Mrs Featherstone, but I couldn't for the life of me remember what she'd said about libel.) _... the road turned sharply to the right, and Gina saw the entrance to a driveway, with a cattle grid and two stone gateposts, and there at the bottom of the valley, a good mile away, was Holtham House Holty Towers, sailing like a stone galleon in a shimmering red-green-and-gold sea._ (Pause for admiration; that was good \u2013 the galleon bit.) _Despite herself, Gina was impressed by found herself inexorably drawn towards the house stately pile and she could not help noticing that these people obviously had a bob or two the stunning period features. So this is how the other half live, she thought. Actually, she found it quite appealing. How disgusting._\n\nIn fact Rip was always much less troubled by the differences between our two families than I was.\n\nMe: (Whisper.) You never told me they were so posh.\n\nHim: (Murmur.) But when you have money, you realise how little it really matters.\n\nMe: (Loud whisper.) Yes, but it matters if you haven't got enough.\n\nHim: (Quietly confident.) Inequality only matters if it makes people _feel_ unequal.\n\nMe: Yes, but... (But that's a load of crap.)\n\nHim: You don't feel unequal, do you, Georgie?\n\nMe: No, but... (Of course I bloody do. I don't know what to do with all the knives and forks. I feel as though they look down their hoity-toity noses at me. But I can't admit it, can I, without seeming like a complete loser? So I'd better keep my mouth shut.)\n\nHim: Mmm. (Kisses me tenderly on the lips, then we end up in bed. Which is always nice.)\n\n# 5\n\n# Fish\n\nIt was already dark on Saturday evening when I made my way up the lane to Canaan House for my dinner date. As I moved out of range of the spooky sodium glow from the street lamp on Totley Place, the shadows closed in on me, and I must admit I felt a tremor of apprehension. What was I letting myself in for?\n\nThe night was cold and starry. The moonlight etched silvery outlines of trees and the gables of Canaan House on to the darkness. But even in that ashy light there was something cheerfully eccentric about its hodgepodge of styles: Victorian bay windows, a Romanesque entrance porch with twirly columns supporting chubby rounded arches, exuberant Tudor chimneys, and a mad Dracula turret with pointed Gothic windows stuck on one side. I wouldn't go so far as to say I was _inexorably drawn_ , but I did quicken my step. The garden path was almost overgrown with brambles but a narrow trail led towards the porch. I pulled my duffel coat around me and looked for signs of light up ahead. Had she forgotten I was coming?\n\nThe house itself was dark but I had a sense of eyes watching me. I stopped and listened. I could hear nothing but a faint rustling of leaves that could have been the wind. There was a smell of earth, mouldering vegetation and a musky foxy stink. I took a couple of steps closer to the house, and as I approached the porch a cat burst out of the undergrowth on to the path in front of me. And another. And another. I couldn't count how many cats there were in that soft seething throng, rubbing up against me, purring and mewing, their eyes glinting gold and green, as if I'd stepped into a teeming shoal of furry fishes.\n\nThe front door had a frosted glass panel through which I could now see a faint sliver of light far away inside. There was a bell to one side. I pressed it and heard it ringing somewhere in the depths of the house. The sliver of light widened into a crack and then into a rectangle as a door opened. I heard shuffling footsteps, a safety chain being unlocked, then Mrs Shapiro opened the door.\n\n'Georgine! Darlink! Come in!'\n\nIt's hard to describe the stench that hit me as I stepped over the threshold. I almost gagged and I had to struggle to keep the look of disgust off my face. It was a smell of damp and cat pee and shit and rot and food mould and house filth and sink gunge and, cutting through all that, a rank, nauseating, fishy stink. This last smell, I realised with a sinking feeling, was dinner.\n\nThe cats had slunk in beside me \u2013 there were only four of them after all \u2013 and dashed up ahead into the back of the house. Mrs Shapiro clapped her hands as though to chase them away and smiled indulgently.\n\n'Little pisskes!'\n\nShe was wearing a long-sleeved dress in carmine velvet, shaped at the waist and daringly cut away at the front and back to reveal her wrinkled shoulders and the loose skin of her chest. A double string of pearls gleamed around her throat. Her dramatic black curls were piled on top of her head with a collection of tortoiseshell combs, and she'd painted on a dash of matching carmine lipstick \u2013 not all of it on her lips. I was wearing jeans and a baggy pullover under my brown duffel coat. She stepped back on her high heels and eyed me critically.\n\n'Why you wearing this old shmata, Georgine? Is not flettering for a young woman. You will never get a man this way.'\n\n'I... er... I don't need...' I stopped. Maybe a man is what I needed after all.\n\n'Come. I will find you something better.'\n\nShe led me into the wide tiled entrance hall, from the centre of which a polished mahogany staircase curved away to the next floor. Underneath the staircase were piles of black bin bags, bursting with \u2013 I don't know, really, what they contained, but I could see clothes and books and electrical items and crockery and bedding spilling out where the bags had split. To one side was parked the old high-sprung pram, now apparently full of bundled rags, on which a couple of stripy felines were dozing. She shooed them away and started to root among the bundles. After a few moments she began to tug at a piece of dark green stuff which, when she pulled it out, turned out to be a dress in some heavy silky fabric with long scalloped sleeves.\n\n'Here,' she held it up to my chin, 'this I think is more flettering for you.' I looked at the label \u2013 it was a size 12 \u2013 my size \u2013 and a Karen Millen. In fact it was a gorgeous dress. Where on earth had she got this from?\n\n'It's lovely, but...' Actually, when I thought about it, I could guess where she'd got it from \u2013 she must have pulled it out of a skip. '... but I can't possibly take it.'\n\nWho would put a dress like this in a skip? Then I thought of Rip's clothes, which I'd put in the skip, and in a flash I understood \u2013 another heart had been splattered somewhere.\n\n'Is too big for me,' she said. 'Will look better on you. Take it, please.'\n\n'Thank you, Mrs Shapiro, but...' I brushed away the cat hairs that were clinging to the silky fabric. As I shook it out, I could smell the faint sweat and expensive perfume of its previous owner, and I wondered what had driven her lover to get rid of the dress.\n\n'Try it! Try it! No need to be emberressed, darlink.'\n\nDid she expect me to put it on straightaway? Obviously she did. She stood over me as I stripped down to my knickers in the cold foul-smelling hall and slipped the dress, still slightly warm from the sleeping cats, over my head. It slid down over my shoulders and hips as though it was made for me. Why was I doing this? I asked myself. Why didn't I just put on my own clothes and firmly but politely say goodnight? I thought of escaping, I really did. Then I thought of the trouble she must have gone to, to prepare the meal, and how let-down she would feel. And I remembered my empty house and the bright pink sausages in the fridge and _Casualty_ on TV. And by then it was too late.\n\n'Wait, I will zip it!' I could feel her hands, bony like claws, on my skin as she wrenched the zip up behind me. 'Beautiful, darlink. You already looking much better. You are a nice-looking woman, Georgine. Nice skin. Nice eyes. Good figure. But look at your hair. Looks like a sheep's popo. When you last been at the hairdresser?'\n\n'I can't remember. I...' I remembered the way Rip used to look at me, the way he would run his fingers through my hair when he kissed me.\n\n'You want I will put some lipstick on you?'\n\n'No, really, Mrs Shapiro.'\n\nShe hesitated, looking me up and down.\n\n'Okay. For tonight is okay. Come, please.'\n\nI followed her through a door into a long gloomy room where an oval-shaped mahogany table had been spread with a white cloth and two places set at one end with cutlery, napkins and glasses. In the centre of the tablecloth, the large white tomcat was curled up asleep.\n\n'Raus, Wonder Boy! Raus!' (She pronounced it Vunder Boy.) She clapped her hands.\n\nThe cat stretched one muscular black-socked leg behind its ear and began licking its private parts. Then it scratched about, sending bits of fluff flying everywhere. Then it rose to its feet, stretched itself a couple of times, jumped down from the table, and sauntered around the room.\n\n'This is Wonder Boy. Looks like he has made a little wish in the corner.' There was a wet patch on the wall by the door, more or less at the height of Wonder Boy's tail, that reminded me of our first meeting. She reached out and scratched him behind the ears, and he let out a purr like a motorbike starting up. 'He is my darlink. Soon you will meet Violetta and the Stinker. The pram babies you have already met. Mussorgsky is somewhere hiding. He is a little bit jealous of the Wonder Boy. Borodin you will not see. He comes only to take the food. Seven altogether. My little femily.'\n\nI handed her the bottle of wine I'd brought. White Rioja. Nice with fish. We both struggled with the corkscrew, but she got it open and poured us each a glass.\n\n'To bargains!' she said. We clinked.\n\n'Can I help you with anything?' I was nervous about what could be happening in the kitchen, but she gestured me severely to a chair.\n\n'You are my invited guest. Please, Georgine, tek a seat.'\n\nClose up I could see that the tablecloth was not white at all but a sort of mottled greyish yellow, bristling with cat hairs of many colours. The napkins weren't white either, they had pink and red blotches that could have been wine or beetroot or tomato soup. While Mrs Shapiro busied herself in the kitchen, I discreetly tried to clean away the gunge that was encrusted between the prongs of my fork, and to study the room I was in. The only light came from a single long-life bulb screwed into a brass chandelier whose other five bulbs were defunct. On the wall opposite the door was a marble fireplace, and above it a large gilt-framed mirror so spotted and clouded that, when I stood up to take a peep at myself in the green dress, I seemed faded and grey, sadder and older than my mental image of myself, my eyes hollow and too dark, my hair wind-snaggled and too curly, the dress so different to anything I'd worn for ages that I hardly recognised myself. I turned away quickly as if I'd seen a ghost. On the facing wall were two tall windows that seemed to be boarded up behind the curtains, and between them hung a photograph in black and white, an old-fashioned studio portrait of a young man in evening dress with sharp clean features, fair curly hair swept back from a high forehead, and in his left hand, held up against his cheek, the neck of a violin. He had startlingly pale eyes staring out of the picture that caught and held my gaze as though he was present in the room. Strangely, although the photograph was in black and white, it seemed more vivid and alive than my own image in the mirror.\n\nAs I studied the photograph I became aware of a smell \u2013 a faintly fishy aroma that seemed to have wafted into the room. I looked round and saw that Mrs Shapiro was standing in the doorway carrying a large silver tray on which were two steaming bowls.\n\n' _Soupe de poisson_. _Cuisine fran\u00e7aise_ ,' she beamed, placing one bowl in front of me and seating herself opposite me with the other. I looked into the bowl. It was a thin scummy-looking liquid in which some greyish gobs of matter were floating part-submerged.\n\n'Please start. Don't wait.'\n\nI dipped my spoon in. Probably it won't kill me, I told myself. I've eaten worse than this in Kippax. Across the table, Mrs Shapiro was slurping away with gay abandon, pausing only to dab her lips with her napkin. Ah \u2013 that's what those red blotches were. I found that if I held my breath as I swallowed I could manage the liquid. The grey gobs I tried to mash up in the bottom of the bowl so it wasn't obvious how much I'd left.\n\n'Lovely,' I said, trying to find a clean corner of napkin to pat my mouth.\n\nThe second course was in some ways better and in some ways worse. It was better because there were boiled potatoes and leeks in a white sauce which, although lumpy, looked reasonably edible; it was worse because the fish, a whole curled-at-the-corners fillet of something hard, brown and yellow, smelled so sickening that I knew I would never be able to bring myself to swallow it. Even Mum never served anything as bad as this.\n\nAs I was poking away at the potatoes and leeks I felt a sudden warm pressure in my groin. I looked across the table at Mrs Shapiro. She smiled. The pressure turned into pounding, rhythmic and insistent. What the hell was going on?\n\n'Mrs Shapiro...'\n\nShe smiled again. I could feel a vibration accompanied by a strange rasping sound like a car engine trying to start on a cold day. Now through the silky stuff of the dress I felt a sharp prick of claws on my thighs. I slipped my hand down under the tablecloth and touched warm fur. Then I had an idea.\n\n'Mrs Shapiro, that photo,' I pointed to the wall behind her, 'who's it of?'\n\nAs she turned her back for a moment, I slid the fillet off my plate on to the floor, and gave the cat a shove.\n\n'That is my husband,' she turned towards me and clasped her hands together, 'Artem Shapiro. My beloved Arti.'\n\nBeneath the table the purring had intensified, and turned into a satisfied chomping.\n\n'Was he a musician?'\n\n'One of the greatest, darlink. Before the war. Before the Nazis got him into the camp.'\n\n'He was in a concentration camp?'\n\n'Besides the Baltic Sea. Many Jews from all over Europe ended there. Even some we knew from Hamburg.'\n\n'Your family was from Hamburg?'\n\n'Left in 1938.'\n\n'But Artem \u2013 he got away, too?'\n\n'This story is too long, Georgine. Too long and too long ago.'\n\nThe young man in the picture held me with his pale intense eyes. I noticed how elegantly his fingers were clasped around the neck of the violin. In _The Splattered Heart_ the heroine's lover would have hands like this, I thought. Ms Firestorm was already on the prowl, looking out for a great romance set against the turbulent background of World War Two.\n\n'Please tell me, Mrs Shapiro. I love stories.'\n\n'Yes, this is a loff story,' she sighed. 'But I do not know if it will heff a happy ending.'\n\nThe story she started to tell me that night did turn out to be a love story of sorts, and though she related it in her funny hobbled English, my imagination filled in the spaces between the words so vividly that afterwards I couldn't remember what she'd said and what I had imagined.\n\nArtem Shapiro, her husband, she told me, was born in 1904 in the small town of Orsha in a country that sometimes belonged to Poland, sometimes to Russia, sometimes to Lithuania, and most of the time was just a place where people \u2013 Jewish people, anyway \u2013 got on quietly with their business, keeping their heads down during the years of wars and pogroms and the political machinations of the great powers.\n\n'It is our way. We believed if we kept quiet we would survive.'\n\nHis father was a violin maker, quite a successful one, and he thought the boy would learn the trade, too, but one day Artem picked up the instrument and began to play, and that was how it started. Every day for an hour or two after working with his father, he would sit outside in the backyard and play the popular tunes he heard on the street. Then he tried to improvise his own tunes. The neighbours would drop whatever they were doing, and hang over the fence to listen. It was not long before he began to show real promise as a violinist.\n\n'Darlink, everybody who was listening was astonished. They could not believe that such a young boy would be playing like this.'\n\nWhen Artem was in his teens, the family moved to Minsk, the capital of Byelorussia. His parents paid for him to have lessons with a violin teacher, and it was the teacher who suggested that the young man should go to St Petersburg, or Leningrad as it was by then, several hundred kilometres to the east, to study at the conservatoire.\n\n'He was tooken to it like a duck into the water!' she said, gobbling up the vile brown-yellow fish with apparent enthusiasm as she talked.\n\nAfter the revolution, Leningrad was a hub of political and cultural life; musicians, writers, artists, film-makers, philosophers were caught up in the ferment of political ideas. Many had revolutionary sympathies and were eager to put their art to the service of the people. One of these was Sergei Prokofiev, who met the talented young violinist from Orsha when he conducted the orchestra in which Artem was playing.\n\n'Arti, too, wanted to bring the great music in front of the masses.'\n\nHe had learned his socialist sympathies from his father, who was a Jewish Bundist, she explained. Before I could ask what a Bundist was, she rattled on, 'So long as you were not saying something bad about the Bolsheviks, in that time you could play what music you liked.'\n\nBy the late 1930s Artem was playing lead violin with the People's Orchestra and had just started to perform as a soloist. But as Stalin's grip tightened musicians, too, were booted into line. Mrs Shapiro frowned and wolfed down her fish.\n\n'Like poor Prokofiev. He had to repent, isn't it? When I listen to the seventh symphony I think always of how they made him change the ending.'\n\nThe false sense of security afforded by the Molotov\u2013 Ribbentrop pact meant that Russia did not anticipate the German invasion in the summer of 1941. So when Artem heard that his father was ill, he felt safe enough to set out to visit his family in Minsk in June that year. Byelorussia was at that time in the eastern part of the former Polish territories, which had recently been annexed by Russia, and rumours were flying about of what had happened to Jews in the German-occupied west. Artem hitched a ride on a goods train heading west at exactly the time when every Jew in Europe who could flee was heading east, just as the pact collapsed and the German armies swept eastwards through Poland into the Soviet Union.\n\n'But he was reunited with his family?'\n\n'Yes. His parents and two sisters still were there. But the Nazis were building a wall of barbed wires around the streets in Minsk where the Jews lived so no one would run away.'\n\n'A ghetto?'\n\n'Ghetto. Prison. Same thing. But ghetto is worse. Too many peoples crammed inside. No food. Potato peels and rats they were eating. And every day soldiers were shooting people in the streets. Other ones died from diseases. Some suicided themselves out of despair.'\n\nMrs Shapiro's voice had grown so quiet that I could hear a tap dripping in the kitchen, and the scuffle of a feline scratching itself under the table.\n\n'But what happened to Artem's family?'\n\nBy the time Artem arrived in Minsk, the population was already swollen by the thousands of Jews who had fled eastwards, as well as by German Jews for whom there was no longer room in the German and Polish ghettoes or concentration camps. Despite starvation and the periodic typhus and cholera epidemics that raged through the ghetto, and daily summary executions, sometimes of hundreds of people at a time, they just weren't dying fast enough. Shooting them all would use up too much ammunition. Then a local Nazi commandant came up with a clever idea to kill Jews efficiently without wasting precious bullets.\n\nOne morning some forty Jews were picked up at random off the streets, herded to a woody spot on the outskirts of town, and forced to dig a pit. Then they were roughly roped together and pushed into the pit they had dug. Russian prisoners of war were ordered to bury them alive.\n\n'But the Bolshie Russians refused to do it, so the Jews had to be shot in the end and the Russians also. So even more bullets was used up, isn't it?'\n\nArtem's father was among the forty.\n\nTo save bullets and time, mobile gassing vans were set up to tour the district. But why waste all that human labour potential, when the munitions factories were struggling to find workers? It was decided that able-bodied Jews like Artem should be made to contribute to the war effort.\n\n'So they put him in the camp.'\n\n*\n\nThe camp to which Artem was dispatched was a labour camp, not an extermination camp, though it was no holiday camp either, buffeted by cold winds off the Baltic, squatting inside its cage of barbed wire under a perpetually pewter sky. In this miserable spot, a number of German companies, including some that are now household names, contracted to use the cheap labour facilities. Those inmates who could work could eat, the others died.\n\nBut the Lithuanian guards were lax and lazy, and couldn't always be bothered with the security procedures demanded by their new bosses. One early morning on his way to work Artem came upon a guard, still tipsy from the night before, pissing against a wall \u2013 he had chosen a private spot where the wall turned a corner behind the barracks. Artem knew immediately that this was his chance; live or die, he had to take it. Although he was weak from months of semi-starvation, surprise was on his side. He picked up a stone and bludgeoned the Lithuanian over the head; then he stole his uniform and papers.\n\n'And he ran away on all his fastest legs into the forest, to join the partisans.'\n\nShe paused and reached for a cigarette. Beneath the table a fight had broken out over the remnants of my fish. There was a screeching and thrashing of tails.\n\n'Raus, Wonder Boy! Raus, Stinker! Raus, Violetta!' She tried to kick them under the table but her feet got tangled in the tablecloth and she sat back with a sigh of resignation.\n\n'What happened next?' I prompted.\n\nStraightening herself out, she lit her cigarette.\n\n'Ach, Georgine, I cannot tell this story while we are eating good food and thinking of these poor hungry peoples. Another time I will finish it. Better now I should play you some music. Great Russian composers. You would like?'\n\nI nodded. Under the table, hostilities had been suspended while the cats waited for their next course. Wonder Boy was licking his bottom again. Violetta was rubbing herself against my legs. Mrs Shapiro gathered the plates and tottered off into the kitchen, leaving her cigarette smouldering in a saucer. I was beginning to feel a bit strange. Between us, we'd almost polished off the bottle of wine. The dim long-life bulb cast fuzzy downward shadows on the table and walls that made everything seem faded and unreal \u2013 or maybe it was the images from the terrible story working on my imagination.\n\nAfter a while I became aware of a sound in the next room, a low mournful sound, like a voice calling from the netherworld. For a moment I thought it was a cat, then I realised it was music \u2013 such soft, sad music \u2013 that had crept in quietly through the open door. At first it was a single violin, then it was joined by others, and then a tune emerged, throbbing with melancholy and repeating itself over and over, growing louder and higher. For some reason I found myself thinking of Rip \u2013 of Rip and me together, of Rip and me making love, our hands and bodies fumbling for each other in the dark, always finding each other, always coming together, each time the same yet each time different, repetitions and variations.\n\nNow the tempo of the music changed; it became louder, more violent, with cymbals clashing and drums throbbing away like a headache, and the violins racing up and down, faster and faster, arguing with each other, contradicting each other, in a turmoil of sound. I thought of Rip again, and I remembered the terrible fury and churning of our last argument. No, I realised, it wasn't just the music. A gut-churning feeling was building up in my stomach right now. Then Mrs Shapiro reappeared in the doorway with another tray.\n\n'Now we heff a dessert.'\n\n'Er...'\n\nShe placed the tray on the table. It looked like some sort of shop-bought pie, still in its foil dish. I could handle that \u2013 I'd grown up on this sort of food. There was a tub of REDUCED cream on which the sell-by date was clearly visible. I did a quick calculation. Only two days overdue. I'd eaten worse. '... just a little.'\n\nI tasted the pie cautiously. It seemed perfectly all right. I had only a tiny drop of cream, which also seemed all right.\n\n'You like it?' asked Mrs Shapiro.\n\n'Yes, lovely. Delicious. What is it?'\n\n'Prokofiev. _Symphonic Song_. Wait. It will get better.'\n\nAs I listened the tempo of the music changed again. It became graciously flowing and jubilant; the original melody had returned, but with more depths and heights of emotion, as though it was leaping over itself, over the contradictions and arguments, over the terrible drumbeat and stomach-churning turmoil, into a new world, a new happy world where everything was going to be all right again for ever and ever. Tears welled up in my eyes; heavy and warm, they rolled down my cheeks.\n\nThe music stopped and silence seeped into the room. Across the table from me, I saw that Mrs Shapiro was dabbing at her eyes with her napkin. Then she fumbled in her bag for her cigarettes and matches, lit up again, inhaled and then gave a long sigh.\n\n'We heff been living here in this house playing music together. I was playing piano, he was playing violin. Such great music we made together. Now I am living here alone. Life goes on, isn't it?'\n\nI could feel my tears welling up again. How much better it would be, I thought, to love and be loved like this until parted by death, and even after death, than to feel love shrivel and die while life goes on around you, dreary and loveless. Oh heck, there goes my splattered heart again.\n\n'Why are you crying, Georgine? You have lost someone, too?'\n\n'Yes. No. It's not the same. My husband... he walked out on me, that's all.'\n\n'You are still young, you will find somebody else.'\n\nI wiped my tears and smiled. 'If only it was so easy.'\n\n'Darlink, I will help you.'\n\nThe next thing I can remember is throwing up on my own doorstep. I was still wearing the green dress, with my jeans underneath and my pullover and duffel coat on top. I felt terrible. My head was throbbing, and I was alternating violently, frighteningly, between burning hot and clammy cold. Above my head, stars were spinning in the blackness. I knelt on the stone steps and puked again. Then I felt a warm furry presence beside me. It was Violetta. She must have followed me home. 'Hello, cat.' I stretched out my hand to stroke her, and she arched her back and purred, rubbing herself against me. Then she started lapping up the sick off the doorstep. \n\n# 6\n\n# Sticky brown stuff\n\nOn the Sunday morning after my dinner with Mrs Shapiro, I woke up at about ten o'clock. There was a horrible taste in my mouth and a bowl with some slimy stuff by the bed. I must have thrown up in the night, but I couldn't remember anything. My head was throbbing. A hard beam of sunlight was hammering between the curtains where they didn't quite meet, like a chisel splitting my brain. I got up and attempted to fiddle with the curtains, but as soon as I stood up dizziness brought me down again, and I flopped back on the bed. The ceiling seemed to be moving backwards and forwards above me, like in an earthquake. I pulled the covers over my head, but that brought on a panic of suffocation. What had I been dreaming about? I had an image of people roped together, pushed into a pit to be buried alive. Was that a nightmare? No, it was worse than a nightmare \u2013 it was something that had really happened.\n\nI staggered into the bathroom and gulped cold water from the tap, then splashed some on to my face and returned to the bedroom. The light was too harsh. I rooted through my drawer for something to cover my eyes and found a pair of black knickers; I slipped them over my head like a hood. The waist elastic just reached the tip of my nose. I lay back down on the bed and let the darkness enfold me. That was better. If Rip had been there he'd have laughed at me. If Rip had been there he'd have made me a cup of tea and comforted me. I remembered that music, the bounding, soaring, happily-ever-after melody that had carried me along in its arms last night. Was that a dream? Yes, it was.\n\nAt our wedding, the organist had played the _Arrival of the Queen of Sheba_ and Dad overcame his scruples about religion enough to walk me up the aisle on his arm. It was the first time Rip's parents and mine had met, and it was all excruciatingly polite. Rip had discreetly removed the engraving of the Staffordshire coal mine which some ancestor had owned in 1882, and I'd persuaded Dad not to wear his National Union of Mineworkers tie. Mr Sinclair engaged Dad in conversation about rugby, drawing on his own school experiences but skirting around the fact that the sport had been named after his own school, and Dad did his best to keep the conversation up, skirting around the differences between rugby union and rugby league. Mrs Sinclair complimented Mum on her hat, and Mum asked her for the recipe for the chocolate peripherals; Mrs Sinclair skirted around the question without revealing that everything, including the profiteroles, had come from a catering firm in Leek. Mum didn't say anything about the olives on the canap\u00e9s, but I could see her eyeing them with suspicion. It was 1985, remember, and olives hadn't yet reached Kippax. To be on the safe side, she slipped them under a cushion. Later, I saw Mrs Sinclair shaking hands with the vicar, with three olives adhering to her behind.\n\nI poured myself a large glass of water, and went back to bed. I must have dozed off, for when I woke up later, in the afternoon, I felt much better. I went downstairs to rummage in the fridge for something to eat and ended up pouring myself a glass of wine instead. My stomach was still feeling delicate from its Saturday night trauma, and probably it would have been sensible to stick to tea and toast, but I needed something to cheer me up. An after-mood from the nightmare still clung to the edges of my mind. And I was missing Ben. Three more days until he'd be back with me. Carrying my glass of wine I went back upstairs, and I noticed that the door to his room was slightly open, so for no particular reason I went inside.\n\nIt smelled of Ben, or to be precise it smelled of Ben's socks; and here they were, in a waiting-to-be-washed heap near the door. Also in heaps on the floor were his school clothes, his not-school clothes, the books he was halfway through reading, the books he would never read, exercise books, notebooks, and loose papers that might have once been in books, a collapsed stack of DVDs, a mound of CDs and various bits of mysterious electronic gear. A triangle of dried-out pizza with two symmetrical bites, one on each side, was propped against a half-empty bottle of lime-green fluid on the mouse mat. On the walls were posters of the Arctic Monkeys and Amy Winehouse, and a _Lord of the Rings_ poster featuring a close-up of Orc dentistry. My eyes roved around the busy cluttered space and I smiled to myself \u2013 dear Ben.\n\nThe desk was a tip of crumpled papers, broken pens, chewed-down pencils, bottle tops, gum, wrappers, flyers, tissues, all splattered with some kind of sticky brown stuff \u2013 it may have been congealed hot chocolate \u2013 that was also daubed on the keyboard of his computer, and even on the monitor, where a Windows logo was whirling mindlessly around. A small photograph was stuck to the bottom of the monitor with Blu-tack. I leaned forward to look, and my heart squeezed in my chest. It was Ben and Stella. They were sitting on a park bench surrounded by greenery, grinning their heads off.\n\nI bent down to get a closer look at the photo \u2013 Ben's innocent open-mouthed grin; Stella's pretty smile, more posed and self-conscious \u2013 and my sleeve caught the glass of wine, which splashed everywhere, mingling with the brown stuff. I took a tissue from my pocket and started to mop, taking care not to disturb anything, because part of me was thinking that I didn't want Ben to know I'd been poking around in his room. As I wiped the mouse, the computer suddenly whirred into life and the screen came up \u2013 a black background with a single word flashing in red, animated with dancing flames: _Armageddon_. It looked like some stupid computer game.\n\nAfter that fish dinner I avoided Mrs Shapiro for a couple of weeks, then I forgot about her. Life carried on with its limping rhythm: Ben, not-Ben, Ben, not-Ben. I was learning to walk with the limp and I slept better with the black knickers. Sometimes, to cheer myself up, I fantasised about revenge. In _The Splattered Heart,_ feisty Gina, having discovered Rick's infidelities, was also planning something dramatically unpleasant involving extra-spicy Madras vegetable curry and\/or a subtler approach based on fish soup diluted with pee.\n\nI was sitting at my laptop one dull afternoon in November, trying to write about adhesives but sneaking back every few minutes to the exercise book which was open on my desk, when the phone rang.\n\n'Mrs Georgina Sinclair?' An unfamiliar woman's voice, squeaky like a rusty gate.\n\n'Yes. Sort of. Who's speaking?'\n\n'I'm Margaret Goodknee from the Whittington Hospital.'\n\nMy hands went cold and my heart started to thump. 'What's happened?'\n\n'We have a Mrs Naomi Shapiro in A&E.'\n\n'Oh, dear.'\n\nI must confess, all I felt was relief. Not Ben. Not Stella.\n\n'On her admission form she's named you as her next of kin.'\n\n# 2 \n_Adventures with Polymers_\n\n# 7\n\n# Pick and mix\n\n'Why me?' I wondered, half curious and half irritated, as I made my way down a long busy ward looking for Mrs Shapiro. 'Doesn't she have anyone closer?'\n\nI found her at last, shrunk down into the hospital bed, with only her little face peeping out above the sheet, and her black curls straggling over the pillow. The silver line along the parting was several centimetres wide, but apart from that, without her weird make-up, she actually looked better than before.\n\n'Mrs Shapiro? Naomi?'\n\nHer face lit up with a smile of recognition, and she reached out her hand from under the covers to hold mine.\n\n'Georgine? Thenk Gott you come. You heff to get me out of here.'\n\n'I'll do my best, Mrs Shapiro. When you're better. What happened?'\n\n'Slipped on the ice. Wrist brokken.'\n\nShe waved her left hand at me, which was plastered and strapped, the fingers protruding from the dressing like bent grey twigs with splashes of chipped nail varnish at the tips.\n\n'You heff to get me out. Food is terrible. They mekking me eat sossedge.'\n\n'Shall I tell them you want a kosher diet?'\n\n'Kosher pick and mix. No hem, no sossedge. But bekkon I like.' She winked a mischievous eye. 'A little bit of something does you good, isn't it?'\n\nThe sister in charge was a small brisk unsmiling woman with scraped-back hair who sniffed at the idea of pick and mix, so I asked her to put Mrs Shapiro down for kosher. She scribbled it in the file, then she added, 'She doesn't seem to be registered with a GP. We need her NHS card or some form of ID to verify her entitlement.' She must have seen my jaw tighten. 'It's the rule now. Just a box I have to tick.'\n\nWhen I came back to her bedside, Mrs Shapiro was sitting up looking chirpy and trying to get into conversation with the woman in the next bed, who was lying on her back, breathing through an oxygen mask.\n\n'Mrs Shapiro,' I asked, 'are you registered with a doctor?'\n\n'What for I need the doctor?' She was in a fighting mood. 'These young boys, what do they know? Only to ask schmutzig questions. When you last been on the toilet? Please stick out the tongue. What kind of a doctor says this? In Germany we had Doctor Schinkelman \u2013 this was a real doctor.' A faraway look had come into her eyes. 'Plenty medicine. Always red. Tasted of cherries. And plenty tablets for _Mutti_.'\n\n'But do you have a medical card? Any form of ID?'\n\nShe sighed dramatically and passed her good hand across her brow.\n\n'Seventy year I been living in this country, nobody ask me for no card.'\n\n'I know,' I soothed. 'It's like Sainsbury's \u2013 the surveillance society. But you need something to show how long you've been living here. What about the bills on the house? Council tax? Gas?'\n\n'All papers are in the bureau. Maybe they will find something.' She sat up and blinked rapidly. 'They are looking into my house?'\n\n'I'm sure it's just a formality. I'll go and get them, if you prefer.'\n\nShe turned around, gesturing with her strapped-up hand.\n\n'Key to my house is in the coat.'\n\nIn the bedside locker was a dark brown astrakhan coat with a turned collar and cuffs, elegantly fitted at the waist, and conspicuously moth-eaten, with bare patches down to the leather all along the back. She saw me examining it.\n\n'You like this coat? You can heff it, Georgine.'\n\n'It's very nice but...'\n\nIt smelled of old cheese.\n\n'Please. Tek it. I heff another. What's the matter \u2013 you don't like it?'\n\n'... I think it's a bit small for me.'\n\n'Try. Try it.'\n\nI made a show of taking off my duffel coat, and trying to squeeze myself into it. It had a heavy satin lining torn under the armpits, with a sheen of grease around the buttons and cuffs, but still it had a residual touch of luxury. Once, about fifty years ago, it had been a fabulous coat.\n\n'It suits you good, darlink. Tek it. Is better than your coat.'\n\nTrue, my brown Bat Woman duffel coat, even in its 1985 heyday, had been in a lower league.\n\n'It's lovely. Thank you. But look, it doesn't fit.' I pretended to struggle with the buttons.\n\n'You must be more elegant, Georgine. And look at your shoes. Why you don't wear mit heels?'\n\n'I'm sure you're right, Mrs Shapiro. But I like to be comfortable.' I slipped my hands into the generously deep satin-lined pockets. 'Where's the key?'\n\n'Always in the pocket. You must be more elegant if you will catch a man, Georgine.'\n\nI rifled through the pockets. There was a disgusting snot-caked handkerchief with traces of dried blood, a box of matches, a cigarette butt, a sticky boiled sweet with bits of fluff stuck to it, half a crumbled biscuit that had covered everything in greyish crumbs, and a pound coin. No key.\n\n'Should be in there. Maybe is fallen in the leaning.'\n\nThe key had slipped through a hole in the pocket, and was shaking around in the hem of the lining, along with a stub of black eyebrow pencil, two more cigarette butts, an apple core, and some loose change. I fished them all out through the hole and put them in the other pocket.\n\n'Here it is. I'll have a look in your bureau and see if I can find something official to keep them happy.'\n\n'You must look only in the bureau. Not everywhere poking, Georgine.' She was smoothing the bedclothes with a nervous movement. 'Darlink, I am worrying about the Wonder Boy. If you go to my house, you will please put some food for him? Other cats can catch, but this poor boy he is always hungry. And next time you come, Georgine, you bring some cigarettes mit you, okay?'\n\n'I don't think smoking is allowed in hospital, Mrs Shapiro.'\n\n'Nothing is allowed.' She breathed a dramatic sigh. 'Only sleeping and eating sossedge.'\n\nIn the next bed, the woman with the oxygen mask had started to make a horrible gurgling noise. A couple of nurses rushed up, and drew the curtain around the bed. The gurgling continued. There was a clatter of instruments, and low voices talking urgently.\n\n'You heff to get me out, Georgine.' Mrs Shapiro gripped my wrist again. 'Place is full of krankies. Everybody dying.'\n\nI stroked her hand until her grip relaxed. 'You'll be home soon. Would you like me to bring you anything?'\n\nShe gave me an appealing look.\n\n'If you could bring the Wonder Boy...'\n\n'I don't think they allow pets in here.' Especially not Wonder Boy, I was thinking, with his disgusting habits. 'What about your photo of Artem? Would you like to have it with you? I'm sure they'd allow that.'\n\nShe shook her head. 'Too many teefs in here. But Wonder Boy nobody will steal.'\n\nWell, she was right about that. Rather than getting drawn into a plan to smuggle Wonder Boy into the hospital, I changed the subject, thinking maybe reminiscence would settle her, for old people often feel more at home in the past than in the present. And I was curious to know the end of the story she'd started to tell me that night over the fish dinner, twisted up in her convoluted English.\n\n'You never finished telling me the story about Artem. How he got to England. How you met.'\n\nLetting go of my wrist she sank back on to her pillow.\n\n'It is a long _megillah_ , Georgine.'\n\n'You said he ran away to join the partisans in the forest.'\n\n'Yes, in Naliboki. Almost six months he was living mit the Pobeda partisans.'\n\nShlomo Zorin and his Pobeda band of partisans had set up a family camp along the same lines as the Bielski camp in a clearing in the vast Naliboki forest in Byelorussia. Here they sheltered any Jews who made their way there, and even sent scouts back into the ghettoes to organise escapes. Artem Shapiro undertook several of these missions, using stolen papers; his bright blond hair, inherited from his grandfather, allowed him to pass himself off as a Christian.\n\n'Such a beautiful blondi, he was. He could pass easy.' Mrs Shapiro's voice wavered. 'So one day he made his journey back to Minsk.'\n\nEarly in the autumn, while there was still plenty to eat in the woods and before the snows started, Artem set out to find his mother and sisters, thinking to lead them back to the forest with him. But the Minsk ghetto, when he arrived, seemed like a ghost town of living skeletons shuffling around the once-familiar streets with death in their eyes. He learned from a former neighbour that his mother was dead \u2013 she had died of starvation, or maybe of a broken heart, shortly after he had been taken away. One of his sisters had died of typhus. No one knew what had happened to the other sister. Someone told him that she'd been taken to Auschwitz; someone else told him that she'd used her mother's gold teeth to bribe a local brigand, and had got away, 'To Sweden. Or mebbe to England.'\n\nAfter that visit to Minsk, something broke apart inside Artem's heart. All the music died. A terrible chorus of wailing filled his head night and day, so he could neither sleep nor work nor think. In a situation where morale is crucial, he felt himself becoming a drag on the Pobeda camp, undermining everyone's spirits with his own misery. One morning, after a night of wailing dreams, he smashed his violin against a tree. Then he said goodbye to Zorin and headed eastwards through the silent snow-laden forests towards his birthplace at Orsha. Maybe he was hoping to make contact with surviving members of his family, but when he arrived in the spring of 1942 the Orsha ghetto had already been liquidated. Thousands of Jews had been shot and the remainder had been herded on to freight trains.\n\n'They put them on the trains but they been transported to nowhere. They been poisoned where they waited, in the wagons. The Russian prisoners dug up a mass grave and buried them.' She paused. Her breath came slow and rattly. 'Truly they wanted to kill us all.'\n\nArtem did not return to Zorin. Such a fury possessed him that simply surviving in the forest was no longer enough. The chorus of wailing resolved itself into a single long howl \u2013 the howl of a wounded animal ready to kill. He headed north to join up with a group of Russian partisans who were harrying the German army, which had by now encircled Leningrad. The first time he ambushed a German jeep with a tree felled across the road, he taunted them with savage delight: ' _Ich bin der ewige Jude!_ '\n\n'Shut up that nonsense!' bawled Velikov, the commander of the unit. 'Just shoot!'\n\nThe partisans were trying to open up a supply route into the beleaguered city. It was a dangerous mission, for the German grip on Leningrad and the Finnish corridor was almost total, but by early 1943 Meretskov had brought the front forward from the east, and a few supplies started to get through. Artem was with a group of partisans who were driving a sleigh loaded with potatoes and beet across the frozen Lake Lagoda when they came under fire from a German patrol. The other three perished instantly, along with their stubby-legged Mongolian pony, but Artem was only wounded in the shoulder. He knew that running away over the ice in winter would be certain death; instead he crawled into the sleigh, hid under the wolfskins which covered the beets, and waited for his destiny to catch up with him. Either the Germans would take him, or the Russians would rescue him, or he would freeze to death. Everyone knows that hypothermia is a pleasant drowsy death. At least I won't die of hunger, he thought. He waited and listened, trying to staunch his wound with a cloth wrapped around a lump of ice. He could hear shooting and voices calling, but they seemed to be getting further away, not closer.\n\n'Then started the snow to fall.'\n\nHe must have fainted or drifted off to sleep, for he lost track of how long he'd lain there, when he was jerked into sudden consciousness by a sharp jolt of the sleigh. He peeped from under the snow-heavy wolfskins, and saw that it had been harnessed to what he thought was another pony that was trotting over the ice into the whirling blizzard. Seated above and behind him, he could hear two men talking. He caught the sound of laughter and a whiff of cigarette smoke. Were they talking German or Russian? He couldn't tell.\n\n'And all this time the pony was walking in the snow and the ice, and the snow was falling all the time, and the pony was walking on in the freezing snow and on and on over the ice and on and on...'\n\nShe stopped. I waited for her to continue. I thought she must be remembering and maybe she found the memories too painful to talk about. But after a while I heard a gentle snoring and I realised she'd fallen asleep.\n\n'When do you think Mrs Shapiro might be able to come home?' I asked the sister at the desk on my way out.\n\n'It's too early to say. We'll see how she gets on,' she replied without looking up.\n\n'But it's only a broken wrist, isn't it?'\n\n'I know, but we'll have to assess her home situation. We don't want her to go back and have another fall. At her age, she might be better off in residential care.'\n\n'Why, how old is she?'\n\n'She told us she was ninety-six.' She looked up. Our eyes met, and mine must have betrayed my astonishment. 'Isn't she your gran?'\n\n'No, she's just a neighbour. I live a couple of streets away. I don't really know her that well.'\n\nCould Mrs Shapiro really be ninety-six? But why would she lie about her age?\n\n'Another reason it'd be useful to have some ID.'\n\n# 8\n\n# Biopolymer\n\nI spotted Wonder Boy lurking in the porch of Canaan House as I walked up the path. He was ripping the guts out of a bird he'd caught \u2013 it looked like a starling. It was still alive, struggling between his paws. Feathers were everywhere. He bolted off into the bushes as he saw me coming, the bird still flapping in his jaws. This cat can well take care of himself, I thought. Usually I'm fond of cats but there was something horrible about Wonder Boy. I tried to imagine catching him, stuffing him in a bag, and taking him on the bus to the hospital. No way.\n\nThe key Mrs Shapiro had given me was only a Yale; in fact any enterprising burglar could have just smashed the frosted glass and put his hand through to turn the lock. I pushed the door open against a heap of mail that had piled up on the inside. As soon as I stepped into the hall the stink hit me, a bitter must of cat pee, damp and rot. I put my handkerchief up to my nose. Out of nowhere, Violetta materialised around my ankles, mewing pitifully. Poor thing \u2013 she must have been locked in the house for at least three days. I picked up the mail and flicked through it in case there was anything that needed attention, but it all seemed to be junk. There was even an offer for a Sainsbury's Nectar Card.\n\nI followed Violetta through to the kitchen. A chaos of dirty plates, dead cups with remains of disgusting brown fluids, empty tins and greasy ready-meals packaging was spread across every grimy surface. In a cracked pot sink under the window, a stack of unwashed dishes and congealed food remnants was soaking in scummy water on to which a cold tap was drip-drip-dripping. The gas cooker was crusted with dark brown gunge, and so old that it had levers instead of knobs. There was an Aga, but it was unlit and seemed to be used for storing old newspapers. A dank mouldy chill pervaded everything. I shivered. Even in my warm duffel coat I was cold.\n\nI hunted around and found a dozen cat-food tins in a cupboard. I spooned some out into a bowl for Violetta and she wolfed it down, almost choking in her desperation. Then I unlocked the back door \u2013 the key was on the inside \u2013 refilled the bowl, and put it out on the step. Wonder Boy appeared, hissed at Violetta, batted her out of the way, and polished it off. A few other scrawny moggies were hanging around too. I fed them all \u2013 there must have been a good half-dozen of them, miaowing and rubbing themselves against me. A couple of them sneaked indoors between my legs. I locked the kitchen door and returned to the house.\n\nThe bureau Mrs Shapiro had been talking about was in a downstairs room which could have been a study. The window had been boarded up behind drawn curtains, so the only light was from a lone surviving candle-bulb in the heavy gilt candelabra that cast a feeble glow over the old-fashioned floral wallpaper, floor-to-ceiling bookcases, Persian rugs, and a tiled fireplace above which an ornate ormolu mirror would have reflected the blocked-out view over the garden. Even in the gloomy light I could see it was a lovely room. The smell was different, too, musky and dusty, with only a faint trace of cat pee. There was a spoon-back armchair and two desks \u2013 a mahogany kneehole desk by the window, and a tall oak bureau-bookcase in an alcove beside the chimney breast.\n\nI decided to start here. I have to confess that, even then, Ms Firestorm was looking over my shoulder and whispering in my ear, there must be a story here \u2013 maybe a better story than _The Splattered Heart._\n\nThe bureau was full of papers, mostly bills in the name of Naomi Shapiro, and some, the older ones, in the name of Artem Shapiro, and bank statements from a joint-name account. The most recent of these, to my astonishment, showed a balance of just over \u00a33,000. The oldest I could find dated back to 1948. There was, it seemed, a small monthly income from an annuity, as well as Mrs Shapiro's widow's pension going into the bank. I took a selection of statements at random; would these give the hospital the information they needed? In the same drawer, held together with a rubber band, was a bundle of receipts including one for \u00a325, dated 26th October from Felicity NU2U Dress Agency, and one dated 16th October for \u00a323 from P. Cochrane, Antique and Secondhand Emporium, New North Road. That explained the pram.\n\nThere must be something else, I thought, something personal to show a date or place of birth, of baptism or marriage, education or employment. You can't live a whole life that's only recorded through bills and receipts. The kneehole desk was crammed full of stationery, crumpled notepaper, dried-up pens and stubs of pencils, receipts, old tickets, train timetables years out of date, a library card, also out of date, and assorted out-of-date leaflets about pensions and benefits: the useless bits of officialdom we cart with us through life. One drawer housed a correspondence with the Council about the monkey puzzle tree, which Mrs Shapiro had wanted to cut down, although apparently it had a tree preservation order on it.\n\nIn the last drawer there was a thick brown envelope stuffed with official-looking papers. This was what I'd been searching for. An odd-looking passport, light blue with a black stripe on one corner. Artem Shapiro; date of birth 13th March 1904; place of birth Orsha; date of issue 4th March 1950, London. Ration book: Artem Shapiro 1947. Driving licence: Artem Shapiro 1948. Abbey National Life Insurance plan: Artem Shapiro 1958. Death certificate: Artem Shapiro 1960; cause of death: cancer of the lung. Knowing his story, I felt a special tug of intimacy as I turned the flimsy typewritten paper over in my hands. So that was how his journey ended: the ghetto, the barbed-wire camp, the silent forests, the ice-bound lake. I folded the death certificate and put it back, hoping he'd died in his sleep, cosseted with morphine.\n\nBut what about her? A Co-op savings book was the only document that had her name on it: Mrs N. Shapiro 13th July 1972. There has to be something else, I thought; and I remembered what she'd said \u2013 _you must look only in the bureau_. So if anything had been deliberately hidden, I wouldn't find it here.\n\nIn a frenzy of curiosity, I poked through the other rooms. The sideboard in the dining room where I'd eaten the death-defying fish dinner yielded nothing but plates and cutlery. The sitting room was dark, the windows boarded up, and the light switch didn't work. I'd need a torch to search in here. Under the staircase, behind the pram, a narrow door opened on to a stone stair leading down to the basement. A wave of trapped musty air rose up towards me. I felt with my hand along the wall for the light switch, and a fluorescent strip light juddered into life, flickering madly on and off, plunging the low-ceilinged room alternately into light and pitch darkness.\n\nIt seemed to be some kind of workshop. A glass-fronted cabinet was fixed to the wall with rows of tools neatly arranged, the blades now tarnished with rust. Below it was a workbench with a variety of clamps. Bits of strangely carved wood were hanging from hooks. I realised after a few moments that they were panels and necks of unfinished violins. There was a pot of dried-up glue, a small dried-up brush sticking out of it. The glue was clear and amber-coloured, still exuding a faint sickly whiff. Animal glue. Bio-polymer. Used for woodworking, veneers and inlays, until better modern synthetic glues came along.\n\nMy boss Nathan once told me that the Nazis had made glue from human bones. Lampshades from human skin; mattresses stuffed with human hair. Nothing wasted. I was beginning to feel dizzy. Maybe it was the strobe effect of the faulty fluorescent tube, or the memories trapped in the ghost-breathed air.\n\nI made my way back up the stone stairs. As my fingers felt for the light switch I turned back towards the workshop, and that's when I saw a flash of colour on top of the tool cabinet \u2013 a couple of millimetres of blue just visible above the architrave. Curious, I went back down and pulled up a chair to have a look. It was an oblong tin, a bit rusty, with a picture of Harlech Castle surrounded by an improbably blue Welsh sky. I lifted it down and eased it open. It was the sort of tin that would once have held toffees or shortbread biscuits, but all it had in it now was a few photographs. I slipped it under my arm and went back up into the light.\n\nFrom the hall, a wide staircase with a curved mahogany banister led up to the first floor. As I mounted the treads, still clutching the tin, a threadbare Axminster carpet secured by brass rods released clouds of dust under my feet. The same mahogany handrail galleried the first-floor landing, off which nine doors opened. One of them was slightly ajar. I pushed it further open. A scurry of movement. Two lean stray cats bolted out between my legs. The room was large and light, with a double window overlooking the front garden, and dominated by a massive art-deco walnut double bed on which a tattered-eared tomcat \u2013 he had the same moth-eaten look as Mrs Shapiro's astrakhan coat \u2013 was curled up asleep. Raising his shaggy head he followed me with his eyes as I came in. The stench in here was terrible. Phew! I opened a window. 'Shoo! Shoo! Piss off!' I tried to chase him out but he just looked at me with contempt. Eventually he uncurled himself, jumped down from the bed flicking his tail grumpily from side to side, and sauntered towards the door.\n\nThis, I guessed, was Mrs Shapiro's bedroom, for her clothes were scattered everywhere \u2013 the Scotch plaid baker boy cap, the peep-toe high heels, and on the floor by the bed a pair of peach camiknickers trimmed with cream lace, a faint stain yellowing the silk. The walnut wardrobe, carved with artdeco sunbursts, was full of clothes on satin-padded hangers, reeking of moth-balls, stylish and expensive like costumes in a Humphrey Bogart movie. A matching sunburst dressing table stood in one corner, with a triple-hinged mirror facing the window through which I had a view of the garden. I rifled through layers of ancient decomposing make-up and musty, slightly stinky underwear. There was nothing of interest, so I sat down on the edge of the bed, opened the Harlech Castle tin, and spread out the six photographs.\n\nMost were in black and white, but the top one was in sepia, creased and tattered at the edges. It was a family portrait from the turn of the century: the mother in a lace-collared dress cradling a baby, the father with a beard and a tall hat, and two children, a little girl wearing a flouncy dress and a strikingly blond toddler in white pantaloons and an embroidered shirt. There was writing on the back that didn't seem to make sense. Until I realised it was in Cyrillic script. All I could make out was the date: _1905_. He must have carried it with him, hidden in a pocket or a lining, all that way.\n\nNext, a wedding photograph caught my eye: a tall man, fair and handsome, grasping the hand of a pretty woman with ardent eyes and thick curly black hair pinned up beneath a crown of white blossom. They were gazing out of the photograph, wide-eyed, half smiling, as though taken by surprise at their own happiness. The man I recognised as Artem Shapiro. But who was the woman? An attractive heart-shaped face with wide-set dark eyes and a full, generous mouth. I studied it carefully, for people's faces do change as they age, but, really, there could be no doubt. The woman in the photo was not Naomi Shapiro.\n\nI was still staring at the photo when suddenly I heard a sound outside in the garden \u2013 voices, and the clack of the gate. My heart thumped. Quickly I slipped the photos into my bag, closed the tin and shoved it on top of the wardrobe out of sight. In one of the panes of the triple mirror I could see a reflection of the window and, through it, the garden. A man and a woman were standing on the path; they were standing and gazing at the house. The woman was a stout redhead, wearing a vivid green jacket; the man was stocky and redcheeked, wearing a blue parka, smoking a cigarette. The man stubbed his cigarette out on the path and spoke to the woman. I couldn't catch his words, but I saw her toothy laugh. By the time I came down to the door they'd gone. \n\n# 9\n\n# Rubber\n\nThere was a different nurse on duty when I went back up to the hospital next time. She examined the papers I showed her without comment, ticked a box on Mrs Shapiro's notes, and passed them back to me.\n\n'How's she doing?' I asked.\n\n'Fine. She'll be ready to go as soon as we can get her home assessment done.' She flicked through the notes. 'I understand you have the key to her house. I'll get Mrs Goodknee to ring you for an appointment.'\n\nMrs Goodknee again. I imagined someone in a miniskirt with chubby dimpled knees.\n\nMrs Shapiro was sitting up in bed, her hair combed back tidily, the hospital nightgown, antiseptic green, buttoned up to her throat. She seemed well; the stay in hospital had fattened her up. Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes looked bluer \u2013 yes, her eyes were definitely blue.\n\n'Hello. You look good, Mrs Shapiro. Are they feeding you well? Are they still making you eat sausages?'\n\n'Not sossedge. Now is better. Now is chickens and fry pottetto. Did you bring the Wonder Boy?'\n\n'I tried, but he ran away,' I lied.\n\nI wanted to ask her about the photographs, but I held back because I didn't want to admit that I'd been rifling through her house and had discovered the hidden tin. I would have to find another way of worming the story out of her.\n\nWe sipped the thick, bitter tea that came around on the trolley and munched our way through the box of chocolates I'd brought in my role as next of kin.\n\n'Mrs Shapiro, I'm worried that your house is... well... don't you think it's a bit big for you to manage? Wouldn't you be happier in a nice cosy flat? Or in a home where you'd have someone to look after you?'\n\nShe looked at me with wide-eyed horror, as though I'd put a curse on her.\n\n'Why for you say this to me, Georgine?'\n\nI couldn't find polite words to explain my concern about the smell and the gunge and the crumbling fabric of the house, so I just said, 'Mrs Shapiro, the nurse thinks you might be too old to live on your own.' I studied her face. 'She told me you're ninety-six.'\n\nHer mouth twitched. She blinked. 'I am not going nowhere.'\n\n'Mrs Shapiro, how old are you really?'\n\nShe ignored my question.\n\n'What would heppen to my dear cats?' A stubborn look had come over her. 'How is the Wonder Boy? Next time you must bring him.'\n\nI told her about Wonder Boy's starling \u2013 'That notty boy!' \u2013 and Violetta's plaintive mewing \u2013 'Ach! Always she is singing _La Traviata_!' \u2013 and the cat that sneaked upstairs to sleep on her bed. 'That is Mussorgsky. Maybe it is my fault, I allow it. Darlink, sometimes I am so lonely in the night.'\n\nShe glanced at me, and my face must have given something away, because she said, 'You also are lonely, Georgine, are you? I can see in your eyes.'\n\nI nodded reluctantly. I was the one who was supposed to be asking the questions. But she squeezed my hand. 'So, tell me about your husband \u2013 the one who was running away.'\n\n'Oh, it's a long story.'\n\n'But not so long as mine, isn't it?' An impish smile. 'It was a story of loff at first sight?'\n\n'Actually, it was, Mrs Shapiro. Our eyes met across a crowded room.'\n\nIn fact it was a courtroom in Leeds, where two miners from Castleford were on trial for a picket-line scuffle. Rip was defending; he was still doing his articles and volunteering at the Chapeltown Law Centre. I was a junior reporter on the _Evening Post_. After the verdict was announced \u2013 they were cleared \u2013 we went for a celebratory drink. Later Rip drove me home to my parents' bungalow in Kippax, and we made love in front of the fire. I remembered how I'd teased him about his name.\n\nMe: (Twisting my fingers into his curls.) Knock, knock.\n\nHim: (Fumbling with my bra, his mouth wet on my ear.) Who's there?\n\nMe: (Pulling him down on top of me.) Euripides.\n\nHim: (Hand up my skirt.) Euripides who?\n\nMe: (Giggling between kisses.) You rippe dese knickers off...\n\nSo he did. It was strange, because we hardly knew each other, yet it was as if we'd known each other for ever.\n\n'And your parents, what did they say? They were a little surprised, isn't it?'\n\n'Fortunately we were dressed by the time they got back. Mum fell for him at once. He could really put on the charm. Dad thought he was a class enemy. You see Rip was from a moneyed family, and I thought he might patronise my parents. But he was nice... respectful.'\n\nShe flicked her head impatiently. 'So tell me more about loff.'\n\n'Well...' the memories tightened in my throat, 'you could say it's a tempestuous story of forbidden love between an almost-aristocrat and a humble girl from a mining village.'\n\nShe nodded. 'This is a good beginning.'\n\nThey'd been out to the Miners' Welfare in Castleford \u2013 a retirement do for a fellow pit-deputy. There'd been a singalong and speeches, and then more beer was drunk. Dad was glassy-eyed and unusually talkative. Mum, who'd drawn the driving straw, was also not stone-cold sober.\n\nDad: (Mutters to Mum.) What the heck's our Georgie brought home?\n\nMum: (Whispers to me.) You've landed a good fish here, Georgie.\n\nMe: (Embarrassed, to Rip.) Meet my parents, Jean and Dennis Shutworth.\n\nRip: (All charm and golden curls.) Rip Sinclair. Delighted to meet you.\n\nDad was wearing his best three-piece suit, the waistcoat all buttoned up. The only concession he ever made to slackness was a slightly loosened tie. Mum, on the other hand, had long since surrendered to the lure of the elasticated waistband, but she'd made a special effort for the occasion, with a Cupid's bow of cerise lipstick and a dab of Je Reviens behind her ears.\n\nMum: (Taking extra care with her vowels.) Rip. That's an unusual name.\n\nRip: (A dimply self-deprecating grin.) It's short for Euripides. My parents had great hopes for me. (His smile makes my heart jump about all over the place. I'm in love.)\n\nDad: (Whispers to me.) Not your type, Georgie.\n\nMe: (Whispers to Dad.) You've got it wrong. He's not like that. He's on our side.\n\nDad: (Jaw tight. Silence.)\n\nMum: (Getting in quick.) Would you care to join us for some tea?\n\n'And so he drank the tea?' Mrs Shapiro stifled a yawn. 'Mit your parents? This is quite normal in Germany.'\n\n'No. In Yorkshire, tea also means dinner.'\n\nMum had pulled the giant-sized pack of oven chips out of the freezer, shook the contents into a Pyrex dish, and slipped a dozen pre-cooked BBQ-flavour Chicken Drumstix under the grill, heated up a tin of Jackson's own-brand mushroom soup in the microwave and poured it over the drumsticks. My heart shrank into its boots. 'Chicken chez-sewer,' she said, sprinkling them liberally with salt, in case Mr Jackson had been stingy in that regard. Rip made a great show of pleasure, chomping noisily and wiping his mouth on a torn-off square of paper towel. Mum was completely charmed.\n\nWe'd all squeezed round the bench and table in the kitchen. Rip was wedged between Dad and the corner. I was sitting on the other side with Mum.\n\nDad: (Still suspicious.) So what do you do for a living?\n\nRip: (A strange look of panic has come over him.) I'm training to be a... (he catches my eye)... Johnny...\n\nMe: (What's going on? Why has he turned suddenly weird?)\n\nMum: (From the cooker. Awed.) That sounds interesting.\n\nRip:... a solicitor. (Dad is chomping a drumstick. Rip is gesturing to me behind the table \u2013 a hand movement that looks a bit like wanking.)\n\nMe: (Proud.) He was defending the miners in court today, Dad.\n\nDad: (Determined not to be impressed.) You mean Jack Fairboys and Robbie Middon?\n\nRip: (Giving me a kick under the table.) Yes, Jack and Rob. Rub. Rub... ber.\n\nDad: (Gives him a funny look.) They got off, din't they?\n\nRip: (Shifty.) Absolutely. Scot free.\n\nDad: (Concentrating on the ketchup bottle.) Lads being lads. Should never have gone to court.\n\nRip: (More covert under-the-table wanking.) No case to answer. On the floor. By the fire. Justice was done.\n\nMe: (A light dawns.) Excuse me, Mum...\n\nI squeezed out past her and into the sitting room. There it was on the floor by the fire, glistening and slippery. I picked it up and tossed it into the embers. There was a brief sizzle and a smell of burning rubber. In the kitchen I could hear Mum saying, 'I like a man with a good appetite. Euridopeas! Well I never!'\n\nI looked across to see whether Mrs Shapiro had got the joke, but her eyes were closed, and I realised she'd drifted off to sleep long ago.\n\nWhen I got home, at about three o'clock, there was a message on the answering machine from Mrs Goodknee. Would I be so kind as to ring her \u2013 a tinny, middle-aged voice. I rang, and got another answering machine. I left a message. Then I made myself a cup of tea, and took it up to my room. I'd taken the six photographs out of my bag and spread them across the floor in front of the window like playing cards. Now, crouching down beside them, I frowned as I tried to puzzle out the story I was sure was there.\n\nFirst, the Shapiro family in which Artem was the toddler, taken in 1905. Then the wedding photograph \u2013 a different woman. Artem Shapiro must have been married to someone else before Naomi. The same couple, Artem and the mystery woman, were pictured in another photograph standing in front of a fountain. There was snow on the ground. He was wearing a cap pulled down low over his eyes and smoking a cigarette, grinning broadly at the camera. She was wearing a tight-waisted coat and a beret cocked rakishly to one side, looking up at him. There was something scrawled on the back: _Stockholm Drott_... I couldn't make out the rest of the word.\n\nThere was a group photo, a man and four women wearing formal clothes seated around a piano. _Wechsler family, London 1940_ it said on the back. I looked closely, but the faces were too small to be distinct. In another of the photographs I recognised Canaan House with the monkey puzzle tree, quite a bit smaller than now, in the background. Two women were standing in front of the porch. The taller of the two looked like the brown-eyed woman in the wedding photograph. The other, curly-haired and elfin small, I didn't recognise. I turned the picture over. On the back was written _Highbury 1948_. I looked more closely \u2013 although the facial features were indistinct, there was something familiar about the defiant feetapart pose of the smaller woman. I remembered the slight boyish figure in the light of the street lamp, pulling things out of the skip. Naomi. So they'd been together in Canaan House, they'd known each other.\n\nI recognised the taller woman in another photo; this time she was alone, standing in an arched stone doorway, wearing a flowery dress, her dark eyes squinting into the sun, smiling. On the back was written _Lydda 1950_. That's a pretty name, I thought, for a pretty woman. But who was she?\n\nDownstairs, the front door slammed; the house shook. Ben coming home from school at half past four. I heard the thud of his school bag in the hall, the slap of his parka on the floor, and the thump-thump of his footsteps on the stairs. A few minutes later, I heard the Windows welcome chimes. He hadn't even said hello. I felt something in my chest fall away and flap against my heart. Sweeping the photos together into a pile, I went down to the kitchen, made two cups of tea and carried them upstairs. I knocked on the door of his room but he didn't answer, so I pushed it open with my foot. Ben was sitting at his desk staring at the computer monitor. I caught a quick glimpse of the screen \u2013 a flash of red writing on a black background. A single word, picked out in flickering white flames, leapt out at me: _Armageddon_. Then with a click of the mouse the screen changed to a Microsoft sky.\n\n'Ben...'\n\n'What?'\n\n'What's the matter, love?'\n\n'Nothing.'\n\nI reached out and ruffled his hair. He flinched under my touch and I withdrew my hand quickly.\n\n'It's okay to feel upset, Ben. It's a hard time for all of us.'\n\n'I don't feel upset.'\n\nHe was still staring silently at the screen, his hands clenched into fists, resting on the front of the keyboard as if waiting for me to go away. The blue light of the monitor caught the curve of his cheek and his upper lip, lightly shadowed with dark, soft down.\n\n'Is it school? How's the new class?'\n\n'Okay. Fine. Cool.'\n\nThe move from Leeds to London had been hard on Ben. He'd resented being plucked out of his group of friends, some of whom he'd known since pre-school playgroup, and having to fight his way into the unwelcoming circles of his North London comprehensive. He never brought any friends home, but a few times he'd come back from school later than usual, and muttered something about having been with someone called Spike. Spike \u2013 what kind of a name was that? Although I burned with curiosity, I knew better than to press for details.\n\n'What would you like for tea, love?'\n\n'Anything. Spaghetti.'\n\n'Okay. About half an hour?'\n\n'I'll come down, Mum. All right?' he said without looking up, in a voice that meant 'leave me alone'.\n\nI went into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of Rioja, feeling my failure sink inside me like a stone. Failed wife. Failed mother. Friendless \u2013 for my old Leeds friends were Rip's friends, too. I tried ringing Stella in Durham, but she was out, and the resident rock band was in session. Mum had enough troubles of her own \u2013 I'd ring her when I was feeling better. I downed the Rioja in a couple of gulps, and poured another. Maybe I should get a cat \u2013 or seven or eight.\n\nNo, I'd just have to pull myself together and make new friends here in London. In fact I'd made one already. (The Rioja slipped down, warmly reassuring.) Sure, her food hygiene left something to be desired, but we were mates. And I had online work colleagues, too, whom I'd known for years but never met. I'd drop in at the _Adhesives_ office in Southwark one day and say hello. I was particularly curious to meet Nathan, the boss. He had a soft, confiding voice when we spoke on the phone, as though he was sharing a secret, not just passing on technical information. I'd no idea what he looked like, but I imagined someone hunkily intelligent, with horn-rimmed glasses and a sexy white lab coat. Penny told me he was single, so I was in with a chance, and he lived with his elderly father, which seemed gentle and caring.\n\nPenny was the admin manager; I'd never met her either, but she liked to gossip on the phone in her booming voice, filling me in about all the other people I'd never met: Sheila the office junior; Paul and Vic, who took care of the technical side and, alternately, of Sheila; Mardy Mari, the cleaner from hell; Lucy from design, who was a Jehovah's Witness and got up Mari's nose. Then there were the other freelancers like me, whose intimate lives she dispensed without inhibition.\n\nRip's new Progress Project colleagues were frighteningly high-powered. I'd met some of them at a Christmas party last year. He'd introduced me to a couple called Tarquin and Jacquetta (Mum would think they were a kind of food bug) and Pectoral Pete and his wife Ottoline. He was bulging pectorally out of a loud check jacket. She was like a china doll \u2013 dainty and expressionless, with a perfect bow-shaped scarlet mouth and a voice that tinkled like cut glass. Rip had spent most of the evening out in the corridor tapping at his BlackBerry.\n\nI poured myself another Rioja. My cheeks began to glow pleasantly. I went and fetched my exercise book.\n\n#\n\n# The Splattered Heart \nChapter 3\n\n_'Darling, I have to attend to some really important work on my BlackBerry,' said remarked Rick one evening._\n\n_'Of course, beloved,' Gina said murmured softly._ (Vary your vocabulary, Mrs Featherstone used to say.) _'Your work is really important and must always take precedence over everything else.'_\n\n_'How lucky I am to have such an understanding wife,' said he uttered, and kissed her on her cheek before disappearing._ (I know this is a bit unbelievable, but it is fiction.)\n\n_An hour later Gina was surprised to hear a ringing sound suspiciously like Rick's BlackBerry coming from the study. But Rick was nowhere to be seen._\n\nSuddenly I felt the pressure of a warm hand on my shoulder.\n\n'When's dinner ready?'\n\nQuickly, I closed my exercise book and pushed the almost-empty wine bottle aside.\n\n'Sorry, Ben. Just catching up on a bit of work.'\n\nHe frowned. 'You should go easy on that stuff, Mum.'\n\n'What, this?' I giggled. 'It's only a little Rioja.' Was he worried that I would turn into an unfit mother? I caught the anxious look in his eyes, and pulled myself together. Maybe he had a point.\n\nWe cooked dinner together. Pasta with anchovies, broccoli and Parmesan \u2013 a recipe Mrs Sinclair had taught me. Dad once boasted that he had never eaten broccoli in his life, and never intended to. Mum said that anchovies \u2013 anch _oo_ vies she called them \u2013 made her breath smell. Parmesan they did eat \u2013 they sprinkled it out of a cardboard container straight on to tinned spaghetti hoops. Mum said it gave them a touch of distinction.\n\nBen slurped his spaghetti noisily, pulling a goofy face to make me laugh, like when he was a little boy pretending to eat worms. From the next room, we could hear the television booming, the chimes of the evening news. I wasn't really paying attention; I was still thinking about Rip \u2013 his BlackBerry obsession, my toothbrush-holder obsession. How had we let our happiness be ruined by such trivial things?\n\n'Why do they do that?' Ben asked suddenly. His face clouded over and he seemed to hunch himself lower over his plate.\n\n'What?'\n\n'Suicide bombers \u2013 why do they blow themselves up?'\n\nHe was listening to an item on the news.\n\n'It's because... when people are desperate... it's the way they draw attention...'\n\nThe warm glow from the Rioja had worn off and a gnawing headache was burrowing into my skull. 'It's when you want to hurt someone so much you don't care if you hurt yourself, too.' Desperate. I remembered the frothed milk splattered all over the kitchen.\n\n'But why do _that_? It's gross.' Ben was still staring into his plate, twirling the remaining strands of spaghetti around his fork. Then he said, without looking up, 'It's like... There was this kid at school who cut his arms with a razor.'\n\n'Oh, Ben. Why...?' I felt a rush of anxiety \u2013 I knew the cruelty kids could unleash on each other.\n\n'Dunno. Like you said. Drawing attention.'\n\nMy heart lurched. A buried image from my own schooldays had pushed its way up into my mind. Kippax. It must have been about 1974. A girl cut her arms in the toilets.\n\n'Ben, if you're feeling...'\n\n'It's all right, Mum. I'm all right. Don't stress.'\n\nHe smiled fleetingly, loaded his plate into the dishwasher, and slouched off upstairs.\n\n# 10\n\n# Polymerisation\n\nNext morning I found myself nursing a headache from last night's Rioja, worrying about Ben, and wrestling with a chain of polymers. Polymerisation is the key to the chemistry of adhesion \u2013 it's when a single molecule suddenly grabs on to two other similar molecules on each side, to make a long chain. A bit like line dancing. Not what you feel like first thing in the morning. Then the phone rang. It was Mrs Goodknee, trying in her squeaky voice to get me to hand over the key so she could do her home assessment. I insisted we meet at Canaan House and look around it together. We arranged to meet at noon.\n\nI wanted to give Mrs Shapiro the best chance I could, so I went over there about an hour earlier to prepare for her visit. I'd filled a plastic bucket with cleaning stuff, air-freshener spray, and a pair of rubber gloves, and set off at a brisk pace. Instead of the batty-woman outfit I was wearing a smart grey jacket which I hoped would make an appropriately serious impression. The hard wintry air made my centrally-heated lungs gasp with the shock of the cold at every breath, and the brightness of the light stung my hungover eyes, but I forced myself to look up at the sky. The clouds had cleared and a shaft of low sunlight gilded the upstairs windows of the terrace of houses along my road. My heart lifted. Winter sunshine \u2013 it seemed like a gift, a promise of warmer days to come. I started to hum, ' _Here comes the sun_... _na na nah na_...'\n\nThere was another clump of bird feathers on the path at Canaan House \u2013 a pigeon, this time. I kicked them out of the way. The cats must have been waiting for me because the moment I approached the house they all appeared, clamouring around me, miaowing with their pink hungry mouths. I fed them outside, taking care not to let them sneak indoors.\n\nThen I got to work on the kitchen. I took off my smart jacket, pulled on the rubber gloves and cleared the festering detritus out of the sink. I filled up a couple of bin bags with packaging (mostly labelled REDUCED), and the oozing contents of the disgusting fridge. To think that I'd eaten food stored in this fridge, prepared on this table, cooked in these pans \u2013 I was lucky to be alive. Maybe it wasn't the fish that had nearly killed me that night but some lethal bug endemic to this kitchen, to which Mrs Shapiro had long since become immune. In the bottom of the fridge I found three black, wizened human fingers. It took me a moment to realise they were carrots.\n\nI poured bleach into the sink and swept the floor in the kitchen and hall, removing a pile of cat poo mouldering beside the telephone table. Still fifteen minutes to go before midday. I went upstairs to Mrs Shapiro's room, opened the windows, sprayed the air-freshener around and picked up the clothes on the floor and shook the bed covers out of the window. As an afterthought, I pushed the Harlech Castle tin further back on top of the wardrobe where it would be completely out of sight. I'd worked up a bit of a sweat with all the exertion, and my cheeks glowed self-righteously.\n\nI was admiring my handiwork when I heard a woman's voice in the garden. I froze and listened. She must have been standing directly below the open window. It was an ugly, metallic voice, like a rusty gate, and she was talking loudly, the way people do into their mobile phones.\n\n'I'm just going in to have a look around.' (A pause, while she listened to the voice at the other end.) 'I'll let you know.' (Pause.) 'It's an old biddy who lives here. She'll be going into a home.' (Pause.) 'I don't know yet. I'll get a good valuation.' (Pause.) 'Hendrix.' (Pause.) 'Cash. Five grand.' (Pause.) 'Damian.' (Pause.) 'I'll find out. And I'll ask about the tree. I'd better go now.' (Pause.) 'Bye-ee!'\n\nA few moments later, I saw her walking back up the path smoking a cigarette. I recognised her at once as the redhead who'd been in the garden the other day \u2013 that toxic-green jacket. Its quilted texture reminded me of lizard skin. She stopped by the gate \u2013 she was waiting for me, thinking I'd be coming up the road. I didn't want her to see me emerging from the house so I grabbed my jacket, let myself out of the kitchen door, locked it behind me, and looked for another way out. A mossy path led down through the long back garden to a derelict mews block at the back. Beside it was a gate. It was bolted, but I managed to force it open and found myself on another cobbled alley that must once have been an access to the mews, now overgrown with brambles that led back on to Totley Place. As I turned into the lane I could see Mrs Goodknee waiting for me at the gate, flicking through a file.\n\n'Hi. I'm Georgie Sinclair. Sorry I'm late.'\n\nShe must have been in her mid-forties, about the same age as me, perhaps even a bit younger, but she had a stiff over-groomed style that made her seem middle-aged. I couldn't see her knees, but I doubted they were dimpled and chubby. She handed me a business card. Ah.\n\n'Margaret Goodney. I'm a senior social worker at the hospital. Thank you for coming. Have you got the key?' Her Essex vowels squeezed themselves into a bland corporate dialect.\n\nShe followed me up the path. Fortunately the cats had gone off to do their own catty things. Only pretty, friendly Violetta appeared, rubbing herself against our legs.\n\n'Hello, kitty kitty,' Mrs Goodney squeaked. 'Who's a pretty kitty, then?'\n\nShe took a spiral-bound notebook out of her shoulder bag and turned to a new page. _Canaan House, Totley Place_ , she wrote at the top. Then she underlined it twice.\n\n'A bit of a jungle, isn't it? That tree needs to be cut down.'\n\n'It's got a preservation order on it.'\n\nShe made a note.\n\nSeeing Mrs Shapiro's house through Mrs Goodney's social worker eyes made me realise how pathetic my clear-up efforts had been. Her nose wrinkled the moment we walked in through the door.\n\n'Poo! It's like the black hole of Calcutta in here.'\n\nThe air-freshener had worn off already. Her heels click-clicked on the loose tiles in the hall. Her eyes darted around. She made a note on every room we walked into. Her note on the dining room read: _Good proportions. Original fireplace._ Her note on the kitchen read: _Total refurbishment._ She saw me craning to see what she'd written, and flicked the page.\n\n'A house this size is a liability,' she said, not unkindly. 'She'd be much happier in a nice care home.' She made another note. 'Mm. No food in fridge. That's a sure sign of self-neglect.'\n\n'I cleared the fridge.'\n\n'What did you do that for?'\n\n'It was going mouldy.'\n\n'That's what I mean. We have to do what's best for her, don't we, Mrs...?'\n\n'Sinclair. Call me Georgie. Doesn't she have any say in the matter?'\n\n'Oh, yes, of course we have to get her consent. That's where you could be very helpful, Mrs Sinclair.'\n\nI felt a flush spreading up my cheeks. Was she going to offer me five grand? But she just smiled her toothy smile.\n\nAs we stepped into the bedroom, she quivered and put her hand to her nose. Mussorgsky had managed to get in there ahead of us and had taken up his position on the bed. He raised his head and yowled as we came in. Violetta had sneaked in with us and was lurking in the doorway, giving Mussorgsky the eye.\n\n'These cats \u2013 they'll have to go.'\n\n'They're her friends. She gets lonely.'\n\n'Yes, companionship \u2013 that's another of the advantages of residential care.'\n\nShe made a note in her book.\n\nOn the floor by the bed were Mrs Shapiro's peach silk camiknickers, pretty but whiffy, which I'd overlooked in my whirlwind clean-up. She bent down and picked them up, held them for a moment between finger and thumb, then let them fall.\n\n'She fancies herself, doesn't she?'\n\nI saw her wipe her fingers discreetly on a tissue. I can't explain why, but it was that contemptuous finger-wiping gesture that really made me hate her.\n\nThe bathroom came as a shock to both of us. The smell was definitely human, not cat pee. The toilet bowl, originally white porcelain patterned with blue irises, was now brown-stained, cracked and encrusted. The stain had seeped in a damp acrid circle into the rotting floorboards, which had partly collapsed under the toilet bowl, making it lean at an alarming angle. Hanging loose from the wall was a basin in the same iris design, with green-yellow drip-trails beneath the taps. A large enamel claw-foot bath stood under the window, with an old-fashioned shower head above it. The grime circles inside the bath grew in layers, like trunk rings in an ancient tree.\n\n'It'll all have to come out,' she murmured, jotting in her notebook. 'What a shame.'\n\nDownstairs in the hall, she stretched out her hand to shake mine.\n\n'Thank you very much, Mrs... Georgie. I'll go and write my report.'\n\n'You're going to put her into a home, aren't you?' I blurted.\n\n'Of course my recommendation is entirely confidential.' She pursed her lips. 'But I think residential care could be an appropriate option. We have to do what's best for her, not what suits us, don't we, Georgie?'\n\n'What do you mean \u2013 what suits us?'\n\n'It can be hard for a carer to let go, when the time comes. They like to think they're doing it all for the other person, when really they're just being selfish, trying to hang on to their caring role even when they're no longer needed, because they want to feel valued.'\n\nShe smiled a bland professional smile. I felt like strangling her with her repulsive reptilian outfit and stuffing her nasty cube-heel shoes into her squeaky creaky gob.\n\n'So you think I'm just a selfish bitch with a cat-poo fetish?'\n\nShe glanced at me sharply, decided I must be joking, and her lips twitched in a thin smile.\n\n'We wouldn't want to be held responsible if she had another accident, would we?'\n\nShe turned and click-clicked down the path.\n\nAs soon as I got home, I took out the card Mrs Goodney had given me, phoned the number, and asked for Damian Hendrix. There was a long pause.\n\n'This is the hospital social work department,' a woman's voice told me. 'Are you sure you don't want the local authority Social Services?'\n\nI looked up the local authority number in the phone book and tried again.\n\n'Could I speak to Mr Damian Hendrix?'\n\n'I'm sorry, we don't have anyone by that name here. What was it about?'\n\n'It's about an old lady going into a home.'\n\n'Hold on, I'll put you through to elderly.'\n\nThe line crackled.\n\n'Elder-lee!' a cheerful voice chimed in my ear.\n\n'I'm looking for Mr Damian Hendrix.'\n\n'Mm-mm. No Hendrixes here. Are you sure you've got the right name?'\n\n'I'm sure about the Damian. Have you got any Damians?'\n\n'Mm-mm...' I heard the voice call to someone else in the room, 'Eileen, 'ave we got any Damians?'\n\n'Only 'im in't store,' said Eileen.\n\n'Only one who works in the resource centre,' said the cheery voice.\n\n'No, it must be someone else. Thanks.'\n\nI put the phone down.\n\nEileen \u2013 that voice \u2013 she must be from Yorkshire. I felt a little stab of homesickness, remembering how I'd felt when we moved down from Leeds to London, after Rip was offered the job on the Progress Project. We'd hovered for weeks like lost souls in the limbo of estate agent offices, looking for a place that might one day feel like home. We'd been dismayed at London prices, and at how poky the houses were \u2013 at least, the ones we could afford. The squat Edwardian semi we finally bought had seemed brighter than most. It had been all done out for a quick sale by the builder, painted in neutral shades to compliment (sic) the stunning period features, with laminate floors (authentic-oak-style), a granite worktop (Uba Tuba) and fitted well-known-brand kitchen appliances. It smelled of newness and fresh plaster. It had no character at all. I'd liked it at the time \u2013 it had seemed like a fresh canvas on to which we'd paint our new life. But that's not how it worked out. Maybe things had been going wrong for ages and, like damp seeping into a basement, I just hadn't noticed the warning signs.\n\nLater that afternoon, as I was walking down the local parade of a dozen or so shops, I remembered the other reason we'd chosen our house. This little neighbourhood had seemed an intimate island of friendliness in the vast anonymous bustle of London. There was the Turkish bakery, strangely famous for its Danish pastries; the Song Bee, our favourite takeaway, recently opened by two young women specialising in Chinese and Malaysian cuisine; Peppe's Italian delicatessen; Acne Al, as Ben called the newsagent by the bus stop; and two estate agents, a local branch of Wolfe & Diabello on the corner where I was standing, and across the road Hendricks & Wilson.\n\nThen it dawned on me. Hendricks! Should I barge in and make a scene? Instead, on impulse, I pushed open the door of Wolfe & Diabello. If Mrs Goodney was going to get her little Damian to do a valuation on Canaan House, at least I could get one, too, for comparison.\n\nA small bosomy girl with sleek blonde hair and careful eyes was sitting at a desk by the window. Her name badge said Suzi Brentwood.\n\n'My aunt's thinking of selling her house. Could you give us a preliminary valuation?'\n\n'Of course.' She flashed her little pearly teeth at me. 'I'll make an appointment with one of the partners. Is next Friday all right? We're a bit busy. What's the address?'\n\nHer eyebrows rose a fraction when I told her.\n\n# 11\n\n# Black treacle\n\nBy the time Friday came round it was raining again, a miserable December drizzle that stained the streets and rooftops melancholia grey. I was starting to regret my appointment with the estate agent, and I thought of ringing up to cancel, but something about Canaan House had pricked my imagination. As Ms Firestorm would say, I was _inexorably drawn_.\n\nI left home in a rush without an umbrella, and the hood of my duffel coat kept slipping back as I ran, so I arrived breathless and thoroughly bedraggled. As I turned the corner into Totley Place I saw a black sports car, a low-slung meanlooking machine, skulking with predatory menace on the road outside Canaan House. Skulking like a Wolfe, though I soon saw it was in fact a Jaguar. When I came close the driver's door opened, and a long lean form uncurled itself on to the pavement. Tall, dark, handsome. I stopped and caught my breath. There was something oddly familiar about him.\n\n'Mrs Sinclair?'\n\nI nodded. He raised a quizzical eyebrow and proffered his hand, which was warm and firm. My heart flipped like a hooked fish. I became aware of a pleasant sensation in my pelvic area.\n\n'You must be Mr Wolfe,' I said, trying to shake the rain out of my wet-sheep hair.\n\n'No, I'm Mark Diabello.' His smile made rugged creases in his craggily handsome cheeks. The cleft in his square, manly chin dimpled seductively. His dark and smouldering eyes seemed to gaze right into my soul \u2013 or perhaps right into my underwear. I noticed the pleasant pelvic glow once more. 'It means beautiful day, I've been told.'\n\nHis voice was like black treacle \u2013 sweet, with a hard mineral edge.\n\n'Not like today then.' I batted my wet eyelashes. What was happening to me? This man was an estate agent, and definitely not my type. 'Er... unusual name. Italian?'\n\nI was regretting that I'd worn my batty-woman clothes.\n\n'Spanish. My father was an itinerant mandolin player.'\n\n'Really?' He was still smiling, and I couldn't tell from his face whether he was joking, but the idea was, mmm, appealing. 'I've got the key,' I mumbled. 'Do you want to look around?'\n\nThe cheeks crinkled into a smile. The eyes smouldered. I gazed into them. My poor fish-heart tugged feebly at the line, but it was caught.\n\nWonder Boy, Violetta and their mates had congregated at the front door. I let them in and fed them in the kitchen because it was too wet outside. It was bitterly cold indoors, a dank pungent chill which hit you with the stink of stale cat food mingled with other odours which were quite a lot worse. Then I became aware of another, more pleasant smell, faint and spicy like expensive soap. That was _him_. Inexorably drawn, I followed along as he wandered around the house, murmuring to himself under his breath. He had a little instrument like a torch with a laser beam that bounced enticingly against the walls of the rooms, to measure the size. I watched, transfixed. Click. Flash. If I asked nicely, would he let me have a go with it? He wrote the details on the back of what looked like a crumpled till receipt.\n\nHe seemed completely unfazed by the smell. Even when he stepped in a pile of fresh cat poo in the hall (how did that get there?) he just bent down and cleaned it off with an immaculate white cotton handkerchief from his breast pocket. I watched, awestruck, as he deposited it in the kitchen bin.\n\n'I could live in a place like this,' he murmured huskily in his deep manly mineral-edged voice that spoke directly to my hormones, bypassing my brain completely. I realised now where we'd met before \u2013 in the pages of _The Splattered Heart_. He was just as I'd imagined the hero. Except that in my book the hero was a poet, not an estate agent.\n\n'Character. That's what you so rarely get in the housing market nowadays.'\n\nWe were standing together in the entrance porch at the end of his tour. The rain had stopped and the weak wintry sun was putting in a brief appearance, so it was warmer out here than indoors, and much less smelly.\n\n'Ornate plasterwork; period arches; decorative corbels. I mean, don't get me wrong, Mrs Sinclair, there's a lot needs doing. You'd have to do it sensitively, of course. Keep all those stunning period features. Get a couple of designers in to give you ideas. You could open up the attic, for instance. Make a fabulous penthouse suite.' A flame flickered in the depths of his eyes.\n\n'Everybody seems to fall for this house.'\n\n'It's the potential. You can see the potential. You'd have to cut that tree down, for starters.'\n\n'It's got a preservation order on it.'\n\n'Doesn't matter. You just pay the fine. The tree gets cut; the Council gets its cut. Everybody's smiling.'\n\nI hadn't much liked the tree myself, but now it suddenly felt like an old friend.\n\n'You can't do that!'\n\n'So when's your aunty planning to put it on the market?'\n\n'She just wanted an idea of its value, in case she decides to sell. What do you think?'\n\nHe looked at the notes he'd scribbled on the receipt, crinkling his eyes and furrowing his handsome brow in a way that was faintly reminiscent of Aristotle. Well okay, only very faintly.\n\n'Half a million, maybe?'\n\nI don't know exactly what I'd been expecting, but our own semi with its three poky bedrooms and narrow strip of garden had cost almost that. He saw the look on my face.\n\n'The area brings it down. And we're looking at a cash buyer, of course, not a mortgage. I'll put it in writing for you.'\n\nI gave him my address. We shook hands. He climbed into his hungry-looking car, and was gone in two puffs of hot air from the chunky twin exhausts.\n\nI walked back slowly, still feeling slightly giddy from my encounter. As I came up the street, I could see that Ben was already home, the blue square of his monitor winking away through the window as he tried to navigate the lonely cyber-seas, teeming with who knows what pirates and sharks. My mother-heart tightened with a little squeeze of sadness: it wasn't good for him to spend his evenings up there on his own.\n\n'Hey, Ben, shall we go to the pictures tonight? We could go and see Daniel Craig as James Bond.'\n\nSean Connery, Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan. While my mother-heart ached for Ben, my woman-hormones were still tingling for Mark Diabello.\n\n'Sounds like crap.'\n\n'It probably is crap, but it might be entertaining.'\n\n'I don't find crap entertaining, Mum? But we can go if you want to?' I noticed there was something different about his voice \u2013 a new rising inflection at the end of his sentences \u2013 questioning, or apologetic. I wondered whether he was like this when he stayed with Rip. Somehow I imagined that life in Islington would be an endless round of stimulating activities and highbrow conversations, and it was only with me that he spent his hours closeted with his computer. I would have rung Rip to ask him if we'd been on better terms, but we weren't, and I didn't.\n\nInstead of going out, we ordered dinner from the Song Bee and ate it by the gas fire in front of the TV. It was a cop drama, I can't remember what. I'd just been thinking that the male lead looked a bit like Mr Diabello when suddenly Ben turned to me.\n\n'Mum, do you believe in Jesus?'\n\nHis question hit me out of the blue. I drew a slow breath.\n\n'I don't know. I'm not sure what I believe, Ben.' What was this all about? I wondered. 'I believe Jesus was a real person, if that's what you mean.'\n\n'No, what I mean is, Mum, do you believe Jesus'll save you at the end of the world?'\n\n'Ben, love, the world isn't going to end.'\n\nI had a sudden memory of how I'd been at his age \u2013 I believed that nuclear war would wipe out the human race before I'd even had a chance to lose my virginity. We'd sat around on Saturdays in the Kardomah caf\u00e9 in Leeds, my mates and I, fantasising about how we would spend our last four minutes after the final warning.\n\n'It's like... I really love you, Mum. You and Dad. I don't want...' He was mumbling, as though his mouth was full of sand. 'All you have to do is accept Jesus into your life?' His eyes, when he looked up at me, were wide, the pupils dilated, as if fixed on some private nightmare.\n\n'The signs are there, Mum? All the signs are in place?' That strange questioning inflection \u2013 it was as though someone else, an alien, had got inside him, and was speaking through his mouth, staring at me through his eyes.\n\n'The world's been around for a long time, Ben. Don't worry.'\n\nI pulled him into my arms and hugged him tight. He stiffened against me at first, but I held him close until I felt him relax, his head resting on my shoulder. Whatever it is, I thought, he'll grow out of it.\n\nNext day I overcame my pride and phoned Rip.\n\n'I'm worried about Ben. Can we talk?'\n\n'I'm just in the middle of something. Can I ring you back in half an hour?'\n\nBut he didn't.\n\nBen didn't go round to Rip's until late on Saturday. He spent the day upstairs on his computer, and I spent the day working on _The Splattered Heart_. Outside, the rain lashed at the garden, and the wind made a spooky whistling noise through the ill-fitting secondary glazing, but inside we had the central heating on and Snow Patrol keeping up a soft background rumble. Each time I walked into Ben's room, he minimised the screen he was looking at. We took turns to bring one another cups of tea, and treated ourselves to Danish pastries from the Turkish bakery and dim sum for lunch from the Song Bee. I needed the extra sustenance; now we were getting down to the nitty-gritty: _The Splattered Heart, Chapter 4_.\n\nIt was hard to decide whether Rick should be a lust-crazed sex fiend or a minutely endowed, impotent Viagra case. I crossed out a whole page, and started to think about Rip. No, it wasn't sex that had gone wrong between us, but whatever had gone wrong had taken the shine out of the sex, too. Keep the romance in your marriage, Mum's magazines used to say, and they advised strategies like wearing sexy underwear, and greeting your hubby in your negligee when he got back from work. Actually, I tried that once, but he didn't notice.\n\nHe called round at six to pick Ben up in his Saab convertible and they went straight off to the cinema \u2013 they were going to see Daniel Craig as James Bond. After they'd gone, that horrible silence settled on the house, like a coffin lid closing. \n\n# 12\n\n# Marine biological glues\n\nIt wasn't until Monday morning that I remembered I hadn't fed Mrs Shapiro's cats. I heard a familiar yowling sound in the garden, and when I looked out of the upstairs window, there was Wonder Boy lurking under the laurel bush. He was looking up at the window with a reproachful look on his face. All around him was a mass of grey and brown feathers, sodden in the rain. Seeing him here in my garden made me furious \u2013 I didn't want him killing my birds; in fact I didn't want him at all. I pulled on my brown duffel coat and my wellies and strode off round to Totley Place. He followed me, slinking along at a distance, ducking into a gateway or garden if I stopped and looked back. Then I noticed that the Stinker was following me, too; and another scrawny tabby. I was turning into the Queen of the Cats. The other cats were waiting for me in the porch when I arrived, a purry, enthusiastic reception committee. None of them looked particularly wet.\n\nThere were three weird things I noticed on that visit. The first was a pile of fresh cat poo, almost in the same place where Mr Diabello had stepped in it the other day. It had a distinctive curled macaroon shape, unlike all the other brown shrivelled-sausage deposits that I found around the house from time to time. I was sure that I'd got all the cats out of the house when we left. Who was the culprit \u2013 and how had he got in? I cleared it up and counted them as they milled around my legs \u2013 one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. When I left, I'd make sure to count them out.\n\nAs I straightened up, my eye fell on a picture on the wall directly above where the cat poo had been. It was a photograph, rather grainy and washed-out, of an arched stone doorway with a cross on top, Corinthian columns on each side, and above the door a carving of a man on horseback with a spear. Something about it was familiar. I must have looked at it dozens of times without really seeing it. What I saw now was that it was the same arched doorway as in one of the Harlech Castle tin photographs, the one with the dark-eyed woman: Lydda. The columns and the harshness of the light made me think of Greece.\n\nThe third thing I noticed, when I went through to the kitchen to feed the cats, was that the key to the back door, which should have been inside in the lock, was missing. Someone had taken it. I realised in a flash that it could only have been wicked, wolfy Mr Diabello.\n\nI fed the cats quickly and rushed home in a rage, but just as I picked up the phone to vent my fury at Wolfe & Diabello, it rang in my hand. It was Penny, the admin manager from _Adhesives_ , wanting to know whether I'd received the press release about the new research into marine biological glues. The truth was, it had come two days ago, and I hadn't even looked at it. I mumbled something vague and apologetic, but she saw right through me.\n\n'What's going on, Georgie?' she boomed. 'Something's not right, darling, I can tell. Is it that husband of yours again?'\n\n'No. It's another devious man.'\n\nI explained about the missing key and the dodgy estate agent.\n\n'Hm.' I could hear Penny breathing on the other end of the phone. Nothing about her was quiet. 'Don't rush into anything, darling. You could be wrong about the key, then you've blown your chances with that sexy man.'\n\nHow did she know he was sexy? Was I that obvious?\n\n'You should get a second opinion, darling. Two second opinions. One about the price of the house, and one about the social worker.'\n\nThe same thing had happened to her Aunty Floss, she said, who'd been put in a home by the Council and died six months later of unspecified complications.\n\n'God bless. I'm sure she's up there in heaven, tippling sherry and looking down and cursing those bloody scumbags who got her house.'\n\n'Do they allow tippling and cursing in heaven?' I giggled.\n\n'Well, if they don't, darling, I'm not going there.'\n\nThe thought of all that tippling and cursing cheered me up, and I promised Penny I'd get on with the marine biological glues \u2013 yes, straightaway \u2013 but first I'd take her advice and try to get another social worker assessment.\n\nMrs Goodney, I knew, worked at the hospital, not the Council, so next day I telephoned the Council's social services department again. I explained to the cheery 'Elder-lee!' voice that an elderly neighbour had gone into hospital and needed an assessment before she could go home.\n\n'Mm-mm. Can you hold the line a minute? (Eileen, what's 'er what does 'ome visits?)'\n\nEileen's voice, muffled by distance, said something that sounded like 'Bad Eel'.\n\n'She's out on 'er coffee break,' I heard her say.\n\n'You need to speak to Muz Bad Eel. I'm afraid she's in a meeting. Can I take your number and ask her to call you back?'\n\nBad Eel. I pictured someone slim and slippery, with scarlet lipstick and a small silver gun tucked inside a frilly garter.\n\nI spent the whole morning at my desk, looking out of the window at the wind chasing stray leaves around the dank patch of lawn, and waiting for the Bad Eel to phone me back. I was supposed to be working on the press release Penny had sent about marine biological glues. Some company was developing a synthetic version of the glue that bivalves such as mussels and oysters use when they cling to the rocks. One of the strongest bonds in nature, apparently. They use fine thread-like tentacles called byssus, which are rich in phenolic hydroxyls. Phenolic hydroxyls: something about those words just turned my brain to glue.\n\nI started thinking about bivalves living down there in the dappled light, how they filter the algae from the water, how they close themselves up against the sea. It must be wonderful to be a bivalve, to be able to shut yourself away in your own mother-of-pearl-lined world, hanging on to the rock while the waves and tides churn outside. Ms Firestorm showed up to help me out. _Cloistered in their shimmering watery depths, the loyal bivalves cling passionately together_... Yes, we could learn a lot from bivalves. I realised I wasn't very interested in commercial applications, and when the other elusive marine creature still hadn't called by lunchtime, I wrapped up warm against the wind and set out for the hospital.\n\nMrs Shapiro was sitting in the day room when I arrived, wearing a pinafore-style hospital dressing gown tied at the back and a pair of woolly socks on her feet. I felt a pang of guilt. Probably it was my responsibility, as her next of kin, to bring in some suitable hospital gear for her. I'd have to remember for next time.\n\nA tattered magazine was open on her knee, but she wasn't reading; she seemed to be engaged in a fractious and incoherent argument with another old lady sitting beside her.\n\n'But 'er were on this ward when she shouldn't of been,' the old lady was saying vehemently, 'and new sister said it weren't 'er business anyway.'\n\n'Well, if they was no longer there someone must heff tooken them.'\n\n'No, because she weren't supposed to be. That's what I'm sayin' to yer.'\n\nShe looked up and saw me in the doorway.\n\n'That's 'er there. Ask 'er.'\n\nMrs Shapiro turned, and stretched out her hands to me.\n\n'Georgine, you got to get me out of here. All this people is mad.'\n\n'She's talkin' tripe,' said the old lady, and heaving herself up out of the chair she minced off along the ward, muttering aloud.\n\n'What's going on?' I asked.\n\n'She is a bonker,' said Mrs Shapiro. 'Brain been amputated.'\n\nThe old lady stopped, turned, flicked two fingers at us, and carried on.\n\n'How are you doing, Mrs Shapiro?' I pulled up a chair beside her. 'I thought you'd be going home by now.'\n\n'I am not going nowhere,' said Mrs Shapiro. 'They say I must go into the oldie-house. I tell them I am not going nowhere.' She folded her arms determinedly across the front of the green dressing gown. The argument with the old lady was obviously just a warm-up for a much bigger argument to come.\n\nThere was a new sister on duty, a young girl who looked hardly older than Ben.\n\n'What's happened with the home assessment?' I asked.\n\n'The report's just come through. They're recommending residential care. I'm afraid she's not very happy about it.'\n\n'I really don't see why she needs residential care. She was managing fine.'\n\n'Yes, but you know, once they start falling, they can very easily lose their confidence. Especially at her age.'\n\nShe brushed a stray hair off her face and looked over her shoulder towards the nurses' station. I could see there were a dozen things she needed to be doing more urgently than talking to me.\n\n'What if she refuses to go?'\n\n'We can't discharge her into an unsafe situation.'\n\n'So she just stays here?'\n\n'She can't stay here. She's blocking an emergency bed that someone else could use.'\n\n'So what are the options?'\n\n'Look, I think you'd better talk to Mrs Goodney. The social work office is over by physio.'\n\nI went back to sit with Mrs Shapiro. 'It's okay,' I said. 'I'll get them to do another assessment.'\n\n'Thenk you, darlink,' she said, gripping my hands. 'Thenk you very much. And my dear cats, how are they?'\n\n'They're fine. But Wonder Boy seems to be killing a lot of birds.'\n\n'Ach, poor darlink, he is upset. You must bring him here. Next time. You promise, Georgine?'\n\nI mumbled something evasive, but just then the tea lady appeared with the trolley.\n\n'You heff no kr\u00e4utertee?' said Mrs Shapiro grumpily. 'Okay, I tek this horse's piss. No milk. Three sugar.'\n\nCradling her cup in her hands, she settled back on the pillows.\n\n'Now, Georgine, your running-away husband. You heffn't finished telling me.'\n\n'I did tell you. It was so boring you fell asleep.'\n\nShe caught my eye and gave a little laugh.\n\n'You told me about your parents. That was quite boring, isn't it? But what about the husband? He was a good man? You were happy in loff?'\n\n'We were happy at first. But then... I don't know... He got absorbed in his work. I had babies. Two \u2013 a girl and a boy.'\n\nAnd a miscarriage in between. Then I started writing a book.\n\nAfter the miscarriage I'd given up my job and started freelancing. Rip had taken his articles but found the solicitor's work tedious and applied for a job in the northern office of a national charity. He was keen and committed, out and about all over the place, so one of us had to be home-based. The freelancing didn't fit easily around children so, inspired by my earlier introduction to Mum's preferred reading matter, I decided to try my hand at romantic fiction. I got a couple of short stories published in a women's magazine and after that encouraging start I plugged away at a romantic novel \u2013 it was about a plucky young heroine who is inexorably drawn to a grand but gloomy house inhabited by a handsome, moody, extremely rich poet (I know, but it _is_ fiction) who falls in love with her but alas dies of a mysterious ailment on the eve of their wedding, which is terribly tragic, but then she falls in love with the local schoolteacher who lives in a cute rose-covered cottage and is penniless but has a good sense of humour and is great in bed.\n\nI thought I'd got the genre spot-on, and it grieved me that no one wanted to publish it. I tried changing the font, changing the ink colour, I changed my nom de plume, but the rejection slips just kept coming.\n\n' _Splettered Heart_. This is a good title for a book, Georgine. Povverful.'\n\n'Thank you. Rip thought it was too melodramatic.'\n\n'Ach! He is a man. What does he know?'\n\n'He thought I should call it _The Shattered Heart_ or _The Broken Heart_ , but I thought that was a bit clich\u00e9d.'\n\n'Exactly so. And it has been published?'\n\n'No. Not yet.'\n\n'But you must not give it up.'\n\n'I'm completely rewriting it. A new version. But it's hard to find the time. I've got another job now, writing for online trade magazines.'\n\n'Lane tred? What is this?'\n\n'It's a group \u2013 _Adhesives in the Modern World_ , _Ceramics in the Modern World_ , _Prefabrication in the Modern World_ , things like that. I work on all of them, but mainly _Adhesives_. I've been doing it for about nine years.'\n\n'But this is fascinating!'\n\n'Well, it's just for the building trade. It's not exactly world shattering.'\n\n'Too much shattering is going on nowadays, Georgine. Building is much better.'\n\nNathan had conducted a cursory interview over the telephone, during the course of which he'd asked me, among other things, what my favourite pudding was (Bakewell), whether I'd ever been to Prague (no), and which team I supported (Kippax Killers, of course), and told me after five minutes that I was just the person he was looking for.\n\n'Glue,' he'd said. 'Don't worry, it'll grow on you.'\n\nRomantic it wasn't, but it paid the bills, and it meant I could be at home for the kids. Strangely enough, it did grow on me.\n\n'So that's my story so far. Not very exciting, really.'\n\n'Well, we will heff to see if we can make you a happy ending.' She raised her teacup. 'To happy endings!'\n\nOn my way home from the hospital, I dropped in at Canaan House to feed the cats and do a quick tidy-up in case the Bad Eel should deign to visit. The wind was still blustering, swirling up dead leaves and litter on the pavement. Wrapping my coat tight around me, I turned into Totley Place. At once I saw there was something unusual there \u2013 something brightly coloured at the entrance to the cobbled lane that led up to Canaan House. As I drew closer my heart began to beat with rage and trepidation. Yes, it really was what I'd suspected, half hidden there among the creepers \u2013 a large green-and-orange For Sale sign, with the name written in bold black letters: Wolfe & Diabello.\n\nIt was stuck into the ground beside the wall. I grabbed the post and heaved. It held firm, so I pushed and pulled it backwards and forwards, to loosen it up. Then I got round behind it, scrambling through a climbing dog rose that clung to the wall. Surely Mr Diabello hadn't done this, the thorns picking at his Italian-styled suit? It must have been some strong-arm minion in a white van, hammering the post into the ground with a mallet. I'd worked myself up into a frenzy, but still it wouldn't budge. If anyone had seen me, they'd have thought I'd gone mad. I grabbed the post in both hands, arched my back and bent my knees for one last heave. It slid out of the ground as smoothly as a knife out of butter. I slid with it, staggered, lost my balance, and fell backwards into the rose bush. A thorn jagged my cheek. Wonder Boy appeared yowling out of the undergrowth. It started to rain.\n\n*\n\nI'd been all fired up to storm into the Wolfe & Diabello office and demand an explanation, but I called in at home to pick up my raincoat, and the phone was ringing as I opened the door. It was Rip.\n\n'Hi, Georgie, I just wanted to have a quick word about Christmas.'\n\nI steeled myself. 'Fire ahead.'\n\n'I wondered if you'd made any plans?'\n\n'Not really. Why? Have you?' I felt a quiver of dread \u2013 Christmas: the time when families are supposed to be together. Would I be able to survive a Christmas on my own?\n\n'I was wondering about going up to Holtham with Ben and Stella...'\n\n'Fine.' Actually I felt like drowning myself in a tub of lukewarm piss, but I managed to put on a brave show of nonchalance. 'Do that. Fine by me.'\n\n'What about you?'\n\n'I haven't really thought about it.'\n\nAfter he'd put the phone down, I went up to my bedroom, flung myself down on the bed, and let the tears flood into my eyes. I sobbed and sobbed until my chest ached and my shoulders heaved and my nose ran with snot \u2013 I sobbed for my broken marriage and my broken family, all the hurts and humiliations I'd ever endured in life, my ailing parents, my absent brother, my too-far-away daughter, the general sorrows of humankind, starving babies in Africa, kids who self-mutilate, suicide bombers and their victims, they all came washing saltily in on the same vast relentless indivisible tide of human misery. I thought about the bivalves, the curved pearly walls inside their shells, the greenish light filtered through seawater; whatever the extraordinary glue was that enabled them to hold so tight while the storms swirled around them, that's what I needed now. \n\n# 13\n\n# No job too small\n\nBy next day, the fight had gone out of me a bit, but I decided to walk across to Wolfe & Diabello anyway. I needed to clear my head, and I still had a couple of bones to pick with them. It was another raw, blustery December day, the sky teeming with grey scurrying clouds. I pulled my hood up, and put my head down into the wind, and maybe that's why I didn't see it until I almost stumbled over it \u2013 a post lying across the pavement. Attached to the post was a For Sale sign. Not Wolfe & Diabello, but Hendricks & Wilson. That was odd \u2013 it had been windy in the night, but not _that_ windy. Even odder \u2013 as I turned the corner, there was another one, stuck into a hedge, a few hundred metres up the road. Then further along, I spotted another lying in a skip.\n\nThere was no one in the Wolfe & Diabello office when I went in. I opened and closed the door again, making it 'ping', but still nothing happened. The third time I did it, Suzi Brentwood emerged from a door at the back; I thought I spotted a shifty look flit across her face before her professional smile composed itself.\n\n'Hello, Mrs... How may I help you?'\n\n'My aunty is thinking of selling her house before Christmas,' I said very loudly.\n\nAs if by magic, the door at the back of the office opened, and Mr Diabello appeared.\n\nHe was wearing the same dark stylish suit, a clean freshly folded handkerchief peeping out of the breast pocket.\n\n'Hello, Mrs Sinclair. What can we do for you?'\n\n'The For Sale sign in the garden at Canaan House \u2013 you put it there?'\n\nHe smiled, that irresistible cheek-creasing smile.\n\n'We have to keep one step ahead of the competition.'\n\n'What do you mean?'\n\n'We heard on the grapevine that Hendricks had sent a valuer in.'\n\nIt must have been Damian, I thought. But how did he get in?\n\n'No harm in that, Mrs Sinclair. It's a free market. Shop around. See who can offer you the best deal. But, you know, I felt after our chat the other day that you deserve a \u2013 how can I put it? \u2013 a more focused view of the service we offer here at Wolfe & Diabello.' His eyes smouldered with dark fire. His quizzical eyebrows quizzed.\n\nMs Firestorm popped up briefly to take a look, and she was well impressed. 'Deserve. Focused. Service.' She repeated the words slowly in her head. They sounded deeply sexy. But they still didn't make sense.\n\n'You mean you just marched up and stuck a For Sale sign in someone's front garden without their permission?'\n\n'It's a bit cut-throat around here,' he murmured apologetically. 'Hendricks & Wilson \u2013 I don't like to say this about another estate agent, but they aren't the most reputable in the business. Underhand tactics. Stealing our customers. You'll never believe this, but sometimes they even go round and pull our sale boards out. What valuation did he give you, by the way?'\n\nI looked him in the eye.\n\n'He said she should be able to get a million for her house. At least a million. Maybe more.'\n\nHe didn't bat an eyelid.\n\n'I'm sure we could match that for you, Mrs Sinclair. And we could agree a special rate on the commission.' His handsome nostrils flared tantalisingly. A hint of a smile played at the corners of his sensual mouth. 'If your aunty decides to sell before Christmas.'\n\nI could have swooned into his rugged manly arms at that point, but then I remembered my second issue.\n\n'The key. You stole the key.'\n\n'Pardon me?'\n\n'The back-door key. To the kitchen. It was in the door.'\n\nHis eyes seemed to widen a fraction.\n\n'I think you've made a mistake.'\n\n'No, I haven't. You took it. It must have been you.'\n\nHis brooding brow furrowed.\n\n'Mrs Sinclair, it wasn't me, I assure you. Have you considered the other possibility?'\n\n'What other possibility?'\n\nHis mouth tightened. His head twitched.\n\n'Them.' His head twitched again, a sort of reflex jerk to the left. 'Hendricks.'\n\n'It couldn't have been them.'\n\nThen I thought back. I was in the kitchen feeding the cats. Mr Diabello was wandering around scribbling on the back of his receipt. I was feeding the cats in the kitchen because it was raining. I didn't open the back door. Was it locked? Was the key in the lock? I couldn't remember. When was the last time I was sure I'd seen the key? Was it when I was showing Mrs Goodney around? I realised I was totally confused.\n\n'I'll look into it.' Maybe I'd misjudged him after all. 'If I've made a mistake I apologise,' I said stiffly.\n\nAnyway, all I need to do, I thought to myself, is change the lock. Where do you get a new lock? My mind went blank. Then I remembered a commercial I'd seen on TV. B&Q. For some reason, the thought was pleasantly appealing. The nearest branch to me was in Tottenham.\n\nIt wasn't till next day, as I made my way in through the sliding glass doors past the displays of Christmas baubles and endof-line kitchen units, that I realised what it was that drew me to B&Q: it was the men. Yes, although Rip was both handsome and brainy, he was definitely deficient in the DIY department. There's something deeply attractive about a man with a screwdriver in his hand, I was thinking. If you wanted to be Freudian about it, you could say it was a father-fixation, for Dad was always fixing things about the house, while Mum brought him cups of tea and Keir and I got under his feet. These B&Q types reminded me of the men in Kippax \u2013 not destiny-shaping men; not even craggily handsome splatter-your-heart-type men; but nice ordinary blokes wearing jeans and pullovers with comfortable shoes, their pockets bulging with tape measures and hand-drawn diagrams on bits of paper; sometimes a bit paunchy; even a tattoo here and there. Who cares? So long as they weren't always dashing off somewhere to change the world. Maybe if I hung around, one of them would come along to measure me up, would compliment my tasteful decor, be stunned by my period features.\n\nI should come here more often, I resolved, as I made my way through the mysterious aisles. There, on my left, was a whole section of rawplugs. I glanced at them quickly \u2013 they seemed alien, frightening things, with their poky plastic shells, their complicated colours and numbers \u2013 the sheer _rawness_ of them. But the worst thing is, that you have to make the hole in the wall with an electric drill, then you have to hammer the right-sized rawplug into the right-sized hole, and you can't just use any old screw \u2013 you have to know the right size and type. I held my breath and hurried past.\n\nAt last I found my way to the section that displayed locks \u2013 there were dozens of them. I picked up one or two at random, trying to remember what the one on Mrs Shapiro's door had looked like. It was definitely not a Yale type of lock; it was the other type \u2013 the type with a big key. Yes, a mortise. The trouble was, there were so many different models and sizes.\n\nA man was browsing among the hinges and doorknobs at the end of the aisle \u2013 a small tubby Asian man. I caught his eye and smiled a sweet damsel-in-distress smile. He came over at once.\n\n'You need help?'\n\nHis eyes sparkled darkly. With his neat moustache and beard, he looked like a well-groomed hamster.\n\n'I'm looking for a lock. Mortise. With a big key. Only I've lost the key.'\n\n'You know what type? Union? Chupp?'\n\nI shook my head.\n\n'You don't know this? You must know. Otherwise impossible to replace it.'\n\n'It's for a back door.'\n\n'What it looks like? Can you describe?'\n\n'I can't remember exactly. I think it's a bit like this one. Or that one.'\n\nI pointed randomly.\n\n'In my country we have a saying, knowledge is the key. But you have no knowledge and no key.' He sighed, fished in his trouser pocket, and handed me a small dog-eared business card \u2013 the sort you can get printed at the railway station.\n\n_HANDIMAN \n **Mr Al Ali** \nTelefon 07711 733106 \nNo job too small_\n\n# 14\n\n# Reindeer meat and dried fish\n\nThe phone was ringing when I got home. I could hear it through the door as I fumbled with my key, but by the time I picked it up, they'd rung off. There was a message on the answering machine.\n\n'Hello Mrs Sinclair. This is Cindy Bad Eel from Social Services, returning your call.'\n\nI rang back immediately, but I just got another answering machine. I left a message asking her to ring as soon as she got back.\n\nNext day, she still hadn't rung, so I tried Social Services again.\n\n'Elder-lee!'\n\n'Could I speak to Mrs Bad Eel please.'\n\n'It's Muz. Not Missis.'\n\n'Well, can I speak to her anyway?'\n\n'Hold on a minute.'\n\n('Eileen, where's Muz Bad Eel?' 'She's just 'ere. 'Old on. Who is it?')\n\n'May I ask who's speaking please?'\n\n'It's Georgie Sinclair. I rang about the old lady going into a home.'\n\n('It's that woman about t' old woman.' 'She says she'll ring back in a minute.')\n\n'She's just in a meeting. She'll ring you as soon as she gets out.'\n\n'No \u2013 please tell her it's urgent. I need to speak to her now.'\n\nThere was a lot of muttering and crackling in the background, then a new voice came on the line \u2013 a low, smooth, sultry voice with a slight drawl in the vowels.\n\n'Hello-o. This is Cindy Bad Eel.'\n\n'Oh, hello Mrs Bad Eel. Ms. I really need your help \u2013 I mean, a friend of mine needs your help.' I was gabbling, fearful that she would hang up. 'Mrs Naomi Shapiro. She's in hospital. She broke her wrist. Now they won't let her go home. They want to put her in a home.'\n\n'Slo-ow down, please. Who am I speaking to?'\n\n'My name is Georgie Sinclair. I left a message for you.'\n\n'So you did, Ms Sinclair. Slow down. Take a deep breath. Now, count one, two, three, four. Hold. Breathe out. One, two, three, four. Rela-ax! That's better. Now \u2013 would you describe yourself as her carer \u2013 an informal carer?'\n\n'Yes \u2013 yes, a carer. Informal. That's definitely what I am.'\n\nWaves of calm engulfed me. I suddenly felt very caring.\n\n'How old is the lady?'\n\nI hesitated. 'I don't know exactly. She's quite elderly, but she was getting along fine.'\n\n'But you say she had an accident?'\n\n'The accident was in the street, not in her house. She slipped on the ice. It could have happened to anyone.'\n\n'And you say she had a home circumstances assessment visit?'\n\n'It was someone from the hospital. Mrs Goodney. The house was a bit untidy, but it wasn't _that_ bad.'\n\nThere was a long silence. I started to anticipate her response, her stock of excuses for doing nothing. Her phone-answering track record had not been impressive. Then she spoke again, slowly.\n\n'It isn't for us to judge another person's lifestyle choices. I will visit the house, but I need her permission. Which hospital is she in?'\n\nAs soon as I'd put the phone down, I ran into my bedroom and stuffed a few things into a carrier bag \u2013 Stella's old dressing gown, a spare pair of slippers, a hairbrush, a nightie \u2013 and set off for the hospital. I wanted to forewarn Mrs Shapiro, and make sure she said the right things. I didn't want her to blow this chance on another bout of cussedness.\n\nThe rain had stopped, but there were still puddles in the road as I raced to the bus stop, and big damp clouds were hanging just above the rooftops like billowing grey washing. I was the only person on the top deck of the Number 4 bus as it lurched and swayed along the now-familiar roads, brushing against the dripping trees, so close to the houses I could see right into people's bedrooms. I recalled my lonely afternoons wandering the streets peering enviously into other people's lives. What had all that been about? It seemed an age ago. Now Mrs Shapiro and Canaan House were keeping me so fully occupied I hardly had time to think of anything else.\n\nIn the bus shelter outside the entrance to the hospital there was the usual little knot of people huddled over their cigarettes. I'd passed them before without really noticing, but this time, a voice called out to me.\n\n'Hey! Georgine!'\n\nI had to look twice before I recognised Mrs Shapiro. She was enveloped in a pink candlewick dressing gown several sizes too big for her, and so long that it trailed on the ground. Below it, just peeping out in front, was a pair of outsize slippers \u2013 the sort that children wear, with animal faces on the front. I think they were _Lion King_ s. Ben once had a similar pair. Her companion was the bonker lady with whom she'd been arguing last time. Now they seemed to be getting on like a house on fire. They were sharing a cigarette, passing it between them, taking deep drags.\n\n'Mrs Shapiro \u2013 I didn't recognise you. That's a nice dressing gown.'\n\n'Belongs to old woman next to me. Dead, isn't it?' She grabbed the cigarette from the bonker lady, who'd had more than her fair share of puffs. 'Cigarettes was in the pocket.'\n\n'Nice slippers, too.'\n\n'Nurse give them to me.'\n\n'She give me these,' said the bonker lady, lifting up the hem of her dressing gown to show off a pair of fluffy powder-blue wedgie-heeled mules. Her toes were protruding out of the ends, with the most horrible thick crusty yellow toenails I'd ever seen.\n\n'Them should heff been for me,' said Mrs Shapiro sulkily.\n\nWe left the bonker lady to finish the cigarette and made our way back to the ward, where I handed over my carrier bag of things; she took only the hairbrush, and gave the rest back to me.\n\n'I have better night cloth-es in my house. Real silk. Not like this shmata. You will bring one for me, next time, Georgine? And Wonder Boy. Why you didn't bring the Wonder Boy?'\n\n'I don't think they'd let him in. He's not very...'\n\n'They heff too many idiotic prejudices. But you are not prejudiced, are you, my Georgine?' she wheedled. 'You are so clever mit everything. I am sure you will find a way.'\n\n'Well, of course, I'll try my best,' I lied.\n\nThe ward was busy with visitors, so I pulled two chairs up by the window in the day room. It was a square featureless room near the entrance to the ward, with green upholstered chairs dotted randomly around, a TV fixed too high on the wall, and a window that looked out on to a yard. It smelled of disinfectant and unhappiness.\n\n'Mrs Shapiro, I've asked for another assessment from Social Services. Someone's going to come and visit you. She's called Ms Bad Eel.'\n\n'This is good. Bed Eel is a good Jewish name.'\n\nThis surprised me, but what did I know? We didn't have any Jewish people in Kippax.\n\n'Tell her I've got the key and I'll meet her there to show her around. She has my phone number but I'll write it down for you again.' I wrote my number on a scrap of paper, and she stuffed it into the pocket of the candlewick dressing gown. 'If anyone says anything to you about going into a residential home, just tell them you're having another assessment. That should keep them quiet.'\n\nShe leaned across and clasped my hand.\n\n'Georgine, my darlink. How can I thenk you?'\n\n'There is one problem. She's certain to ask how old you are.'\n\nShe looked at me \u2013 a clear, canny look. She knew I knew she wasn't ninety-six.\n\n'What I should say?'\n\n'Mrs Shapiro, I'll help you if I can. But you have to tell me the truth.'\n\nShe hesitated, then leaned up and whispered close to my ear, 'I am only eighty-one.'\n\nI didn't say anything. I waited. After a moment she added, 'I told them I am more older.'\n\n'Why did you tell them that?'\n\n'Why? I don't know why.' She shook her head with a stubborn little flick. 'I heff never met anybody asking so much questions, Georgine.'\n\n'I'm sorry \u2013 it's because I come from Yorkshire. Everybody's nosy up there.'\n\nI tried to recall the picture of the two women in front of the house. _Highbury 1948_. I did a quick calculation. She would have been about twenty-three when it was taken.\n\n'So do you know your date of birth?' I probed. 'She's bound to ask you that.'\n\n'Eight October nineteen hundert twenty-five.' A quick, precise answer. But was it the truth?\n\nI wanted to question her more, but I didn't want to confess that I'd already searched beyond the bureau in the study and that I'd found the photos in the Harlech Castle tin hidden in the workshop. I had questions to ask about Lydda. Who was she? When did Artem marry her? What had happened to her? And I was aching to know who'd hidden the tin, and from whom.\n\nWe were the only ones in the day room, but the TV was blaring away in the corner. I looked for a remote control to turn the volume down, but I couldn't find it, so I switched it off and settled myself into an armchair in listening mode.\n\n'You didn't finish telling me about Artem.'\n\n'You heffn't told me about your running-away husband. Why he was running away?'\n\n'It's your turn, Mrs Shapiro. I'll tell you my story next time.'\n\n'Ach, so.' She laughed. 'Where heff I gotten to?'\n\n'The pony...'\n\n'Yes, the pony that was trotting on the ice. But you see it was not a pony, it was a reindeer. The reindeer people took him away mit them.'\n\nThe S\u00e1mi men who had hitched up Artem's sleigh were from Lapland. Part traders and part bandits, they made forays down across the ice to exchange smoked fish, reindeer meat and furs for wheat or tobacco or vodka or whatever they could find. When they discovered him under the wolfskins, they debated whether to kill him; but as he opened his eyes, he smiled to find himself still alive, and started to sing a Russian peasant song.\n\n' _Ochi chornye, ochi strastnye_...' Mrs Shapiro's voice quavered. 'It is a beautiful song about the loff for a woman mit black and passionate eyes. He used to sing it often.'\n\nThe song saved his life. The faint croaky voice of the wounded soldier made the men laugh, so they took him with them to their settlement in a vast snowy wilderness beyond the Arctic Circle, where the white horizon merged into the long pale sky. He was treated first as a prisoner, then as a curiosity, and finally as a great source of entertainment.\n\nHe stayed with them for several months living on a bed of skins in the corner of a fishy, smoky, snow-covered hut, eating reindeer meat and drinking some horrible herbal concoction which they also poured on to his wound. When he had drunk a few cupfuls, he would start to sing \u2013 Jewish songs from his childhood in Orsha, partisan songs from the time in the woods, Russian folk songs, even a few arias. The men slapped their thighs and threw their heads back with laughter. The women giggled and retreated into their furs, watching him curiously with their strange cat-like eyes. At night he studied the mysterious coloured lights playing across the sky and tried to work out his position from the stars. When he was fully recovered, and smudgy light broke into the sky on the southern horizon for a few hours each day, the S\u00e1mi people offered to take him back to Russia. He explained with gestures that he wanted to go the other way, towards Sweden. So they took him to a place where he could see the next S\u00e1mi settlement over the Swedish border, gave him a small sleigh and a bag of dried fish, and sent him on his way.\n\n'He was looking for his sister. But she was already gone. Maybe she never was there. In that time Sweden was full of Jews who were running away from the Nazis. Everybody was looking for somebody or passing on the news of somebody.'\n\n'So when did you meet him? Did you go to Sweden, Mrs Shapiro?'\n\nShe started to say something, then stopped. A sad-looking lady attached to a drip tube had just walked into the day room, trailing her bag of fluid behind her. We watched her for a few moments in silence, then Mrs Shapiro whispered, 'That is enough for today. Now is your turn, Georgine. This your husband \u2013 why he was running away? There was another woman?'\n\nThe drip lady was searching for the TV remote control. I hesitated. I didn't want to go into details about the rawplugs and the toothbrush holder, but I found myself saying, 'I don't think so. He said there was no one else. He was too obsessed with his work.'\n\nMrs Shapiro was looking at me quizzically. She obviously preferred the 'other woman' hypothesis.\n\n'Why you think this?'\n\n'He was always full of big ideas. He wanted to change the world. I think he was just bored with domesticity.'\n\nThere, I'd said it. Even putting it into words made me feel better. Mrs Shapiro wrinkled her nose.\n\n'Ach, so. This is a typical story. He wants to change the world but he doesn't want to change the neppies, isn't it?'\n\n'Sort of. The children were already out of nappies.' I wanted to explain that it was the same roving, inquisitive spirit that had brought him to me in the first place. 'When we met, I was different to the other people he knew. He used to call me his rambling Yorkshire rose.'\n\n'Don't worry, my Georgine.' She grinned merrily. 'When I am mended we will go rembling again.'\n\nThe drip lady had slumped into an armchair and was gazing mournfully at the fluid in her drip bag, which looked like watered-down tea. Mrs Shapiro threw her a contemptuous look.\n\n'Too many krankies in here.' She sniffed. 'So this husband \u2013 when he is finished mit the rembling, you think he is coming back?'\n\n'I don't think so. I threw all his stuff in the skip.'\n\n'Bravo!' She clapped her hands. 'So what he said then?'\n\n'He said...' (I put on a hoity-toity voice.) '... why are you being so childish, Georgie?'\n\nShe rocked back in her chair and shrieked with laughter.\n\n'This running-away husband is quite a schmuck, isn't it?'\n\nIt was such a jolly, raucous laugh that I found myself laughing, too. Our laughter must have carried right down the ward, for a few minutes later the bonker lady came waltzing in to see what was going on, dancing around and lifting up the hem of her dressing gown to flaunt her new slippers. She winked at me, pulled a cigarette out of the pocket, and waved it under Mrs Shapiro's nose.\n\n'Look what one of the porters give me. Mind, I 'ad to drop my knickers down for 'im in the lift. I says if yer give me the packet you can 'ave yer wicked way wiv me. 'E says no thanks, missis, I've seen better on the mortuary trolley.'\n\nMrs Shapiro let out another shriek, and that set the bonker lady off, cackling and waltzing around and flashing her appalling toenails, and that made me laugh some more, and even the sad drip lady managed a dribbly chuckle. We were all clutching our sides, screeching and hooting like a flock of mad geese, when the ward sister came along and ticked us off. On the bus on the way home I felt a strangely pleasant aching sensation in my chest. I realised I hadn't laughed as much as this since... since Rip had left. \n\n# 15\n\n# The Bad Eel\n\nThe Bad Eel phoned me back a couple of days later. We made an appointment to meet at the house. As before, I went an hour earlier, with some cleaning things. The Phantom Pooer had been at work again; there were two fresh macaroon-shaped deposits in the hallway. I cleared them away and did a quick round with a duster and a brush, paying special attention to the bedroom and bathroom, though the latter was really a lost cause. I did what I could and sprayed the air-freshener around liberally. Although the weather was dry, I couldn't feed the cats by the back door because I didn't have the key, so I fed them in the kitchen, and counted them again. There were only five. Wonder Boy was in there, right at the front, batting the Stinker out of the way. Borodin crept in, his belly low to the ground, snatched his food and disappeared. One of the pram babies, I noticed, had a weepy eye. Mussorgsky and Violetta were missing. Violetta appeared at the front door a few moments later, her pretty tail swaying as she walked, and behind her was a person who could only have been the Bad Eel.\n\nThe first disappointment was that she didn't look at all like an eel. In fact she was uninhibitedly exuberantly plump, with curves that bulged in soft roly-poly layers beneath a tight stretchy blancmange-pink outfit which revealed each elastic-line of her startlingly skimpy underwear. She held her hand out to me. Each finger was like a meaty little chipolata sausage.\n\n'Hello, Mrs Sinclair. I'm Cindy Baddiel.'\n\nShe stressed the second syllable. That was the next disappointment. She wasn't a _bad_ eel at all. Her honey-gold hair fell in loose curls from two large butterfly clips above her ears. Her eyes were the colour of angelica; her skin was like peaches; she smelled of vanilla. Despite my disappointment, there was something very edible about her.\n\nI must have been staring rudely. Violetta broke the silence between us with a chatty miaow. We both bent to stroke her at the same time, our heads touched together, and we laughed, and after that, everything was easy. She strolled around the house. ('Lo-ovely. Pe-erfect.') She greeted the Stinker like an old flame. ('Well, hello-o, boy.') She did flinch for a moment in the bathroom, but her only comment was, 'There's no accounting for cultural diversity.'\n\n'One thing surprises me,' she remarked, as we were walking back down the stairs. 'She doesn't seem to be getting support from the Jewish community. Usually they're good at looking after their elderly.'\n\nThe same thought had once occurred to me, but I understood now that Mrs Shapiro was, like myself, someone who'd come unstuck.\n\n'I suppose it's her personal choice.' She'd taken a little notebook out of her bag \u2013 it had a picture of a floppy-eared Labrador puppy sitting on a cushion \u2013 and a biro with a very chewed end, and was writing something down.\n\nAt the end, when we were standing in the hall, I asked her the question that had been pressing at the back of my mind since my meeting with Mrs Goodney.\n\n'What would happen to her house, if she had to go into a home?'\n\n'Oh, I don't think it'll come to that.'\n\n'But if it did, would the Council take it from her?'\n\n'Oh no, we don't do that! Where did you get that idea?' She shook her golden curls. 'If someone goes into a care home, we assess their financial situation. If they have assets of more than twenty-one thousand pounds, then they have to pay the full cost of their care.' She was still scribbling in her notebook as she talked. Her voice was so soothing that I found it hard to concentrate on what she was saying. 'Below that, the Council picks up the bill. It can be quite expensive \u2013 four or five hundred pounds a week \u2013 so we try to maintain people's independence in their own home. It's usually what they prefer, too \u2013 familiar surroundings \u2013 chosen lifestyle.' She gave me a peachy smile.\n\n'Twenty-one thousand pounds? That's not much, is it? So would their house \u2013 this house for example \u2013 would that be classed as an asset?'\n\n'If no one else is living there, and the person is in a home, it could be sold to cover the home fees.' She was still making notes, pausing ruminatively, looking around her and chewing on the end of her biro.\n\n'But what if the person didn't want to sell?'\n\n'Don't worry.' She took my hand and squeezed it between her little chipolatas. 'I can see no reason for her to go into residential care at this stage. I'm going to recommend a means-tested care package that'll support her continuing to live at home.'\n\nI held back my impulse to say I was sure she didn't need a care package. There was something about her that made me want to take a big juicy bite, but I hugged her instead. It was irresistible, really, that soft pink bolster of flesh. Probably she was used to it, because she just stood there and smiled.\n\n'You're very demonstrative, Mrs Sinclair,' was all she said.\n\nMrs Shapiro, on the other hand, was disappointed in Ms Baddiel.\n\n'Not Jewish. Too fet.'\n\nShe shook her head with a grumpy face.\n\nI'd rushed around to the hospital immediately to tell her the good news, and we were sitting in the day room again, in front of the window. The bonker lady kept wandering in and out, making smoking gestures at me, trying to catch my eye, but I ignored her.\n\n'She said you can have a care package in your own home.'\n\n'Vat is this peckedge? Vat is in it?'\n\nShe wrinkled up her nose, as though she could smell it already.\n\n'Well, maybe a home help, to help you keep the place clean. Someone to help with your shopping and cooking.'\n\n'I don't want it. These people are all teefs.'\n\nI tried to persuade her, worried she'd lose her chance to get back home through her own stubbornness, but she looked at me with a little smile.\n\n'You are a clever-kn\u00f6del, Georgine. But I heff another news for you. I heff hed a visitor.'\n\nShe produced a card from the pocket of the candlewick dressing gown, a garish orange-and-green card, with a bold black inscription across the top in mock-Gothic letters: _Wolfe & Diabello_. Beneath, in smaller letters, a name: _Mr Nick Wolfe_.\n\n'Quite a charming man, by the way. He has made me an offer to buy up my house.'\n\nI gasped. My breath was really taken away. These people, they don't miss a trick.\n\n'Mr Wolfe! How much did he offer you?'\n\nShe turned the card over. On the back, written in blue biro, was the figure: _\u00a32 million_.\n\n'Very nice-looking man, by the way. Would be a good husband for you, Georgine.'\n\nI felt suddenly out of my depth. The social workers, the nurses, I could handle them; but men who flashed around those amounts of money scared the pants off me.\n\n'It's a lot of money. What did you say?'\n\n'I said I will think about it.'\n\nShe caught my eye and smiled impishly.\n\n'What for I need two millions? I am too old. I already heff all what I need.'\n\nThe nurse \u2013 it was the brisk young woman I'd met on my first visit \u2013 was happy with the care package, and a date was set for Mrs Shapiro to return home. I promised I'd be there to meet her, and would drop in regularly until she was settled. There was one more thing I needed to sort out before she came home. I didn't want Damian or Mr Diabello \u2013 whichever one of them had the key \u2013 barging into the house while she was there on her own. I must get that Asian handyman to change the back-door lock. I rang the number on the card and made an appointment with him for the next day. \n\n# 16\n\n# The handyman\n\nMr Ali arrived on a bicycle. I'd been expecting a man in a van, so I didn't notice him at first, wobbling quietly up the lane. He was smaller and tubbier than I recalled, and he was wearing a pink-and-mauve striped woolly hat pulled right down over his ears, which was sensible, because the morning was cold. It was hard to tell how old he was; his face looked young, but his beard and moustache were heavily flecked with grey. He didn't look at all like a handyman \u2013 for one thing he didn't seem to have any tools.\n\nHe jumped off his bike, removed the cycle clips from his ankles, straightened out his trouser bottoms \u2013 they were grey flannel, with neat creases down the fronts \u2013 and greeted me with a polite nod of the head. I noticed now that there was a small leather bag \u2013 it could have been a woman's handbag \u2013 on a long strap slung across his chest, with the head of a hammer poking out at one side.\n\n'I have come to fixitup lock,' he announced.\n\nHe pushed his bicycle up the path, and propped it in the porch at the front door.\n\n'Jews live here?'\n\nThere was something sharp in his voice that took me aback.\n\n'Yes. How did you know?'\n\n'Mezuzah.' He pointed out something that looked like a small tin roll pinned on to the door frame. It had been painted over, and I hadn't noticed it before.\n\n'Strange thing for me,' he muttered. 'Never mind. Here in London is no broblem.'\n\nHe took his pink-and-mauve cap off \u2013 I saw now that his black hair was also threaded through with grey \u2013 and stuck it in his pocket, along with the cycle clips.\n\n'You Jewish?'\n\nI shook my head. 'Yorkshire. It's almost a religion.'\n\nHe gave me a funny look \u2013 I don't think he realised it was a joke. His dark eyes darted around, taking in the details.\n\n'Every house speaks its history to one who knows how to listen.'\n\nSo, not your typical handyman, I thought.\n\n'Where you have this broblem lock?'\n\nThere was something cutely hamster-like, I thought, about the way he sometimes confused his 'p's and 'b's, though I have no evidence that hamsters actually do this.\n\nI led him through to the kitchen. The back door was heavy pine, painted to look like walnut, with two panels of blue engraved glass.\n\n'For this one you have lost the key?'\n\n'That's right.'\n\n'Hm.' He stroked his beard. 'Locked up.'\n\n'Yes \u2013 that's why I called you.'\n\n'Hm. Only way to open must be with force. You want me to do this?'\n\n'I... I don't know. I thought maybe you could unscrew something.'\n\n'This type of lock sits inside door frame, not screwed on outside.'\n\n'Oh, I see.' Actually, now he pointed it out, it was totally obvious.\n\n'But usually,' he said, stroking his beard again, 'usually there exists more than one key for every door.' He turned the door handle up and down. 'You do not have another key? You have lost it, too?' He sounded reproachful, as though I'd been unreasonably careless.\n\n'It's not my house. I'm just feeding the cats while the owner's in hospital.'\n\n'The key that proves the ownership of the house.'\n\nI was beginning to feel annoyed. I wanted a handyman, not a philosopher.\n\n'I think it's been stolen. Really, if you can't help, Mr Ali, I don't want to waste any more of your time.'\n\n'Certainly I can help. But better not to break down the door if we can open it by some other way. You have looked for another key?'\n\n'Where should I look?'\n\nI was thinking that a lad in a van might have been easier to deal with. He looked at me as though I was completely stupid.\n\n'How can I know this? I am a handyman, not a detecteef.'\n\nHe scanned the room with his hamster eyes, then he started opening cupboard doors and pulling out drawers, rifling through the mouldy tea towels and crusty cutlery.\n\nIn the built-in pine cupboard at the side of the chimney breast was a jumble of crockery, pots, tins, jars, bowls, vases, candlesticks, and other stuff which could loosely be described as bric-a-brac. Mr Ali stood up on a chair and went through it all methodically, working from the top down, taking each item from the shelf, shaking it, and replacing it. Inside an ornate silver coffee pot on the middle shelf, he found a bundle of obsolete ten-shilling notes and a bunch of keys.\n\n'Try.' He passed them to me. One of the keys fitted the back door.\n\n'So now your broblem is fixit,' he beamed.\n\n'Yes, thank you very much, Mr Ali.' I resisted a sudden urge to stroke his little hamster head. 'But I'd still like you to change the lock, if you can, so the person who took the other key can't use it.'\n\nHe rubbed his chin. 'I understand. In that case I must buy new lock.'\n\nHe replaced his cycle clips and wobbled off down the road.\n\nAs soon as he was out of sight, I took the opportunity to continue my investigation of the house. I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but I was driven by the conviction that there must be a stash of documents or letters somewhere that would provide the key to Mrs Shapiro's story, and the identity of the mystery woman with beautiful eyes. However, apart from Mrs Shapiro's bedroom, all the upstairs rooms were sparsely furnished, with nowhere much to hide anything, and I began to feel disheartened.\n\nFrom an upstairs window, I watched the cold shadows sidle into the garden. A few cats were still prowling around; I caught sight of Wonder Boy in the bushes beside the mews block and Violetta sitting on the roof of a ruined outhouse. The bedroom I was in had a bleak institutional feel, compared with the stinky decadence of Mrs Shapiro's room. Mrs Sinclair's old burgundy-coloured curtains, which I'd put in the skip, had been spread as bedcovers on the two single beds. I checked the drawers, but they were empty, and there was nothing under the mattresses. I drew a blank. When I looked out of the window again, some minutes later, Wonder Boy was up on the outhouse roof, too; he appeared to be raping Violetta. I banged on the window and he slunk away.\n\nMr Ali was gone for ages, maybe an hour, and I was getting fed up of hanging around in the dank empty smelly house. Next time I need a handyman, I was thinking, I'll get someone out of Yellow Pages. I returned to Mrs Shapiro's bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the garden path through the mirror, wishing he would hurry up. And that's when my eye fell on another drawer in the dressing table, a low, curved, concealed drawer without a handle, beneath the mirror. I hadn't noticed it before, and I realised it had been designed not to be noticed. I eased it open. It was full of jumbled jewellery \u2013 necklaces, earrings, brooches. A lot of it seemed rather grotty and broken, but there were one or two pieces that looked as though they might be valuable. Was it wise for her to keep it here in the house? As I lifted out a blue bead necklace I saw there was a photograph underneath the jewellery at the bottom of the drawer. I pulled it out to add to my collection, but it was only a landscape in black and white of a not very appealing hillside, barren and rocky, planted with terraces of shrubby trees. In the valley below was a scattering of flat rooftops. It looked like Greece. I turned it over. On the back was written _Kefar Daniyyel_ and two lines of verse.\n\n_I send my love across the sea_\n\n_And pray that you will come to me_\n\nNaomi\n\nAnother name: Daniyyel. How did he come into the story? Had Naomi had a secret lover? There was a long person-shaped shadow in the foreground \u2013 it must be the photographer standing with his back to the sun. So who had taken the photo?\n\nThen I heard the tink-tink of a bicycle bell outside, and a moment later Mr Ali reappeared.\n\n'Very sorry for delay. I was looking everywhere for right size of the lock. Old-style lock not easy to find.'\n\nIt took him less than ten minutes to lever out the old lock and fit the new one. I took one of the new keys and put it back on the key ring in the coffee pot; the other I put in my pocket with a smile. In my imagination, I pictured Mrs Goodney and Damian tiptoeing round to the back of the house at dusk, fiddling and fiddling with the old key, trying to get it to fit. In the end they gave up and stomped away, tripping on brambles and ending up covered in cat poo. Serve them right.\n\nI settled up with Mr Ali \u2013 he asked for ten pounds, plus the cost of the lock, but I persuaded him to take twenty \u2013 and thanked him profusely.\n\n'Always better,' he said, packing his tools back into his shoulder bag, 'first to try the non-violent solution.'\n\n# 17\n\n# The care package\n\nIt was quite late next evening \u2013 it must have been after ten o'clock \u2013 when the telephone rang.\n\n'Is that Mrs Sinclair?'\n\nA grating voice, familiar, but I couldn't place it.\n\n'Speaking.'\n\n'This is Margaret Goodney from the social work department at the hospital.'\n\nSurely she wasn't still at work.\n\n'Oh, hello, Mrs Goodney. Is everything all right?'\n\nI smirked to myself. Maybe she and Damian had already tried their key and failed to get in.\n\n'I think you know what I'm ringing about.'\n\n'No. I don't know. Please tell me.'\n\nIn my mind's eye I could picture her at the other end of the telephone, smoking a cigarette, wearing her lizard-green quilted jacket, covered in cat poo.\n\n'I know what you're up to.'\n\n'Excuse me?'\n\n'That ridiculous care package you and Mrs Whatsit've cobbled together. You should keep your nose out of this. Leave it to the professionals.'\n\n'Ms Baddiel is a professional.'\n\n'She's not a professional.' An ugly nasal sneer. 'She's a box-ticker. Those local authority social workers don't know what real social work is.'\n\nBefore I could muster a reply, she struck again.\n\n'You won't get away with it, you know. If I have to, I'll call the police in.'\n\nI was completely thrown.\n\n'I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about.'\n\n'You persuaded her to name you as next of kin, didn't you? We've seen it all before, you know \u2013 someone befriends a vulnerable old person, then the next thing we know, they've altered the will and the new friend gets the lot.'\n\nMy adrenaline was up. I could feel my heart starting to race.\n\n'Nobody has altered any will.'\n\n'But that's what you're after, isn't it \u2013 the house?' she hissed.\n\nI suppose I should have put the phone down, but I was too shocked.\n\n'I'm not after anything.'\n\n'Being all friendly, going round and cleaning up, feeding the cats.'\n\n'It's called being a good neighbour. Looking out for the vulnerable in our society. Wouldn't you do the same?'\n\n'Nobody does all that without expecting something in return.' Her malevolent rusty-gate voice made me wince. 'You're not family. In fact you hardly seem to know her. And all of a sudden you go barging into her life, taking over her affairs.'\n\n'You're accusing me of...'\n\n'I'm not accusing you of anything, Mrs Sinclair. I'm just saying that if you were to be found to be applying undue pressure or benefiting in an improper way from this relationship, then it would be a matter for the police.'\n\nIt took a moment for the sheer audacity of it to sink in.\n\n' _I'm_ the one who should be reporting _you_. You and Damian. I know your little plan. Then you have the nerve to ring me up in the middle of the night and accuse me...'\n\n'I'm not accusing you, Mrs Sinclair. Get this straight, will you? I'm just advising you of the consequences that could follow from certain actions.'\n\nShe put the phone down. In the silence that followed, I could hear the clock ticking, and the faint ker-chunga-chunga coming from Ben's room. I realised my hands were shaking.\n\nDespite the veiled threat in Mrs Goodney's phone call, Mrs Shapiro was discharged before the end of the week and returned home by taxi to an ecstatic welcome from Violetta, a languid welcome from Mussorgsky, and a dead pigeon from Wonder Boy. The other four were all there too, rubbing against her legs, rolling on their backs and purring like trail bikes.\n\nI'd cleaned up the mess in the hall, put a fan heater on to take the chill off the place, brought some shopping in, and put a vase of flowers on the hall table. I'd also replaced the key in the lock, so she'd be able to use the back door. She looked in good shape, and excited to be back. She took off her astrakhan coat and emptied out a carrier bag which contained the pink candlewick dressing gown and one high-heeled shoe. The other was lost. She was still wearing the _Lion King_ slippers on her feet.\n\nI made a pot of coffee and some sardines on toast \u2013 probably not a good idea I soon realised \u2013 and we sat at the table in the kitchen. The cats circled around, attracted by the smell of the sardines, and I wiped some bread in the oil and put it down for them. They gobbled it up in a flash, and carried on circling. Wonder Boy leapt up on to Mrs Shapiro's lap, and started kneading her thighs vigorously with his big bruiser paws; from time to time, he reached one out and snatched a piece of sardine-on-toast from her plate. Violetta sat on my knee, purring sweetly when I stroked her.\n\n'You heff been a very good friend for me, Georgine. Without you I'm sure they would heff put me away into the oldie-house.'\n\nWe clinked our cups together.\n\n'To friendship.'\n\nBut something still niggled at the back of my mind. Each time I looked at her I found myself wondering about the other woman in the photo, Lydda.\n\n'Don't you have a family, Mrs Shapiro? Any sisters? Or brothers? Anyone who could look after you?'\n\n'Why for I need someone to look after me? All was okay before this accident.'\n\n'Any grown-up children? Or even cousins?' I persisted.\n\n'I am not need nobody. I am okay.' She bit fiercely into a piece of toast.\n\n'But even if you're all right now, you're not getting any younger and...'\n\n'I think I will sue the Council.'\n\n'... of course I'm happy to help, but...'\n\n'They should be tekking care better of the pavements. They think we elect them only for giving our money away to immigrants? I am paying rets on this house sixty year. I think they must pay me a compensation.'\n\n'Well, before we get on to that...'\n\n'Yes, I will sue for the compensation. I will go to Citizen Advice this afternoon.'\n\n'I don't think you should go out anywhere just yet, Mrs Shapiro. Wait till you're a bit better. And the lady is coming this afternoon, from the Council. Remember? Your care package?'\n\n'Peckedge schmeckedge.'\n\n'But I think you should...'\n\n'I don't want no peckedge. Definitely no peckedge.'\n\nMrs Shapiro's care package was a thin dour Estonian woman called Elvina with blackheads and an economics degree. She did make some impact on the chaos in the kitchen, and the house looked generally cleaner but, as if in response, the Phantom Pooer redoubled his efforts, and now as often as not there were two little macaroon-shaped deposits each day, one in the hall, and one in the kitchen just behind the door. Elvina shouted at the cats in Estonian, and went for them with the broom. Mrs Shapiro called her a Nazi collaborator and sent her packing a week before Christmas, claiming she had stolen a silver coffee pot and some cat biscuits. \n\n# 18\n\n# Sherry\n\nA couple of days before Christmas, I set off for Canaan House to deliver my Christmas present \u2013 a little basket of scented soap and body lotion that I thought Mrs Shapiro would like. A nippy wind flicked my hair against my cheeks and made my batty-woman coat flap against my legs. There were no leaves left on the trees, but tattered shreds of plastic bags fluttered from the branches like pennants, and bits of wind-driven litter skittered along the street in front of me.\n\nAs I turned the corner, I saw a massive four-by-four, black with darkened windows, tractor-sized tyres, and doubtless a global-warming-sized engine, parked at the bottom of the lane. It looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place it. I quickened my step. Violetta was waiting for me in the porch, her fur fluffed out against the cold. I rang the bell.\n\nThere was a long silence, then footsteps, then Mrs Shapiro appeared at the door. She was wearing full make-up and a rather stylish striped jersey, with brown slacks, and a different pair of high-heeled shoes \u2013 these were snakeskin, with peeptoes and slingbacks, a couple of sizes too large. Her left wrist was still strapped, and in the other hand she was holding a cigarette.\n\n'Georgine! My darlink!' She grabbed me in her arms, the cigarette waving dangerously close to my hair. 'Come in! Come in! I heff a visitor!'\n\nI followed her through the chilly hall \u2013 yes, there was a little deposit in the usual place \u2013 to the kitchen, where the fan heater was on at full blast and a kettle was steaming away on the gas stove. There was the usual smell of cat piss and decay, and, above it, a new smell, musky and potent, of perfumed aftershave. A man was sitting at the kitchen table. He was turned away from me, but even from his back I could see he was a big man, broad, with close-cut blond hair, and muscles that pushed against the seams of his clothes. He rose to his feet and turned to greet me as I came in. He rose and rose \u2013 he must have been well over six feet tall, and heavily built, like a slightly-gone-to-seed rugby player \u2013 and then our eyes met. A flash of mutual recognition passed between us and in that moment we made an unspoken pact to forget that we had ever met before.\n\n'Nicky,' said Mrs Shapiro, fluttering her derelict eyelashes at him, 'this is my dear friend Georgine.' She turned to me. 'This is my new friend Mr Nicky Wolfe.' She obviously didn't recognise him at all.\n\n'Pleased to make your acquaintance.'\n\nHe gripped my hand \u2013 his palm was moist and meaty \u2013 and pumped it up and down.\n\n'Hello, Mr Wolfe.'\n\nI don't automatically think of sex when I meet a man, but I did with him; I thought it would be quick, painful and humiliating. I would be Violetta to his Wonder Boy. There was that look in his eyes.\n\n'Call me Nick, please.'\n\n'Hello, Nick. You must be from the estate agents.'\n\n'Got it in one. How did you guess?'\n\n'Mrs...' I usually addressed her formally, but I had to impress on him that we were close. '... Naomi showed me your card. She said you'd made an offer for her house.'\n\n'An offer I hope she won't be able to refuse.' He leered at her.\n\n'Georgine, darlink. Will you heff a drink?'\n\nMrs Shapiro's cheeks were flushed beneath the two little circles of rouge.\n\n'A cup of tea would be nice.'\n\nThe kettle was still hissing away, filling the kitchen with steam. Then I saw that on the table, amidst all the clutter, were a sherry bottle and two glasses, his full, hers empty.\n\n'I heff only kr\u00e4utertee. From herbs.'\n\n'That's fine.'\n\n'Why not heff a little aperitif?'\n\n'It's a bit early for me, Naomi.' I loaded my voice with reproach. 'It's not yet ten o'clock.'\n\n'Is it so early?' She looked around with wide scandalised eyes, and giggled. 'You are a very notty man, Mister Nick.'\n\nHe chuckled, a rapist's chuckle. 'Never too early for a bit of fun.'\n\nI turned the gas off and poured the boiling water from the kettle over a tattered tea bag in a cracked and stained porcelain cup. It tasted like not-very-clean pond water. Actually, I could have murdered a glass of sherry.\n\n'Happy Christmas \u2013 I mean, festive season \u2013 Naomi.' I passed her my little package.\n\n'Thenk you, darlink.' She held it up to her nose and breathed in, closing her eyes with pleasure. 'But I must find something for you!'\n\nHer eyes wandered around the kitchen, resting for a moment on a REDUCED packet of biscuits on the counter, a squashed box of Maltesers, a half-eaten packaged cake.\n\n'Oh, no. Please. You're too kind; I don't need anything. What will you be doing for... for the festive season, Naomi? Will you be all right on your own?'\n\n'Darlink, I will not be on my own. First Christmas we will celebrate, then Hanukkah. Turkey breast and latkes. Pick and mix non-stop festivity, isn't it, Wonder Boy?'\n\nBut Wonder Boy was nowhere to be seen.\n\n'I'd better be going. I'll leave you two ladies to your fun.' Nick Wolfe towered over both of us. 'I've still got three valuations before I can knock off. An estate agent's work is never done.'\n\n'Please, Nicky, you heffn't finish your drink.' Mrs Shapiro had gone all fluttery again.\n\nHe picked up the full glass and downed it in one go. I could see that with his body mass, it wouldn't make the slightest impact.\n\n'But you must take your bottle.' She pushed it towards him.\n\n'I wouldn't dream of it, Naomi. Please keep it as a small token of my regard.'\n\nHe sidestepped her with a rugby player's deftness and moved through the door out into the hall. Would he step in the cat poo? No, he didn't. Pity.\n\nShe saw him out to the front door. As I waited in the kitchen I became aware of a strange unsettling animal noise coming from the study. I went to investigate. There, in front of the fireplace, was Wonder Boy, his back arched, his muscular haunches pumping up and down, rasping and grunting on top of a small brown fluffy cat that lay motionless on the fender. Was it squashed dead, poor thing? I looked more closely... no, it wasn't a cat, it was one of the _Lion King_ slippers.\n\n'He is quite an adorrable man, isn't it?' Mrs Shapiro minced back into the kitchen with a radiant look on her face. 'Next time I will invite him, you also must come. You must put on a bit of mekkup, darlink. And better clothes. I heff a nice coat I will give you. Why you always wearing this old brown shmata?'\n\n'It's kind of you to think of me, Mrs Shapiro, but...'\n\n'No need to be shy, Georgine. When you see a good man, you must grebbit.'\n\n'... are you sure you wouldn't like a nice cup of herbal tea?'\n\n'No, thenk you, darlink. I heff enjoyed my aperitif.'\n\nA sound like a satisfied grunt came from the direction of the study.\n\nNext morning \u2013 it was Christmas Eve \u2013 I was woken up at seven o'clock by the phone ringing. I guessed straightaway who it was.\n\n'Georgine? Is this you? Come quick. Something is heppening to my votter.'\n\n'Is it leaking? Is it a burst pipe?' I muttered groggily, wishing she could have waited an hour before ringing me.\n\n'No, nothing. I turn on the tap and nothing happens.'\n\n'Look,' I said, 'I'm not an expert on plumbing. But I know a handyman. Would you like me to give him a ring?'\n\nThere was a pause.\n\n'How much he is charging?'\n\n'I don't know. It depends what the problem is. He's very nice. His name's Mr Ali.'\n\nThere was another silence.\n\n'Is he a Peki?'\n\n'Yes. No. I don't know. Look, do you want me to ring him or not?'\n\n'Is okay. I will ring my good friend Mister Nick.'\n\nShe put the phone down. I rang Wolfe & Diabello but only got an answering machine. A few minutes later Mrs Shapiro phoned back.\n\n'Is not there. Only answering machine in the office. These people are too lazy, isn't it? Sleeping all morning instead of working. What is the number of your Peki?'\n\nWhen I went round to Totley Place at about ten o'clock I saw that Mr Ali's bicycle was already propped up in the porch and he was sitting in the kitchen drinking a cup of that vile pond water. He stood up when I came into the room and greeted me warmly.\n\n'Fixit broblem, Mrs George.'\n\n'What was it?'\n\n'Something peculiar,' said Mrs Shapiro. 'Someone has turned off the votter tap outside. Mr Ali has found it underneath the back door. Such a clever-kn\u00f6del!'\n\n'Water was all off,' nodded Mr Ali, beaming. 'Now back on.'\n\n'But why?'\n\n'How can I know this?' He shrugged mildly. 'I am a handyman, not a pseecholog.'\n\n'That _is_ strange,' I said. My mind started to race. Who would do a thing like that?\n\nMr Ali finished his tea and stood up to go.\n\n'Any more broblem, you telephone to me, Mrs Naomi.' (He pronounced it Nah-oh-me.)\n\n'But wait, I must pay you. How much it is?' Mrs Shapiro fumbled in a brown leatherette shopping bag that was under the table.\n\n'Is okay. You no pay this time. I did nothing. Only turn tap.'\n\n'But I must give you something for coming to my house.'\n\n'You have given me cuppa tea.'\n\nHe slung his bag of tools over his shoulder and I rose to show him out to the door.\n\n'Thank you for your help,' I said, following him out into the hall.\n\nSuddenly he stopped by the quaint little phone table with its barley-twist legs. I thought at first he'd stepped in the cat poo, then I saw that his eyes were fixed on the framed photograph of the stone arch. He leaned forward for a closer look.\n\n'It looks quite old, doesn't it?' I said chattily, though I had no idea of its age.\n\n'Church of Saint George,' he said. 'In Lydda.'\n\n'Lydda.' A place, not a person. 'You've been there?'\n\n'One time, I went back. Looking for my family.' He said it so quietly it was almost a whisper. 'I was born nearby to that place.'\n\n'In Greece?' I was surprised. He didn't look Greek.\n\nHe shook his head. 'Palestine.'\n\nBefore I could think what to say, he'd disappeared through the door. I heard the tink-tink of his bicycle bell as he pushed it down the path. Mrs Shapiro was beaming when I came back into the kitchen.\n\n'Very good Peki,' she said.\n\nI didn't tell her he was a Palestinian.\n\nMy mind was still whirling. This story was turning out to be much more complicated than I'd thought. Nothing was what it appeared to be. Lydda was a place not a person; Mr Ali was from Palestine not from Pakistan; and someone had turned Mrs Shapiro's water off. Why? A practical joke? Or harassment? The more I thought about it, the more I was sure it must have been Mr Wolfe. He must have noticed the stopcock when he was snooping around. He knew how vulnerable she was. He had sat there, on that chair in the kitchen, plying her with sherry and flattering her. That was the carrot. And at night-time, when she was on her own, he had applied a bit of stick.\n\nThe phone rang at that moment. Mrs Shapiro shuffled out to the hall. I could see her through the open door, gesticulating as she talked.\n\n'Nicky! You got my messedge at your office... thenk you for ringing... Is okay. Votter problem is solved, but you can come anyway. Georgine is here... Ach, so. Never mind. Any time you want to drink coffee mit me, you are very welcome. Yes, and happy Christmas to you, Nicky.' She fluttered her eyelids as she talked, as though he was there in the room. When she put the phone down, she turned to me.\n\n'Very nice man. Would be a perfect husband for you, Georgine. Rich. Hendsome. What you say?'\n\nI laughed. 'Not quite my type.'\n\n'Ach, you young girls! Nowadays, you heff too much choices. In my days, if you seen a good man, you had to grebbit.'\n\n'Is that what you did, Mrs Shapiro? Like the sausages at Sainsbury's?' I teased.\n\nHer face clouded over. She started fishing around in the ashtray for a cigarette butt, frowning as she tried to work out which was the longest one.\n\n'You know, in the wartime so many men were getting killed. If you seen one you liked, you must grebbit quick.'\n\n# 3 \n_Bonding_\n\n# 19\n\n# Christmas with all the trimmings\n\nI went back to Kippax for Christmas, though I wasn't in a particularly celebratory mood. It was my first Christmas away from Ben and Stella, and there was a sore cavity in my heart as if from a couple of extracted teeth. I was worried about Mum and Dad, too, and the worst thing was, I could sense they were also worried about me. Dad was still quite poorly; the latest hernia operation had knocked him back, but he was determined not to let it show, and he prowled about the bungalow in his new Santa slippers pinning up the Christmas decorations. I caught him wincing once or twice when he thought no one was looking. The heating and the TV were both on full blast. Mum was wandering around the kitchen in a daze, wearing a pair of jokey reindeer antlers, wondering what she'd done with the bread sauce, and still insisting steadfastly that she had to do Christmas right, with all the trimmings.\n\nWhen I lived at home, Mum and I always used to sneak off to the midnight service at St Mary's on Christmas Eve. Mum liked to join in the carols. Her voice, piercing and slightly off key, used to make me cringe with embarrassment. But as I got older, I cultivated a blank what-d'you-think-you're-looking-at stare for the people in the pews in front when they craned round to see who was making the racket. Dad stayed obdurately at home and played his old Woody Guthrie records. Keir, my younger brother, went out with his mates to the pub. But this year, even the lure of loud singing couldn't persuade Mum to go out in the cold, and we all settled down on the sofa in front of the TV.\n\nOn Christmas Day, instead of the traditional turkey, we had a traditional-style turkey breast roast, which came with a sachet of bread sauce \u2013 which Mum had lost. Dad made the gravy out of granules mixed with warm water. He put a pinny on specially for the occasion.\n\n'I bet you never thought I'd turn into a new man, Jean,' he said to Mum.\n\n'No, I din't,' said Mum. 'Which are the new bits?'\n\nShe was busy defrosting the chipolatas in the microwave. They were from Netto's bargain range. They reminded me of the Bad Eel's fingers, pink and plump. When I bit into one, pink juice oozed out.\n\nMum had set a place for Keir at the dinner table \u2013 he got the Loch Lomond placemat, which had always been my favourite. I was stuck with Edinburgh Castle again.\n\n'To absent friends!' She raised a glass of tepid Country Manor \u2013 her third. 'And death to Iraqis.' The reindeer antlers had slipped down her forehead and were pointing forward, as though she was getting ready to rut.\n\n'Mum,' I whispered, 'Keir's supposed to be liberating them, not killing them.'\n\nBut it was too late. Dad leaned back in his chair and thumped his hands on the table.\n\n'Got no business to be there at all.' His voice was loud enough to be heard next door. 'If they 'adn't shut all t' pits, they wouldn't be so mad for oil now, would they?'\n\nThe war had thrown into sharp relief the differences between them: Mum passionately loyal to her family, Dad stubbornly loyal to his principles.\n\n'Don't start now, Dennis. It's Christmas.' Mum reached out and laid her hand on his arm. She was wearing all her rings: gold, sapphire and diamond.\n\n'Aye, but it in't Christmas for them, is it?' said Dad, always the internationalist.\n\nThe Christmas lights on the tree winked on and off, competing with the turned-down TV in the corner, where King's College choirboys were soundlessly singing their heads off.\n\n'What d'you think of this turkey breast?' asked Mum, changing the subject. 'It were on special.'\n\nBut Dad wasn't to be deflected.\n\n'I'd sooner 'ave 'ad Tony Blair trussed up and roasted. Wi' all 'is gizzards in.'\n\nMum leaned over to me and whispered loudly, 'I don't know what it is, but Christmas always gets 'im gooin'.'\n\nAs she said it, I had a sudden vivid image from another Christmas \u2013 it was long before the strike, I must have been about ten at the time, and Keir five. A group of carol singers had come to the door. They were kids from the local school. They rang on the doorbell, and when Dad answered it, they started to sing in their little squeaky voices:\n\n_We three kings of Orient are,_\n\n_Bearing gifts we travel afar._\n\nDad stood patiently and waited for them to finish. When they got to the end of the second verse, they fell silent. Probably that was as much as they knew. Dad reached in his pocket and gave them some change. Then just as they were mumbling their thanks, he burst into song:\n\n_The people's flag is deepest red,_\n\n_It shrouded oft our martyred dead..._\n\nHis voice was deep and loud. Keir and I crept away and hid behind the sofa. The children stood there gawping. When he got on to the bit about the limbs growing stiff and cold, they suddenly turned and made a dash for it, and didn't look back until they'd got to the end of the street.\n\n'What d'you do that for, Dennis?' Mum scolded.\n\n'They should teach 'em in school,' said Dad mildly. 'Proper history, not fairy tales.'\n\nWhen we went back to school after the Christmas holidays, the kids were there waiting for me.\n\n'Your dad's potty,' they said.\n\n'No 'e in't.' I stood and faced them out. 'It's because your singing were crap.'\n\nI saw Dad wince now, as he shifted in his chair, and a stab of his pain got to me, too. Dear Dad \u2013 he'd never been afraid to jump in deep, and he'd always done what he thought was right, regardless of the consequences. I thought with a pang of sadness of Rip, Stella and Ben, spending their Christmas at Holtham without me. The food would be better, the gifts more extravagant, the decor subdued and tasteful. There would be no Santa slippers or reindeer antlers, no political arguments, no Highland-scene placemats or plastic tree with winking coloured lights. Stella would wallow in the jacuzzi and flirt shamelessly with her grandpa. Ben would come back with some hi-tech gizmo for his computer, which he would discreetly hide in his bedroom so as not to upset me.\n\n'Never mind, duck,' said Mum, reading my face. 'There's nowt like being wi' yer own family at Christmas.'\n\nWe clinked our glasses together, Mum's filled with the last of the Country Manor, Dad's and mine with Old Peculier. The mystery of the bread sauce was solved when Dad poured it over the Christmas pudding.\n\n*\n\nThat night I lay awake in my old bed, listening to the voices in the next room. Mum had left a thick Danielle Steel out for me, but I couldn't get into it, my mind was wandering into the past, retracing the journey I'd made away from my family.\n\nIt was books that had changed my life \u2013 had catapulted me out of the coal-smoke semis of Kippax into university and a wider world beyond. When the careers teacher at Garforth Comp had asked me what I wanted to do, I said I wanted to be a writer. 'Writing's a great hobby,' he'd sighed, like one who knew. 'But you'll need a day job, too.'\n\nI took an English degree at Exeter, then a postgraduate course in journalism at the London College of Printing. I was the first in my family to go to university \u2013 I know it's a clich\u00e9 now, but it wasn't a clich\u00e9 for us. After a traineeship on the _Dulwich Post_ , I came back up to Yorkshire for a junior reporter's job on the Bradford _Telegraph and Argus_ , in order to be nearer to home. Then I got a lucky break on the _Evening Post_ in Leeds. Somewhere along the line, it happened so gradually that I didn't notice, I stopped talking Yorkshire and thinking Kippax. Nowadays you might just notice the flatness in my vowels when I say 'bath'; and marrying Gavin Connolly is no longer the pinnacle of my ambition. They didn't resent it. Mum kept a scrapbook of news clippings with my byline, which she brought out on any excuse. They were proud of me, my mum and dad.\n\nThey'd made their own journeys, too. Dad had gone into the coal industry after the war, and when he'd had a pint or two he would wax lyrical over the post-war settlement, when the family, the community, the pit, the union, the government, the nation, the United Nations, had all flowed seamlessly one into the other. It had given him all he had, and he'd done his bit in return, studying at night school to get his deputy's ticket, reading his textbooks at the coal face by the light of his lamp, because it was his belief that he should use his abilities on behalf of those less able than himself. When Ledston Luck closed in 1986, along with 160 other pits that closed in the wake of the strike, men like my dad and my brother were thrown out of that embracing society into a different kind of world. 'Maggie's Britain', Dad called it, and he never said it without a sneer. It wasn't his country any more.\n\nKeir \u2013 he was just twenty-one at the time \u2013 survived by finding himself a new family: the Royal Engineers filled the gap left by the pit and the NUM. There were postcards of Keir building bridges in exotic places surrounded by smiling dark-skinned children; Keir wearing civvies and drinking a beer against the backdrop of an awesome snow-capped mountain; Keir and his mates grinning under their helmets, posing beside a jeep in a desert somewhere. 'Look where 'e is now, our lad,' Mum would murmur, running her fingers over the glossy prints.\n\nDad was shifted to the Selby coalfield, and when that closed, too, he was still young enough to get the redundo, old enough to get a decent pension and free coal for life, and bolshie enough to take on the chairmanship of the local Labour Party. He dedicated his life to the overthrow of Maggie, and pursued it with the same dogged diligence as he'd once sniffed out the firedamp. He never quite forgave Keir for joining the army, nor me for marrying Rip, but he never gave up on us either, just as he never gave up on the Labour Party, even when Tony Blair turned out to be, as he called him, the mini-Maggie.\n\nMum, on the other hand, had blossomed during the eighties. She loved the shoulder pads and the jewellery. She loved gadding about on coaches during the strike, and shouting at the top of her voice. Afterwards, rather than accept defeat, she put her new-found organising skills to good use and enrolled in a night class in Castleford to learn bookkeeping. Just as Dad was squaring up to retirement, Mum was opening the door on a new career, doing the books for Pete's Plaice, Annie's Antiques, Sparky Steve, All-night Abdul, Curl Up and Dye, and various other small businesses that came and went in the former pit villages. For the first time in her life she was financially independent. Then around the time Rip and I were splitting up, she started to lose the central vision in her left eye. It would be slow, the doctor said, but progressive.\n\nSomewhere in the darkened house, a door clicked and a toilet flushed. It must be Dad, battling with his prostate as stubbornly as he'd once battled with global capitalism. Then there was a second flush and a sound of voices in the kitchen. The whistle of the kettle, the clink of cups. In the daytime, they'd put on a brave face for me, but at night all their worries crept back and beset them. They couldn't get to sleep, so they were having a cup of tea together. My mum and dad.\n\nI lay there in the dark, listening to the murmur of their voices and thinking about Christmas. Really, when you consider, it's not a very nice story. Okay, a baby was born, and there were angels, and a star in the sky \u2013 that bit's not so bad \u2013 but what about poor Mary having to travel all that way on a donkey \u2013 in her condition? The three kings with their sinister gifts? Then the slaughter of the innocents? And that was just the beginning; after that, there were crucifixions, a resurrection \u2013 with Armageddon and the Second Coming still to look forward to.\n\nMy mind flashed to the conversation I'd had with Ben about Jesus and the end of the world, the look of fear in his eyes as he tried to rationalise the irrational. Yes, Christmas is a dangerous time, I thought. Sometimes it can be better just to stay at home until it all blows over. \n\n# 20\n\n# The festive season\n\nWhen I got back to London on the day after Boxing Day, Wonder Boy was waiting for me at the front door with a dead bird. I supposed it was his idea of a gift, so I let him into the kitchen and gave him a saucer of milk, even though I'd previously resolved not to encourage him. Well, it was Christmas. He thanked me by lifting his tail and spraying against the dishwasher. Thanks, Wonder Boy.\n\nBen wasn't going to be back for a few days. Even _Adhesives_ was having a break \u2013 the next issue wasn't due out until early March. Nathan phoned me to wish me a happy New Year and share a joke with me.\n\n'What beats glue when it comes to bonding?' he murmured in his conspiratorial voice.\n\n'I don't know. Tell me.'\n\n'Hybrid bond. Glue and a screw. Geddit?' I imagined him with his white coat casually unbuttoned, chuckling glueily at the end of the phone. After he'd hung up, the silence of the house closed in around me.\n\nThat first night at home, I tossed and turned in my half-empty double bed and wished I was back in my old room in Kippax with the TV on too loud and Mum and Dad making cups of tea in the middle of the night. Of course, I knew that if I'd been there I'd only be wishing I'd stayed here \u2013 it wasn't here, and it wasn't Kippax \u2013 the bug was inside me, gnawing away.\n\nIt's at moments like this that you seek consolation in literature. I made myself a cup of tea and reached for my exercise book.\n\n# The Splattered Heart \nChapter 5\n\n_Christmas at Holty Towers was an orgy of gluttony and conspicuous consumption which Gina found dangerously tempting absolutely disgusting. Mrs Sinclair Sinster gave Mr Sinclair Sinster a yacht a private jet a Rolex watch a silver hip flask set of golf clubs, although he already had four sets, because he already also had everything else._\n\nActually, let's face it, I have no idea what those sort of people would give each other. Although the Sinclairs weren't the super-rich Sinsters of _The Splattered Heart_ , Ben and Stella were their only grandchildren, and they did tend to go overboard on the gifts at Christmas. Stella accepted everything with effusive thanks and, when she was old enough, wheedled the receipts out of the donors and took the items back to exchange for the things she really wanted. Ben accepted everything guiltily and donated the unwanted gifts to the Animal Sanctuary, where he'd developed a special relationship with a rescued donkey called Dusty. Ben and Stella; so dear, so different. I closed up my exercise book and lay quietly in the dark, calling up their faces into my mind, missing them.\n\nThe day before New Year's Eve, the phone rang at about five minutes to midnight. It hauled me up abruptly out of a deep groggy sleep. I fumbled for the receiver and the bedside light, and managed to knock my glass of water on to the floor.\n\n'Hello?'\n\n'It's me.' The voice sounded muffled and squeaky.\n\n'Who's that?'\n\n'It's me. Ben.'\n\n'Ben! Whatever's the matter? D'you know what time it is?'\n\n'Mum, will you be in tomorrow? I'm coming home. I forgot my key.'\n\nHis voice sounded unfamiliar \u2013 slightly croaky, with a touch of London that I hadn't noticed before.\n\n'Of course. But I thought you were staying until after New Year.'\n\n'I was. But now I'm coming back tomorrow. The train gets in at ten past three.'\n\nThere was just the hint of a tremor as he spoke. If I hadn't been his mother, I wouldn't have noticed it.\n\n'Do you want me to meet you at Paddington?'\n\n'No, it's okay. I'll get the bus.'\n\n'Is everything all right?'\n\n'Yeah. Fine.'\n\n'But why...?'\n\n'I'll tell you when I see you.'\n\nClick.\n\nAfter that, it was at least an hour before I could get back to sleep. Something must have happened, I thought. There must have been a row.\n\nIn fact it was about half past four by the time Ben got back next day. Either the train was late, or there'd been no bus. I found myself glancing at the clock, waiting with the same anxious eagerness as I'd once waited for Rip to come home after a business trip. Then the doorbell rang, and there he was, my boy, standing on the doorstep in the wintry dusk, with his bulging backpack and a carrier bag in each hand. My heart bounced with joy, even though it'd been only just over a week since we'd said goodbye.\n\n'Hi, Mum.'\n\n'Hi, Ben.'\n\nHe dumped his bags down in the hall and stood there, grinning stiffly with his arms by his sides while I hugged him, tolerating this embarrassing ritual, but not actively taking part. He looked both thinner and taller, as if he'd sprouted up an inch or two in the last week. There was a shadow of a moustache on his upper lip. His hair had grown, too, and he had it tied up in a little red kerchief knotted behind his ears, pirate-style. This was new.\n\nHe'd only taken the backpack when he went away, so the extra stuff in the carrier bags must have been presents. There was even a present for me from the Sinclairs \u2013 an enormous box of Belgian chocolates, a bit similar to the one that I'd sent up for them, but bigger and more expensive.\n\n'How was your Christmas?' I asked.\n\n'Fine.'\n\nThere was something scarily grown-up about the way that Ben had handled the separation between me and Rip; it filled me with admiration and awe. He never played us off against one another \u2013 he was fiercely loyal to both of us. But I was burning with spiteful not-grown-up curiosity to find out what had happened at Holtham at Christmas.\n\n'So what made you come back early?' I said it very casually.\n\n'Oh, I just got fed up.'\n\nI might have believed him and just left it at that, but I remembered the phone call, his trembling voice at two minutes to midnight. That was more than just fed up.\n\n'And Stella? Was she there?'\n\n'Yeah. But then she left. I think she went to stay with her boyfriend.'\n\nI'd sent a present for her, a hand-made silk shawl in different shades of rose \u2013 she would look lovely in it \u2013 it was her colour. I was hoping she'd ring, but all I'd got was a text message. _Thanx mum great prezzy happy xmas c u soon xxx._\n\nAlthough I'd left him a message before Christmas, it wasn't until the morning of New Year's Eve that Mark Diabello had phoned me back. I remembered I'd been trying to get to the bottom of Mrs Shapiro's turned-off water, and I was sure that either he or Nick Wolfe was responsible.\n\n'Mrs Sinclair. What can I help you with? Did you see your aunty over Christmas?'\n\nSo, okay, I hadn't been quite truthful either.\n\n'Look, Mr Diabello, I just want to know what's going on. You offer Mrs Shapiro half a million for her house. Then you up it to a million, just like that. Then your partner offers her two million.'\n\nThere was only a second of hesitation.\n\n'With a unique property like this, Mrs Sinclair, it's difficult to arrive at an accurate evaluation, because there's nothing out there on the market to compare it with. At the end of the day, the market value is \u2013 how can I put it? \u2013 whatever the highest bidder will pay. That's why I suggest we float it on the market and see what offers come in. Does that make sense?'\n\nActually, it sounded pretty plausible.\n\n'Then he goes round in the middle of the night and turns the stopcock off.'\n\n'Nick did that?'\n\n'I'm sure it was him. He'd been round there the same morning, plying Mrs Shapiro with sherry.'\n\nA pause.\n\n'I don't think you should jump to any conclusions, Mrs Sinclair. Do you mind if I call you Georgina?'\n\nDid I mind? Didn't I mind? I couldn't hear myself think above the chatter of my hormones.\n\n'I'll have a word with him if you like. Sometimes he... he does get a bit carried away. He falls for a property, and he forgets that it belongs to somebody else.' He hesitated. His voice changed. 'You know, this may surprise you, Georgina, but being an estate agent is a labour of love. You go into this game because you're passionate about property. The elegant terraces, the cosy cottages, the grand mansions and the stylish apartments \u2013 each property is a life to be lived \u2013 a dream come true for someone. Our job is to match the dream to the property.'\n\n'So now you deal in dreams?' I was trying to sound hard-headed, but as he spoke, I was thinking, there's something exciting about black treacle \u2013 it's subtler, more complex than bland sugary golden syrup.\n\n'We try to make dreams come true, Mrs Sinclair.' There was a breath like a sigh on the other end of the phone. 'But you spend most of your time flogging ex-council maisonettes to people who dreamed of something better, and converted buy-to-lets to amateur landlords who want to make a quick buck. Your passion goes cold; you just keep doing it for the money. Then once in a while something really special comes along, something you can lose your heart to. And your brains. Like Canaan House.'\n\nAs I said, I'm not a woman who automatically thinks of sex when she talks to a man, but Mr Wolfe seemed to have started a trend, and I found myself wondering what it would be like with Mr Diabello. And, mmm, I have to say, it was quite a lot nicer. But \u2013 I shushed my revving hormones \u2013 he _was_ still an estate agent, and probably a crook.\n\n'It's not a property \u2013 it's a home. It's not for sale,' I snapped.\n\nIt wasn't until he'd put the phone down that I realised the disjuncture in what the two of them had been saying. Mark Diabello had been talking about selling the house at its market value, whatever that was. But Nick Wolfe had wanted to buy it.\n\n'What are you doing for New Year's Eve, Mum?'\n\nBen came and sat down on the arm of my chair, interrupting my thoughts.\n\n'I don't know \u2013 I hadn't thought about it. It's tonight, isn't it?'\n\nIf Christmas is a time when families get together, New Year's Eve is a time for celebrating friendship \u2013 and most of my friends were up in Leeds.\n\n'I haven't made any plans, Ben. We could cook something special, crack open a bottle of wine, watch the celebrations on TV. What would you like to do?'\n\nHe shuffled about on the arm of the chair.\n\n'I was wondering about going out with some mates from school...'\n\n'Yes, do that. I'll...' My heart leapt. I thought fast. '... I'll go and see Mrs Shapiro.'\n\n'... but I'll stop in if you want. If you're going to be on your own.'\n\n'No, no. Go for it. That's great.'\n\nI didn't want him to guess that my heart was crowing. He had friends \u2013 he was part of a crowd \u2013 my poor broken-in-half boy \u2013 he'd spend New Year's Eve getting drunk and throwing up in the gutter, not sitting at home in front of the TV with his mum.\n\n'Mrs Shapiro and me \u2013 we'll down a bottle of sherry and sing raucous songs. It'll be a ball.'\n\nActually, I was thinking, I'd be happy to have a break from Mrs Shapiro and her smelly entourage, and spend the evening in on my own.\n\nThen at about six o'clock the phone rang. My heart sank. I was sure it would be Mrs Shapiro. But it was Penny from _Adhesives_.\n\n'Hiya, Georgie \u2013 have you got any plans for tonight?' she boomed. 'I'm having a bit of a bash round at my place. Some of the work gang'll be there. Just bring a bottle, and your dancing shoes.'\n\nShe told me the address, just off Seven Sisters Road. I hadn't realised she lived quite close by. I wondered briefly what to wear, then I remembered the green silk dress. I had intended to get it dry-cleaned, but what the hell. \n\n# 21\n\n# The Adhesives party\n\nI could hear the music as I turned the corner into the street. Penny greeted me at the door with a hug, helped me out of my coat and took the bottle of Rioja out of my hand. She was petite and curvaceous, in her mid-forties I would guess, wearing a short black skirt covered with swirls of sequins and a low-cut red top that plunged right down to her bra. Her short curly hair was dramatically bleached and fluffed up on top of her head, making her look like a buxom elf.\n\n'Thanks for inviting me, Penny. It's great to meet you at last.'\n\nI kissed her on each round warm cheek and followed her through into a room where the lights were turned off and a PA in the corner was pumping out such a volume that I had to put my hands up to my ears. The room was packed with people all swaying and shuffling and the air was thick with several types of smoke.\n\n'They're all in here.' Penny was swaying her hips as she talked. 'Nathan's brought his dad.'\n\nShe gave me a little shove. I lurched forwards. I hadn't really been feeling in a party mood, but suddenly the atmosphere caught me, and shuffling in time to the beat I worked my way through the press of bodies further into the room.\n\n'This is Sheila.' Penny introduced me to a girl of about Stella's age, wearing a little strip of red satin \u2013 the minimum amount of material that you could call a dress \u2013 and smooching with a young black guy, about six feet tall, slim and gorgeous. He was holding a wine glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other. There was a lot of hip-thrusting going on. Penny pushed past them and led me deeper into the room.\n\n'Over there, that tall guy. That's Emery, one of the freelancers on _Prefabrication_. I told you about his little operation?' she whispered.\n\n'No, er, what...?'\n\nI wondered what she'd told them about me.\n\n'Here, meet Paul. Paul, this is Georgie. You know, from _Adhesives_.'\n\nPaul was slightly built with a shy stoop and a yin-yang tattoo on his forearm.\n\nHe nodded in my direction and carried on dancing, mesmerised by the tiny dark girl spinning her torso in front of him. When I turned round again Sheila had disappeared, and the slim gorgeous guy was thrusting towards me. I felt my knees droop and my pelvis liquefy but somehow the rhythm got hold of my feet, and I found my hips doing unfamiliar gyrations. He moved in closer.\n\n'Hi, beauty. I'm Penny's cousin,' he shouted above the boom of the music. 'Darryl Samson. I'm a doctor.'\n\nHaving a doctor like that would be enough to keep anybody in bed, I thought. A bit different to seedy Dr Polkinson at the Kippax surgery.\n\n'I'm surprised any of your patients bother to get better.'\n\nHis laugh was deep and juicy.\n\n'I'm Georgie. I'm a... writer.'\n\n'No kiddin'!'\n\nI could feel his hips \u2013 and not just his hips \u2013 pressing up close against me. Then Penny appeared at my side, grabbed me by the hand and pulled me away.\n\n'Come on \u2013 you need a drink.' She threw Darryl a warning look, and he spread his palms with an apologetic smile.\n\n'Take care with that one. He's my sister's brother-in-law. Don't believe anything he tells you.'\n\n'Is he a doctor?'\n\n'Ha!' She threw her head back. 'I've had a few complaints. He told Lucy he was a gynaecologist. And she believed him.'\n\nWhen I looked back, he was moving across the floor with the same languid insolence as Wonder Boy, thrusting himself in between Paul and the girl with the spinning torso, and in no time they were grooving together, pelvis to pelvis. I stood in the drinks room clutching my glass of red wine and feeling mildly annoyed with Penny, when suddenly she dived into the crowd and pulled someone else towards me. 'Georgie, here's someone you gotta meet.'\n\nI stared. This was incredible. Horn-rimmed glasses. Deep blue eyes. Dark hair swept back from brainy forehead. Yes, definitely hunkily intelligent \u2013 all he needed was a white coat. And maybe a few inches. Okay, he was a bit short \u2013 but did that matter? Was I so shallow that I couldn't fancy a man half an inch shorter than me? I was pondering on this when the small intelligent hunk stretched out his hand.\n\n'Hi. I'm Nathan.'\n\n'I'm Georgie.' I felt myself blush. 'Good to meet you at last.'\n\n'The Chattahoochee Rose.'\n\n'What?'\n\n'Georgia. You know, on the Chattahoochee River.'\n\n'Oh. Geography's not my strong point,' I mumbled. Already I'd revealed myself as an ignoramus. I noticed he was wearing a midnight-blue silk shirt that matched his eyes, and that the dark designer stubble that shadowed his chin and jaw was attractively flecked with silver.\n\n'Awesome dress.'\n\n'Thank you. It came from...' There was a small vomit stain on one sleeve, but probably he hadn't noticed.\n\n'I've been looking forward to meeting you, Georgia.' That low, confiding voice, with maybe just a touch of the mid-Atlantic about the vowels. I realised that our only topic of conversation over the years had been glue. Should I mention my thoughts about polymerisation?\n\n'Me, too. I was thinking about what you said...' I remembered his New Year's joke. Glue and a screw. No, that wasn't the right way to begin. 'I mean, after all these years. You know, talking about adhesives over the phone. I thought you must be...' No, that wasn't right, either. I blushed.\n\n'Mr Bond?'\n\n'Something like that.'\n\nThen an elderly man I hadn't noticed before, thin and wiry, with a bushy white beard and a glass of red wine in his hand, moved in beside me.\n\n'Aren't you going to introduce me to your young lady, Nathan?'\n\nI thought I saw a quick glimmer of annoyance flash through Nathan's eyes, but he just said, 'Tati, this is my colleague Georgia. Georgia, meet my father.'\n\n'Georgia! Aha! State or republic?'\n\n'Er...' Was this another geography quiz? I hadn't done geography since I was fourteen. At Garforth Comp in those days you had to choose between history and geography. I felt myself turning pink under Nathan's curious gaze.\n\nI was saved by the chimes of Big Ben. The lights came on. Corks popped and everyone held their glasses out. Nathan grabbed a bottle and topped us both up. I took a great gulp that went straight to my head. Putting his glass aside, the old man crossed his arms, took my left hand in his right one with a surprisingly firm grasp, and reached the other hand out to Nathan. Then he took a deep breath and started to sing. _Should auld acquaintance be forgot_... The room went still... _and never brought to mind_... His voice reverberated unexpectedly deep and mellow. What happened next was a bit like polymerisation \u2013 suddenly the individual people-molecules milling about in the room grabbed hands and formed a long covalent chain. Soon we were all holding crossed hands and swaying, everybody kissing everybody. I even got a quick snog with Darryl. That was nice. Then Sheila pulled him away and the old man pushed in and covered my face with his bristles. He started kissing me vigorously, a whiskery, spicy kiss \u2013 vindaloo. I struggled, but his grip was tight. Nathan came to my rescue.\n\n'Happy New Year, Georgia,' he murmured, as though it was our special secret. For a moment, he held me in his arms. Our lips met. The room started to spin. But the old man squeezed in between us, coming in for another round, so I pulled myself away, grabbed my coat from the pile in the other room, and was out in the street in a flash.\n\nIt was incredibly cold. I started to run. The streets were full of revellers, and the sky was full of stars.\n\nThe house, when I got home, was quiet, dark, and warm. I didn't put the lights on. I flung off my coat and shoes, lay down on the bed, and almost immediately fell asleep. I woke up two hours later feeling cold, with a disgusting taste in my mouth. It was a mixture of rough wine and vindaloo. But it set me thinking how long it was since I'd been kissed. Actually, it had done me good. I should get out more often.\n\nI had a wash, cleaned my teeth, put my nightie on, and went back to bed. I tried to call Ben, but his mobile was switched off. I suppose he didn't want his mum ringing to embarrass him. I drifted off to sleep wondering where he was, and thinking of New Year's Eve in Kippax in 1980, when I'd snogged Karl Curry, and wondering where _he_ was now.\n\nI woke up again just after dawn and wandered across the landing to see whether Ben was back. The curtains were drawn and the light was out. The air had a musty smell of sleep and old socks. But he wasn't in his bed. A red light was flashing on his computer \u2013 it was the screen saver whizzing about \u2013 a garish vertigo-inducing pattern of white-and-red swirls. I went to shut it down, and as I touched the mouse, the screen he'd been looking at came up.\n\nI remembered it was the same red-on-black text as before. This time, the single word flashing in red on black in a circle of dancing flames was _Antichrist_. What was this rubbish he was looking at? Out of curiosity, I hit the 'back' button, and found myself in some sort of chat forum. There were only two names: Benbo and Spikey.\n\nSpikey: hey benbo happy newyear this is the year of antichrists rein watchout\n\nBenbo: who do you think is the antichrist putin or bush?\n\nSpikey: putin is the king of the north who will join forces with the king of the south at the battle of armagedon daniel 11:40\n\nBenbo: where is armagedon?\n\nSpikey: its in the north of isreal\n\nBenbo: phew quite a long way from highbury who is the king of the south?\n\nSpikey: gadafi or sadam hassain or osama binladin take your pick\n\nBenbo: do you think obl is still alive?\n\nSpikey: check out __ he has gout in his toes but is ok apart from that\n\nBenbo: i think saddam is still alive did you notice something wird about those hanging photos the angle of the head is wrong and the eyes when someone is hanged their eyes bulge out from the pressure but saddams eyes look normal i think the head has been copied and pasted from a different photo\n\nSpikey: your right if the pictures are fake mybe the execusion was fake too have you seen __?\n\nBenbo: i read somewhere that prince charles is the anitchrist because of the duchy of cornwall bar codes\n\nSpikey: 666 is the mark of the beast check this link Antichrist\n\nBenbo I supposed was Ben. How did he know so much about hanging? But who was Spikey? Whoever he was, I didn't think much of his spelling.\n\nI clicked on the last link, which took me to the webpage of someone who called himself Isiah. He was a middle-aged man with a crew cut, drooping eyelids and a chunky wooden cross on a chain around his neck. Beneath the picture was a banner heading:\n\n# WHO IS THE ANTICHRIST?\n\nMany Christians used to believe that Communism was the Antichrist, and _Armageddon_ would be nuclear war between Russia and America. However, it seems that now the forces of Islam and Christianity are lining up for a definative battle before the third Temple is rebuilt in Jerusalem and Christ comes back to rule the earth in all His power and glory.\n\nInfact all the signs are that the Antichrist, Satan the great Deceiver, is already stalking the earth. 'Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, \"I am the Christ,\" and will deceive many.' (Matthew 24: 4\u20135)\n\nIn the Book of Revelation the _Mark of the Beast_ is revealed as 666.\n\nI rubbed my eyes. It was too early in the morning for this sort of stuff. But I was curious about how Ben spent his hours cloistered up here. There was a list of names, each underlined with a link and marked with a little flaming crest.\n\n_Osama Bin Laden_\n\n_Saddam Hussein_\n\n_Pope Benedict XVI aka Joseph Ratzinger_\n\n_Vladimir Putin_\n\n_Prince Charles of Wales_\n\nI opened the last link.\n\nThis English aristocrat is a surprise candidate \u2013 but look at the evidance. His full official name both in English and Hebrew adds up to _666_ as described in the ancient Hebrew Gematria, and his heraldic symbols are based on the _beasts_ of Daniel and Revelation. Also, he really is a prince, as predicted in Daniel 9. Rome is obviously the new Babylon, and the evil _European Union_ is the new Holy Roman Empire. It's constitution is under discussion, and Prince Charles could one day be it's ruler. Infact the fact that he seems unlikely is the strongest argument in his favor, because as the Bible tells us in Revelation 12: 9 'The Devil and Satan deceives the whole world.' Check out _www.greaterthings.com\/News\/PrinceCharles\/index.html_.\n\nUp to this point I'd been reading with a kind of fascinated horror, but the bit about Prince Charles made me laugh out loud. Poor lad, I thought. And the grammar and spelling. How could anyone take seriously anything spelled infact, definative, evidance? I must definately (ha ha) pull Ben's leg about this. Out of curiosity, I clicked on the 666 link.\n\nThe Mark of the Beast may already be in your home. Take a look at the bar code which is on every product you purchase. You may have bought goods marked with the Beast's sign 666 including products sold from Prince Charles's own sinister Duchy of Cornwall brand. Check out _www.av1611.org\/666\/barcode.html._\n\nSmiling to myself, I clicked on Start, Shutdown, then I went downstairs and put the kettle on. When I took my coffee through to the sitting room, I found Ben there, asleep on the sofa, clutching a large traffic cone to his chest, dead to the world. He stirred and opened his eyes.\n\n'Happy New Year, Mum.'\n\n'Happy New Year, Ben. What's with the traffic cone?'\n\nHe looked down at his chest, and shook his head in surprise.\n\n'I've no idea, Mum.' He grinned sleepily. 'Absolutely no idea.'\n\nBefore I could ask him about the webpages, he'd drifted off to sleep again, his feet sticking over the end of the sofa, the traffic cone still cradled in his arms.\n\nThe light was flashing on my answering machine.\n\n'Georgia. It's Nathan. Tati says sorry about last night. He gets a bit carried away when he's had a drink. Hope you got home all right. Happy New Year.'\n\nI was going to ring him back, but I would probably end up making a fool of myself. Quit while you're ahead, I thought. Instead, I phoned Penny and left a message on her answering machine.\n\n'Great party. Thanks.'\n\nThat was it, then: Christmas and New Year, the festive season over. I'd survived.\n\n# 22\n\n# Changing the locks\n\nOne of the hardest things I found, after Rip left, was sleeping by myself in that great empty bed. In the day I could keep myself busy, but at night the hours seemed to swell and expand, losing their definition. It wasn't just sex I missed, it was having someone warm to cuddle up to, a solid presence beside me on the cruel nightmare ride from dusk to daybreak. Sometimes I would wake to find myself snuggled up to the spare pillow, my arms and legs locked around it.\n\nAbout three weeks into the New Year I came downstairs very early in the morning to make myself a cup of tea after a restless sleep. I'd woken up before dawn to find my pillow wet with tears. I could remember nothing about my dream except a faceless malevolent shadow dragging towards me. Somewhere in the still-dark streets a siren was wailing, a persistent, unsettling call like a sinister bird of the night. It was cold, the central heating hadn't come on yet. I shivered as I poured the tea, and was about to go back to bed when the phone rang. It was Mrs Shapiro.\n\n'Georgine \u2013 please come quick. There is a burglary. Door is brokken.'\n\nFeeling mildly irritated, I got dressed, put on my coat and went around straightaway. It had started to snow \u2013 not proper snowflakes, but miserable powdery stuff flaking down out of the sky like frozen dandruff. Mrs Shapiro answered the door wearing her pink dressing gown and _Lion King_ slippers, her hair dishevelled, lipstick smeared on hastily. Violetta was hanging around, miaowing at her feet. She led me through to the kitchen. It was bitterly cold. One of the pretty Victorian blue glass panels on the back door had been smashed and an icy draught was whistling through. The key on the inside had been stolen. Nothing else seemed to be missing.\n\n'Maybe it was your Peki. Maybe he is a teef.'\n\n'Why would it be him?' I couldn't keep the irritation out of my voice. 'He didn't even charge you for coming out last time. He didn't steal anything, did he? You should be grateful, Mrs Shapiro, but all you do is moan.'\n\nOkay, I know it wasn't a very nice thing to say, but I wasn't feeling very nice.\n\n'Hm. But if not the Peki who can it be?' She gave poor Violetta a petulant little kick and shuffled across to put the kettle on.\n\n'It could be anybody. A burglar or anybody.' I saw the look of terror flit across her face, and wished I'd held my tongue. I hadn't told her that Mr Ali had already changed the lock once \u2013 I hadn't wanted to alarm her. But now I was alarmed myself.\n\n'But why they want to frighten me? Why they don't come into the house? Why they just tek the key?' She looked as if she was working herself up into a state.\n\n'It might be someone who's planning to come back.' It was hard to imagine the sheer malevolence of someone who would terrorise a defenceless old lady in her own home. 'Listen, you'd better get the glass mended and the lock changed today. You should call Mr Ali. Unless you know of anybody better.'\n\nShe started poking around in her disgusting cupboards looking for the pond-water tea. Her back was turned towards me.\n\n'He is a clever-kn\u00f6del, this Peki,' she muttered.\n\nIrritation and concern vied for dominance in my mind, and irritation was getting the upper hand. She poured the hot water into a jug and dangled a limp greyish tea bag in it by its string. After a moment, she looked up at me and said, 'But I think I will ask Mr Wolfe. My Nicky.'\n\nThen she gave me a sly little grin as if to say, I may be eighty-one but I can still wind you up. And she succeeded.\n\n'That's fine. Just the job. You and your Mr Wolfe can sort it out. I don't know why you bothered to call me at all.'\n\nAll of a sudden, my annoyance overwhelmed me. I stood up abruptly and made for the door. I'd had enough of her constant demands and her petty prejudices and her silly mysteries. I couldn't stand the stink in her house a moment longer, and I certainly didn't want to sit there in the cold, drinking her weak pondy tea when I'd left my own cup of tea to go cold in the kitchen. Let her sort herself out, I thought. I wanted to get back to my bed.\n\nOnce home, I heated the tea up in the microwave and climbed into my bed fully clothed. Outside the window, a feeble dawn was just breaking through a bruised purple sky, with long red streaks like bleeding cuts smearing the surface of the clouds. I pulled down the black knickers over my eyes to keep the light out, and tried to will myself back to sleep, but I was too wound up to drift off, and too tired to get up. That dream or nightmare that had woken me was still pushing at the edges of my consciousness \u2013 the malevolent figure with a blank eyeless face. I shuddered. For some reason I remembered the website Ben had been looking at \u2013 the Antichrist, the Deceiver, stalking the earth unrecognised, spreading evil and fear. It didn't seem quite so funny now.\n\nThen the phone rang.\n\n'Don't be engry mit me, Georgine. I am only jokking. I am an old woman. Please, telephone to Mr Ali. I heff lost the number.'\n\n'Okay, okay.'\n\nShe phoned me back a few hours later to tell me that Mr Ali had been and boarded up the back door and changed the lock. He had put a new mortise lock on the front, in addition to the Yale, and had fitted bolts to both doors.\n\n'You will be as safe as prison,' he'd said.\n\n'How much did he charge you?' I asked.\n\n'I give him ten pound. Plus he mek me pay full price for locks and bolts.'\n\nShe said it with a grumble in her voice, as though she felt she'd been overcharged.\n\n'You should be grateful,' I said, though she clearly wasn't.\n\n'You are still engry mit me, Georgine, isn't it? Don't be engry. You are the only friend I heff.'\n\n'No. I'm not angry, Mrs Shapiro.'\n\nAnd it's true, I wasn't angry with her any more. I had other things on my mind.\n\nRip had returned from a business trip and had phoned around lunchtime to say he was coming to pick Ben up after work tomorrow. Even after all this time, his phone calls still agitated me. I needed time to get myself into the right frame of mind to face him on the doorstep. Upstairs I could hear the thud-thud of footsteps followed by the thud-thud of music \u2013 Ben's morning getting-up rituals, though it was well past midday. That boy could sleep for England. Something else \u2013 I still hadn't found out what had happened at Holtham at Christmas.\n\nThe doorbell rang a bit earlier than I'd expected on Monday afternoon. I went to answer it with my ready-for-anything smile fixed on my face. But it wasn't Rip on the doorstep, it was Mark Diabello. His black Jaguar was parked by the gate, and he was smiling a ready-for-anything smile, too.\n\n'Hello, Mrs Sinclair. Georgina.' The deep creases in his rugged cheeks crinkled craggily. 'I hope you don't mind my dropping round like this. I've been following up on some of the concerns you raised in our last chat, and I wanted to bring you up to date.'\n\nMaybe if I hadn't been expecting Rip to appear at any moment I wouldn't have asked him to come in. But it seemed too good an opportunity to miss.\n\n'That's kind of you, Mr Diabello. Can I offer you a coffee?'\n\n'Call me Mark, please.'\n\nHe followed me inside, looking around him as I led him through to the sitting room.\n\n'I showed a client round this place when it was first on the market. You've done wonders to it, if I may say so. Added all your little feminine touches.'\n\n'Thank you.'\n\nAs far as I was aware, I'd added no touches to it whatsoever, apart from unloading my furniture and hanging some curtains up.\n\nI positioned him on the sofa by the bay window, where he could be seen from the road. Then I put the kettle on and spooned some coffee into the cafeti\u00e8re.\n\n'Milk? Sugar?'\n\n'Black with four sugars.'\n\nI laughed. 'It'll taste like black treacle.'\n\n'Mm. That's how I like it.'\n\nHe must have noticed that I kept glancing towards the window because he said, 'I hope I'm not making you nervous, Georgina.' Black treacle with a hard mineral edge.\n\n'No, not at all,' I blustered, feeling intensely nervous.\n\nThen a car horn beeped outside \u2013 I recognised the distinctive note of Rip's Saab.\n\n'Please excuse me.' I went to the bottom of the stairs and shouted, 'Ben! Rip's here!'\n\n'Coming!'\n\nA moment later Ben appeared, with his shoelaces still undone, his shirt hanging out, and his big backpack over his shoulder. God knows what he carted around in it because he always seemed to wear the same clothes. I went out to the car with him, my ready-for-anything smile fixed in position. But Rip just pulled the inside lever to open the boot and sat in his Saab, waiting for Ben to put his backpack in. He didn't even wind the window down. I couldn't even tell whether he'd noticed the black Jag or the man sitting in the window. I wanted to hammer on the window with my fists, I wanted to kick in the glossy, dark green door panels. But Ben was waving goodbye, so I blew him a kiss and went back inside, slamming the door.\n\nMy face must have been livid when I returned to the sitting room, for Mr Diabello gave me a sharp look and said, 'All going to plan?'\n\n'Not exactly.'\n\nHis left eyebrow lifted a fraction, and his cheeks tightened, and I realised from that look that he had understood everything about my situation. I blushed as if he'd walked in on me naked in my bedroom. He was a man, I remembered with a shiver, who could read people's dreams.\n\n'Want to talk about it?' His voice oozed sympathy. 'I can recommend a good solicitor.'\n\n'No. No, it's not at that stage yet.' As I said the words I realised that probably it was at that stage, and probably I did need legal advice. But the thought of a friend of Mark Diabello's crawling all over the intimacies of my life made me cringe. 'Just tell me what you came to tell me.'\n\n'Yes \u2013 you were concerned that my partner, Nick Wolfe, might be behaving... how can I put it?... improperly.'\n\n'Harassing an old lady in order to force her out and get possession of her house.'\n\nMy coffee had gone cold, but I sipped it anyway, to avoid looking at him. His gaze was making me feel uncomfortable and sweaty, like sitting under a spotlight. I could feel my cheeks going pink.\n\n'I've had words with Nick. He admits he's fallen for the house, and has maybe been a bit too... er... enthusiastic in approaching Mrs Shapiro. But he denies absolutely having done anything improper.'\n\n'But he admits to plying her with sherry. Hoping she'd sign a bit of paper that he just happened to have in his briefcase?'\n\nHowever annoyed I got with Mrs Shapiro, I wasn't going to stand by and let these two shysters take her to the cleaners.\n\n'I think the sherry was meant as a goodwill gesture. A gift. He didn't mean her to open it up and start drinking it straightaway. That was her idea. By all accounts, she was giving him the eye.'\n\n'Oh, come off it! She's eighty-one. Anyway, why would he bring her a gift?'\n\n'A token of appreciation for a valued client.'\n\n'But she's not a client. He just turned up at her hospital bedside.'\n\n'From what Nick says, she was a willing party. More than willing. Positively eager. He also told me, by the way, that she's not in fact your aunt.'\n\nHe looked up at me from lowered eyes, a small smile playing around his... how would you describe his lips? Not full and sensuous. No. But definitely... kissable.\n\n'Okay, so I made that up. But it doesn't change anything.'\n\n'It does raise the issue of what _your_ interest is in the property.'\n\n'I haven't any interest. I just don't want to see an old lady be ripped off. Someone must have told him about the house.' Then I realised. ' _You_ must have told him.'\n\nOur eyes met. I noticed for the first time that his were not brown, as I'd previously thought, but dark sea-green, with sparks of gold and obsidian in their depths.\n\n'I did mention our conversation to him. I didn't expect him to get quite so excited about it. He's a very passionate man, you know. It's our motto at Wolfe & Diabello. Passionate about property.'\n\n'Passionate' \u2013 there was something about the way he lingered over the word.\n\n'He thought Mrs Shapiro deserved a more focused view of his services?'\n\n'Exactly so.'\n\n'Like me?'\n\n'That's up to you, Georgina.'\n\n'Thank you. It's been nice talking to you.' I stood up abruptly, knocking my empty coffee cup over. He stood up, too, brushing past me as he made his way towards the door. I felt a shiver \u2013 or was it a shudder?\n\n'The pleasure's all mine,' he said.\n\nWhen I looked out of the window, I saw it was snowing again outside.\n\nAfter he'd gone, I sat down on the sofa and breathed deeply. _In \u2013 two \u2013 three \u2013 four. Out \u2013 two \u2013 three \u2013 four._ For some reason, my heart started to thump. Yes, I knew, in my sensible core, that the last thing I needed was a man like Mark Diabello in my life \u2013 a treacle-voiced estate agent with black and gold in his eyes. But I was unhappy and furious and needy. And it was so long since someone had looked at me with desire. And a little voice in the back of my head was whispering \u2013 why not? \n\n# 23\n\n# Stress fractures\n\nIt was still snowing that same powdery snow next day when I walked past the Islington branch of Wolfe & Diabello on my way to the bus stop. I'd been down to pick up a new laser cartridge, some more exercise books and a box of Choco-Puffs. (I think they're disgusting, but Ben likes them, and I'm in competition with whatever he gets in Islington.) I glanced in through the window and saw Nick Wolfe, bending over the desk of a young blonde woman who could have been a clone of Suzi Brentwood. On impulse, I pushed the door and went in. They both looked up as the door pinged.\n\n'Mr Wolfe. I'm glad you're in. Have you a minute?'\n\nThe blond stubble on his scalp gleamed as he straightened up. He led me into an office at the back and pulled out two chairs.\n\n'What can I do you for, Georgette?' He smiled wolfily.\n\nI explained my concern about the mains water tap and the back-door keys, keeping my voice carefully neutral and avoiding any hint of accusation.\n\n'You spoke to my colleague Mark Diabello about this, didn't you?'\n\nHis voice was slightly plummier than Mark's. I guessed he'd been to public school, whereas Mark had pulled himself up the hard way. Like me. He glanced pointedly at his watch. I ignored the hint.\n\n'What I can't understand is what you and Mr Diabello are up to.' I was smiling sweetly, looking him straight in the eye. 'He wants to sell it for half a million. Then he puts it up to a million. Then you go barging into the hospital with an offer of two million.' I spoke fast, conscious that his eyes were fixed on me in a not-very-friendly way. 'You must admit, it's a bit... worrying.'\n\n'Look, Mrs... Georgette. To be frank, I don't really know what it's got to do with you. It's up to Mrs Shapiro what she does with her house, isn't it? I understand she's not even related to you.' He glanced at his watch again. 'I made Mrs Shapiro what I consider to be a very fair offer. More than fair. Generous. I don't know what Mark told you, but let's get one thing straight.' There was a bullying note in his voice that made me flinch. 'Just because it's floated on the market doesn't mean it reaches its market price. Nor that the person who makes the initial purchase is the ultimate buyer, if you see what I mean.'\n\nWhat _did_ he mean? In the close space of the office, I could smell his musky aftershave, and beneath it, a strong almost feral odour that reminded me of Wonder Boy.\n\n'You mean Mark Diabello buys it for half a million, and sells it on to somebody else for two million, trousering the difference?'\n\n'I did not say that, Georgette.' He emphasised every syllable forcefully. 'That is not what I said.' He looked at his watch again, and then stood up. 'If you'll excuse me, I have business to attend to.'\n\nI stood outside on the pavement reeling. It had turned dark in the last half-hour, and a few stray snowflakes were spinning like scattered thoughts in the orange-tinged light. One or two of the shops had already closed up, but I noticed that Hendricks & Wilson was still open. Well, what did I have to lose?\n\nAlthough the two shopfronts looked similar from the outside, the interiors were startlingly different. Whereas Wolfe & Diabello had been all glass and chrome with laminate flooring and halogen lights, in the style of a city bistro, Hendricks & Wilson had red carpet and leather armchairs with brass wall-lights in the style of a gentlemen's club. I suppose it was meant to feel traditional and reassuring, but it just seemed ridiculously pompous in such a small space. A thin youth with spiky gelled hair was sitting at a computer, staring intently at the monitor. He looked up and smiled as I came in.\n\n'I'm looking for Damian,' I said.\n\n'That's me,' he beamed. His teeth were slightly crooked, and he looked reassuringly gormless. 'How can I help?'\n\nI hadn't really prepared what I was going to say, so I tried the familiar line about my aunty selling a house in Totley Place. I watched his face carefully, but there was no sign of recognition. It seemed that whatever Mrs Goodney had been planning, she hadn't put it into action. Maybe I'd frightened her off.\n\n'I think you need to speak to one of the partners about something like that. Would you like me to make an appointment?' He reached for a large red-bound desk diary.\n\nI hesitated. Did I really need any more estate agents in my life?\n\n'Couldn't you give me just a rough idea?'\n\n'Hm.' He chewed a fingernail. 'Tell you what \u2013 I'll drive past on my way home tonight and take a look.'\n\n'Thanks. I'll give you a ring tomorrow. Thanks, Damian.'\n\n'How did you know...?'\n\nI quickly made for the door.\n\nWhen I phoned Damian the next morning, I was even more convinced that he wasn't involved in the dirty tricks. He wouldn't give me a valuation, but he said, 'A big site like that in the heart of Highbury \u2013 it has development potential. You're talking millions. You'll have to speak to Mr Wilson.'\n\n'I don't think my aunty would want it to be developed. But thank you for your help.'\n\nI hung up quickly before he could ask me any questions.\n\nIf Damian wasn't involved, that meant it must be Wolfe & Diabello. Rage was burning in my head. I tried to calm myself down with Ms Baddiel's breathing exercises. _In \u2013 two \u2013 three \u2013 four. Out \u2013 two \u2013 three \u2013 four._ Wolfe & Diabello. What a pair of gobshites. I phoned their office \u2013 my hands were shaking so much I dialled a couple of wrong numbers before I finally got through. Neither of the partners was there. I left a message with Suzi Brentwood.\n\n'Please can you get one of them to ring me back. No, I can't say what it's about. Just tell them I know what's going on. Tell them they're a couple of sleazy double-crossing crooks.'\n\nIt was Mark Diabello who phoned me back, within ten minutes.\n\n'I got your message, Georgina. Strong language. What did we do to upset you?'\n\n'It's not what you did, it's what I did. I got another valuation.'\n\n'So you should, Georgina. And?'\n\n'And he said it was a development site with potential. He said it could be worth several millions.'\n\n'Who said that?'\n\n'Somebody. Somebody from Hendricks's.'\n\n'The office junior? They always make wild guesses.'\n\n'No. Someone highly qualified. And reputable. Not a conman like you.'\n\n'You're a very emotional woman, Georgina. I like that. But you've forgotten what I said.'\n\n'What did you say?'\n\n'I said I'd match any genuine valuation.'\n\nHad he said that? It's true, I'd forgotten.\n\n'But the other one \u2013 your sidekick \u2013 he offered her two million.'\n\n'I can't speak for my partner. But I said I'd match their valuation. I think you owe me an apology, Georgina.'\n\n' _I_ owe _you_ an apology?'\n\nI put the phone down. I was shaking. Then I thought back over our previous conversations. Yes, maybe I'd been a bit hasty. Even a bit rude. I remembered now, he _had_ said something about matching Hendricks & Wilson's valuation, but that had been in a different context. And it's true, Damian did seem to be the office junior. But what he'd said rang true. Actually, what all of them said rang true. That was the trouble. How was I to know who to believe?\n\n_'Stress fractures can occur in adhesive bonds when the materials have different coefficients of thermal expansion.'_\n\nI'd been staring at the sentence on my monitor for at least half an hour, as a cup of tea went cold on my desk, thinking maybe that's what had gone wrong between Rip and me. He's slow to get angry, but when he does, he stays hot much longer. I flare up quickly but quickly cool down again. My mind tripped back to that morning's conversation with Mark Diabello \u2013 yes, maybe I had flared up too quickly then. Maybe I should have given him the benefit of the doubt. What exactly _had_ he said? I couldn't remember. The glue had got to my brain.\n\nIt was time to break for lunch. I wandered over to investigate the fridge. There were two eggs, a slice of bread and the remains of a supermarket bag of rocket salad. In the door was an opened bottle of Rioja. Should I? Shouldn't I?\n\nI was whipping up some scrambled eggs, when the doorbell rang. Mark Diabello was standing on the doorstep with a bottle of champagne in his hand. It wasn't just any old supermarket champagne, either, it was Bollinger. Maybe it was just a trick of the light, but I could swear his eyes were smouldering. Deep sea-green, with flickers of obsidian and gold. Something in my heart did a funny little skip.\n\n'A token of appreciation for a valued client,' he murmured.\n\n'I'm not your client.'\n\n'But you could be.'\n\n'I don't think so. But come in.'\n\nI went and fetched two wine glasses from the kitchen. I didn't have proper champagne flutes. We clinked.\n\n'I like you, Georgina. You're different.'\n\nThe smile-creases in his cheeks deepened. My heart did that wayward skip again.\n\n'Have you come to offer me a more focused view of your services?'\n\n'Would you like that?'\n\nI didn't say yes. But I didn't say no.\n\nWe ended up in my bedroom. He led the way. Of course, he was an estate agent, he knew where to go. It all happened astonishingly fast, with the well-oiled precision of a top-of-the-range Jaguar. He gave me just the right amount of champagne, kissed me in just the right way, holding me firmly but carefully under the chin. Then at exactly the right moment one hand moved down from my chin to my left breast. The other worked its way up between my legs. There was something reassuringly impersonal about it all. His hands found their way unerringly to the right places. His fingers were strong and supple. There was no fumbling with clothes \u2013 they just fell away. His body was hard and hairy. He produced a condom from his pocket. If I'd had time to think, I might have thought \u2013 what the hell am I doing? But I didn't think about anything. My brain was full of bubbles. My skin tingled like electricity. My body purred in his hands. I'd like to say I recoiled in disgust at the sheer efficiency of it. But actually, it was fantastic.\n\nI can't remember what happened next \u2013 well, okay, I can, but I'm too embarrassed to write it down. Look, he was the only man apart from Rip I'd slept with in twenty years. It was as though I'd slipped out of my familiar skin and become a different person, someone whose body waved and fluttered like a piece of silk in a storm.\n\nAfterwards we lay together watching the shadows lengthen in the garden and he pulled me into his arms and stroked my hair, murmuring sweet meaningless words. Then he reached into the breast pocket of his jacket, which was hanging on the back of the chair, and passed me a clean white handkerchief.\n\nWe didn't talk much. It wasn't about us as people. He left before Ben got back from school. I thought I might feel dirty, or used, or disgusted with myself, but I guess I realised deep down that having sex with someone else was part of a sticky repair process I had to go through. What was it Nathan had said? You get better bonding with glue and a screw. Maybe there's something in that. After he'd gone, all I felt was a great mass of melancholy like a rain cloud swelling over my heart. I didn't want him to see me cry, but as I heard his Jag pull away I let the tears come. I couldn't even have said why I was crying, or what it was that had stirred up such a storm in me. Maybe the sex had just loosened me up so there was no rigidity to hold back the tears.\n\n*\n\nAbout half an hour later, I heard the door-click of Ben letting himself in. I dried my eyes, pulled my clothes on, and went down to greet him.\n\n'You okay, Mum?' He looked at me intently. 'You seem a bit sort of... weird.'\n\nThe scrambled eggs were still on the hob, yellow and congealed.\n\n'Weird in what way?'\n\n'Sort of hyper. Hyper-manic.'\n\n'It must be all the coffee I've been drinking. I'm having a sticky patch with _Adhesives_. Ha ha. How about you? How's life in...' (I censored a number of sarcastic epithets.) '... Islington?'\n\n'It's okay. Dad's a bit hyper, too.'\n\nHe poured the milk over the Choco-Puffs and sat down with his spoon.\n\n'Oh, is he?'\n\nI craved these snippets of information, but loyal Ben handed them out very sparingly.\n\n'He says he's starting a new project?'\n\nThere was that rising inflection in his speech again. I found it troubling. It didn't sound like my Ben.\n\n'Not the Progress Project?'\n\n'He says it's progressing to a higher level?'\n\n'Yes, he's always had high aspirations.'\n\nA sarcastic note must have crept into my voice. Ben's look warned me that I was in danger of transgressing the subtle boundaries he'd drawn up between his two worlds.\n\nThat night, after Ben had gone to bed, I poured myself a glass of wine and reached for my exercise book. They were banqueting again at Holty Towers.\n\n# The Splattered Heart \nChapter 6\n\n_Spurned by her errant husband, heartbroken Gina at last found love fulfilment consolation in the arms of an itinerant mandolin player with obsidian cerulean sapphire amethyst jade lapis lazuli eyes._ (Thanks, Mr Roget.) _He brought her beautiful gifts \u2013 hand-embroidered Spanish underwear garters hankies mantillas._\n\nAs I closed up my exercise book an hour later, I realised that the wine bottle was empty, and I'd opened another one. This was no good. Maybe Ben was right \u2013 I should go easy on the Rioja. The house was full of silence. I listened. Faintly, I could hear a car passing on the road and the tick-tick-tick of the water in the radiators. That was all. Holty Towers, the ecstasy and drama, the sumptuous meals and mandolin music, was a world away. \n\n# 24\n\n# Experimenting with Velcro\n\nMark Diabello came back again the following Wednesday, this time without the champagne, but with a bunch of flowers \u2013 red roses \u2013 and a small gift box, which I took to be chocolates. I was waiting for him, wearing a rather revealing top, which I'd bought the day before, and some lacy panties under a sleek clinging skirt, which I'd also bought the day before. I caught sight of myself in the hall mirror, my flushed cheeks and brilliant eyes, and didn't recognise myself. I could feel myself starting to melt as he kissed me. It took us about five minutes to get from the doorstep to the bedroom.\n\nHe was already undressing me as we fell on to the bed, his hands working with the same target-driven efficiency. When his shirt came off I could smell his body, soapy, sweaty, musky, and another smell, faintly chemical and disconcerting. What was it? I pressed my face to his skin. Sulphur? Chlorine. And in a flash I was sixteen years old, back in the locker room at the International Pool in Leeds, locked in a cubicle with Gavin Connolly, locked in his arms, lost in love.\n\n'Have you been swimming?'\n\n'How can you tell?'\n\n'You smell of chlorine.'\n\n'Don't you like it?'\n\n'I do like it. A lot.'\n\n'I'm a diver. High board.'\n\n'That must be so terrifying!'\n\n'It is. You just have to shut your eyes and plunge.'\n\nI imagined him, hard and lean and straight as a pike, hurtling into the water. I shut my eyes and plunged.\n\n'Aren't you going to open your present?' he murmured.\n\nI reached for the little box that had slipped down at the side of the bed, and pulled the ribbon off. Something red and silky slipped out. I held it up. It was a tiny pair of panties, shiny red satin, trimmed with black lace. I stared. Blimey! Were they for me? I'd never owned anything like this before. I wasn't even sure I liked them.\n\n'Aren't you going to put them on?'\n\nI wriggled into them and felt them flutter like moth's wings against my thighs. There was something odd about them \u2013 the gusset \u2013 it was open. Surely that defeated the whole purpose...? What's the point of panties without a gusset?\n\nShe soon found out. Not me, not Georgie Sinclair, no, it was a different woman \u2013 someone sexy and shameless who frolicked around in red satin panties trimmed with black lace and an opening in the gusset, who smelled of sex, whose body melted like warm sugar in the arms of a dark handsome stranger who appeared on her doorstep and made love to her one afternoon.\n\nThe dark handsome stranger lay with the sexy woman, carrying his weight on one elbow. His other hand was exploring the opening in the gusset. She could smell the chlorine on his skin.\n\n'Look, there's something else in the box,' he said.\n\nThe sexy woman fumbled shamelessly in the box and pulled out \u2013 what the hell were they? Two loops of red padded satin trimmed with black lace. Garters? No, there was a Velcro fastening.\n\n'You naughty little slag,' he whispered. 'Let me...'\n\nHe leaned over her and fastened her wrists to the bedhead, pressing down on her, pressing all the breath out of her till she had to cry out. She came almost at once, before he'd even entered her.\n\nIt was warm and steamy in the locker room, and we were wet and slippery, and then we towelled each other dry and got into our damp chlorine-sticky clothes. What had happened to Gavin Connolly? What had happened to Georgie Shutworth? I couldn't help myself \u2013 I started to cry. Mark Diabello dabbed my eyes with his hankie and kissed me lingeringly on my throat and neck.\n\n'You're a very beautiful woman, Georgina. Has anyone ever told you that?'\n\nI wanted to believe him. I almost believed him; but a cool whisper in my head reminded me that he probably slept with dozens of women, and said that to all of them. Then something from another age stirred in my mind, Rip's voice, husky against my cheek: 'If ever any beauty I did see, which I desired and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.' How long ago was that?\n\n'You'd better go now. It's nearly four o'clock.'\n\n'What happens at four o'clock? D'you turn into a pumpkin?'\n\n'No, I turn into a mother.'\n\nJust after four, the key turned in the latch, and I did turn into a mother.\n\n'Hi, Mum.'\n\nBen flung his bag down and let me hug him, turning his head to one side. He looked tense and pale.\n\n'Everything okay?'\n\n'Fine. Cool.'\n\nHe wasn't looking at me. His eyes were fixed on the window.\n\n'Do you want a sandwich? Some Choco-Puffs?'\n\n'Nah. I'll just have water.'\n\nHe drank resting both elbows on the table, his brown curls falling across his eyes.\n\n'I've been feeling a bit sort of... weird.'\n\nI kicked Mr Diabello right out of my mind and sat down opposite him.\n\n'How do you mean, weird?'\n\n'I've been having these weird feelings.'\n\nI could feel my pulse starting to pound, but I kept my voice soft and easy.\n\n'What feelings, Ben?'\n\n'Sort of... liminal.'\n\n'Liminal?'\n\nI had no idea what he was talking about. I waited, listening.\n\n'Like we're living in liminal times. You can see it in the light, Mum \u2013 look \u2013 it's like it's seeping in from the edges of another world.'\n\nHe pointed at the window. I looked round. Between the houses, a low shaft of pinky sunlight was lighting up a bank of purple cumulus from below. The brick buildings and leafless trees were all backlit, cast in shadow, despite the vivid light. I could see what he meant \u2013 it did look unearthly.\n\n'It's winter, Ben. The sun's always low in the sky at this time of year. Further north, in Scandinavia, they don't have any daytime at all.'\n\nHe looked up with a flicker of a smile.\n\n'You're so literal-minded, Mum.'\n\nThe clouds rearranged themselves and the shaft of light disappeared, but still there was a fiery glow on the underbelly of the sky.\n\n'I keep having these feelings, like the world's going to end soon.' He paused, gulping a mouthful of water. 'Like we're coming to the end of time?'\n\n'Ben, you should have said...'\n\n'So I Googled _End of Time._ And that's when I realised it wasn't just me?'\n\nThat's what they do, his generation, I thought. They don't talk to their parents or friends like we did \u2013 they look on the internet.\n\n'There's like all these signs \u2013 predictions in the Bible about the end of time? Wars, earthquakes, floods, plagues and that \u2013 it's all starting to come true?' His voice was strained and crackly.\n\n'But you don't believe all that stuff about prophecies, do you, Ben?'\n\n'No, but... well, yes... I just think, like, if that many people believe it, there could be something in it?'\n\n'But those things \u2013 wars, earthquakes, floods, plagues \u2013 they've been happening since the beginning of recorded history.'\n\n'Yeah, I know, but it's all speeded up now. Floods and earthquakes \u2013 like, there's one every year. And AIDS, SARS, avian flu \u2013 all these new diseases. It's all started coming true. Like in the Bible, it's predicted the Jews'll return to Israel, and they did. You know, in 1948. After the Holocaust and that? That was the beginning of all the wars in the Middle East. The invasion of Lebanon. You can read it for yourself, Mum \u2013 it's all there in the Bible. And it's not just Jews and Christians? A lot of Muslims think their great prophet is coming? Like they call him the Last Imam?' The rising inflection in his voice seemed to challenge me to disagree.\n\nHow could I explain without sounding pompous that just because millions of people believe something doesn't make it true.\n\n'Why didn't you tell me, Ben, that you were having these feelings? Or Rip?'\n\n'I thought you'd think it was mad? You wouldn't listen? You and Dad \u2013 you never listen to anybody.' He dropped his voice to a mumble. 'Like, you're so sure you know everything already?'\n\nHe didn't say it as an accusation, but it stung like one. We were so preoccupied with our own lives and problems that we'd failed to hear our own son's cry for help.\n\n'I'm sorry, Ben. You're right \u2013 we don't always listen. D'you want to talk about it now?'\n\n'Nah, it's all right, Mum.' He grinned sheepishly, swallowing the rest of his water. 'I feel all right now. I think I'll have some Choco-Puffs.'\n\nAfter he'd gone upstairs, I sat in the kitchen with a glass of wine wondering where we'd gone wrong. We'd brought him up to respect difference \u2013 diversity. To disrespect someone's faith would cause offence. At his primary school in Leeds, Rip and I, like good middle-class parents, had cheered enthusiastically as the children celebrated Christmas and Eid and Diwali. All belief was equally valid. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, astrology, astronomy, relativity, evolution, creationism, socialism, monetarism, global warming, damage to the ozone layer, crystal healing, Darwin, Hawking, Dawkins, Nostradamus, Mystic Meg, they were all out there vying with each other in the marketplace of ideas. How was anyone to know which was true and which wasn't? \n\n# 25\n\n# The attraction between \nadhesives and adherends\n\nSometime in the night it started to snow. When I pulled back my curtains in the morning everything was white, and I felt a sudden burst of happiness, like I'd felt as a child waking up on a snowy day. No school; snowball fights with my brother; tobogganing on a tea tray down the slag heaps. In those days, before the advent of four-by-fours and working online, snow meant holiday, anarchy, delight.\n\nIn the garden, even the horrible yellow-spotted laurel bush was touched with magic, the leaves and branches bowing gracefully under their overcoat of snow. I noticed a movement \u2013 it seemed like three small black creatures hopping along, then I realised they were black feet attached to a white body. Wonder Boy prowled along the edge of the garden, tiptoed across the lawn, and took up his position under the laurel bush, staring up at the house. He was reminding me I should drop in on Mrs Shapiro today.\n\n'Look, Ben,' I said, when he came down for breakfast. 'It's snowing. You could take the day off school.'\n\n'It's okay, Mum. I feel better today. I've got to work on my technology project. The bus'll be running.'\n\nHow did he get to be so sensible? I hugged him.\n\n'Take care.'\n\nAfter he'd left, I sat down and tried to concentrate on an article for _Adhesives_. 'The attraction between surfaces in adhesive bonding.'\n\n_'Powerful attractive forces develop between the adhesive and the adherend which may be adsorptive, electrostatic or diffusive.'_\n\nThere was something quite romantic, I was thinking, about those gluey time-enduring forces, bonds so strong that they could outlive the materials themselves.\n\nMmm. My mind started to drift. It was no good. _Adhesives_ would have to wait \u2013 I wanted to get outside before the snow disappeared.\n\nI phoned Mrs Shapiro, to see whether she needed anything from the shops. There was no reply, so I pulled on my wellies and my coat and went out anyway. The sun was low but brilliant, dusting every white surface with a sparkle of gold, but the snow had already started to melt and there were mini-avalanches all around as it slipped off roofs and branches. Wonder Boy followed me down the road. I lobbed a snowball at him, but he ducked out of the way.\n\nWhen I got to Canaan House, I saw that the snow had pulled an end of the gutter down, and melting snow was dripping down the porch. Maybe I would have to get Mr Ali in again. There were footprints in the snow leading away from the house. I knocked on the door just in case but I wasn't surprised that there was no reply. She must have gone out already. Wonder Boy trotted up the path, sat down in the porch and started to yowl.\n\n'What's the matter?'\n\nI reached down to stroke him, but he hissed and went for me with his claws. I gave him a kick with my welly and went off to do my shopping.\n\nIn the afternoon I phoned Mrs Shapiro again. Still no reply. This was odd. I began to get worried. Why had she gone out so early in the snow? Then Ben came back from school and I got on with cooking supper. I'll ring later, I thought.\n\nAt about seven o'clock in the evening, the phone rang. It was an old woman's voice, hoarse and throaty.\n\n'She's in 'ere.'\n\n'Sorry?'\n\n'Yer pal. She's in 'ere. But she ent got 'er dressin' gahn wivver.'\n\n'I'm sorry, I think you've got the wrong number.'\n\n'Nah, I ent. She give it me. You're 'er what comes to 'ospital, in't yer? Wivve posh voice? She give me yer number. That lady wivve pink dressin' gahn. She says she wants 'er dressin' gahn agin. And 'er slippers.'\n\nI realised in a flash that it must be the bonker lady.\n\n'Oh, thank you for contacting me. I'll...'\n\n'An' she says can yer bring some ciggies wiv yer when yer come.'\n\nThe telephone beeped a few times then went dead. She must have been calling from the hospital payphone.\n\nI glanced at the clock. There was maybe half an hour of visiting time left. I'd given back the key to her house, so I bundled together my own slippers, a nightdress and Stella's dressing gown.\n\n'I'll see you in a bit, Ben,' I called upstairs as I set off for the bus.\n\nThe snow had already melted and the air was surprisingly mild. I walked quickly, avoiding the slushy patches on the pavements. The newsagent by the bus stop was still open. Should I get some cigarettes? Or would it make me into a peddler of disease and death? Probably. But anyway, I did.\n\nThe bonker lady was hanging around in the foyer when I arrived. I saw her approach a departing visitor and cadge a cigarette off him. She was still wearing her fluffy blue mules, now more grey than blue, and her toes poking out into the cold air looked bluish-grey too, the yellow toenails crustier than ever. Feeling like a smuggler delivering contraband, I handed her the cigarettes and she pocketed them swiftly. 'Fanks, sweet'eart. She's in Eyesores.'\n\nIt took me a while to track Mrs Shapiro down to Isis ward. I could see at once that she was in a bad way. Her cheek was bruised, one eye almost closed up, and she had a dramatic bandage around her head. She reached out and gripped my arm.\n\n'Georgine. Thenk Gott you come.' Her voice was weak and croaky.\n\n'What happened?'\n\n'Fell down in the snow. Everything brokken.'\n\n'I've brought the things you asked for.' I took the things out of the bag and put them in her bedside cabinet. 'Your friend phoned me.'\n\n'She is not my friend. She is a bonker. All she wants is cigarettes.'\n\n'But what happened? I telephoned earlier to see whether you needed anything.'\n\n'Somebody telephoned to me in morning. Said my cat was in a tree stuck up in the park.'\n\n'Who telephoned you? Was it somebody you know?'\n\n'I don't know who. I thought it was Wonder Boy stuck. Poor Wonder Boy is not good up the trees.'\n\n'Was he stuck?'\n\n'Don't know. Never seen him. Somebody bumped me, I slipped and fallen. They put me back in the krankie house.'\n\nVisiting time was over, and people were already making their way towards the door.\n\n'Look out for the Wonder Boy. You will feed him again, will you, Georgine? Keys are in pocket, same like before. Thenk you, Georgine. You are my angel.'\n\nI must say, I felt rather grumpy for an angel. Neighbourliness is all very well, but there are limits. Still, I took the keys out of her astrakhan coat pocket again and joined the tide of visitors flowing towards the exit. Had it really been an accident? I wondered on the way home. Or had someone lured her out into the snow and pushed her over? What was it Mrs Goodney had said? 'Wouldn't want to be held responsible if she had another accident...?'\n\nBen was still up when I got back.\n\n'Somebody phoned for you,' he said.\n\n'Did they leave a message?'\n\n'He said can you call him. Mr Diabello.'\n\n'Oh, yes, the estate agent.' I kept my voice absolutely expressionless. 'I'm trying to get him to value Mrs Shapiro's house.'\n\n'Funny name.'\n\n'Yes, that's what I thought. It's a bit late. I'll call tomorrow.'\n\nShould I or shouldn't I? I remembered with a shiver the brazen conduct of the Shameless Woman frolicking in scarlet panties, wriggling wantonly in the grip of Velcro \u2013 was that really me? \n\n# 26\n\n# A gummy smile\n\nOn Saturday, after Ben had left with Rip, I changed into my old jeans, put a torch and a screwdriver into my bag just in case, and walked over to Canaan House. This was my chance to have another good poke around. I was determined to find out Mrs Shapiro's real age and to discover the identity of the mystery woman in the photo. There were two places I hadn't investigated yet \u2013 the sitting room with the boarded-up bay window and broken light, and the attic. I fed the cats and cleaned up the poo in the hall. Then I started to search systematically.\n\nThe catch on the sitting-room door was faulty and it hung slightly ajar. I pushed it open. The smell \u2013 feral, feline, fetid \u2013 was so overpowering I almost backed away, but I held my handkerchief over my nose and stepped inside, shining the torch around with my free hand. The beam fell on a high ornate ceiling with its defunct chandelier, a huge marble fireplace with a fall of soot spilling on to the hearth and, on the mantelpiece, an ornate gilt clock whose hands had stopped at just before twelve. There were two sofas and four armchairs, all draped in white sheets, a carved mahogany sideboard with glasses and decanters \u2013 one decanter still with a few centimetres of brown viscous liquid that smelled like paint-stripper \u2013 and over by the window a grand piano, also under a sheet. I played the torchlight around the walls; they were hung with paintings \u2013 gloomy Victorian oils of Highland scenes, storms at sea, and dying animals \u2013 quite different to the intimate clutter of personal pictures and photos that covered the walls in the other rooms.\n\nThe bay window was covered by heavy fringed brocade curtains; an ugly box-shaped pelmet, covered in the same brocade, was sagging away from the wall, and when I looked up I could see why. A huge crack ran from the ceiling above the lintel right down to the floor, with a cold draught whistling through it. At the base, where it disappeared into the ground, it must have been several centimetres wide. It must be the roots of the monkey puzzle tree that had caused the damage, I thought. No wonder she wanted to cut it down.\n\nSeating myself at the grand piano, I raised the dust sheet, uncovered the keyboard \u2013 it was a Bechstein \u2013 and struck a few keys. The melancholy out-of-tune twang reverberated in the silence of the room. There were books of music in the piano stool \u2013 Beethoven, Chopin, Delius, Grieg. Not the sort of stuff they listen to in Kippax. In the front of the Grieg piano concerto a name was handwritten in copperplate script, with old-fashioned curlicues on the capitals: Hannah Wechsler. In the front of the Delius lieder was another name: Ella Wechsler. I remembered the photograph of the Wechsler family seated around the piano. Who were they? As I leafed through the music a piece of paper fluttered to the floor. I picked it up and held the torchlight to it. It was a letter.\n\nKefar Daniyyel near Lydda 18th June 1950\n\nMy Dearest Artem,\n\nWhy you do not reply to my letters? Each day I am thinking of you, each night I am dreaming of you. All the time I am wondering if I was doing the right thing coming here and leaving you in London. But I cannot undo my decision. For this will be our place of safety, my love, the place where our people gathered out of every country where we have been exiles can be living finally at peace. Here in our Promised Land our scattered nation who have been swirling round the globe for many centuries like clouds of human dust are finally come to rest. If only you would be here, with us, Artem.\n\nYou cannot imagine, my love, the joyful spirit of working not for wages or profits but for building a community of shared belief. We will get old and die here, but we will build a future for our children. They will grow up fearless and free in this land we are making for them \u2013 a land without barbed wires, out of which no person ever again will drive us away.\n\nAt last we are moving from our temporary house in Lydda into our new moshav here at Kefar Daniyyel on a west-facing hillside overlooking the town. A few hectares of barren wasteland and a trickle of water, an empty abandoned place, but it will be our garden. In the east the sun is rising over the mountains of Judaea and in the west is setting above the coastal plain with its fields of wheat and citrus groves. At night we see the lights sparkling in the valley like Havdalah candles.\n\nIn the morning before the sun is too hot we are working outside clearing stones away from the hillside and preparing terraces for autumn planting. Yitzak has obtained some seedstones for a new type of fruit-tree called avo-kado which he believes we can establish here once the irrigation problem is solved. The men are laying a water pipe that will bring life in this empty land that previously supported only a few dozen of people and their miserable livestocks.\n\nMy love I have some big news I hope will persuade you to come now even if you did not want to before, for our love will have a fruit. Arti you will be a father. I am with a child. Many evenings when the air is cool I am going up to the hilltop at Tel Hadid and watching the sun setting over the sea, and thinking of you living there beyond the sea and your baby growing here inside of me. My dear love please come and be with us if you can, or if you cannot come at this time please write me here at Kefar Daniyyel and I will understand.\n\nWith warm kisses,\n\nNaomi\n\nThere was a smudge at the bottom of the page, which might have been a kiss, or a tear.\n\nThe letter was written in small neat handwriting on both sides of two sheets of thin paper folded together. Had it been hidden, or lost? I read it through again. Her English had been better then, I thought. I folded it back along the creases, and put it in my bag. I could picture the poor sad girl sitting out on the hillside carrying her baby inside her, watching the sun setting over the sea, and dreaming of her lover. But the story still refused to fall into place. Did he go to her in the end? Or was it Naomi who came back? Was he married to someone else? And what happened to the baby?\n\nCuriously I rifled through the music books to see whether any more letters would fall out. The Delius songbook fell open at a page that had an English translation beneath the German original.\n\n_I have just seen two eyes so brown_\n\n_In them my joy, my world I found_\n\nThere was a time when Rip used to call me his brown-eyed girl, and I remembered how he would sing along to the Van Morrison tape when we were driving in the car to France, with Ben and Stella strapped in the back, and our bulky frame tent and Camping Gaz strapped to the roof rack. And I would squeeze his hand, and the kids would roll their eyes and snort in derision at this display of adult soppiness. What happens to love? Where does it go, when it's not there any more? Rip's love had all dribbled away into the Progress Project. Probably I was also to blame for letting it happen \u2013 for letting my eyes become less brown.\n\nThe light of the torch was beginning to flicker; the battery must be running low. I switched it off and climbed the stairs to the first-floor landing. The nine doors were all closed. I gathered together Mrs Shapiro's grey-white satin nightdress, pink candlewick dressing gown and _Lion King_ slippers from her bedroom. Standing on tiptoe, I could just see that the Harlech Castle tin was still on top of the wardrobe where I'd left it. Then I closed the door behind me and opened the door that led up to the attic.\n\nI'd not been up here before, and I'd sneered inwardly when Mark Diabello had talked about the penthouse suite, but as I climbed the steep dog-leg stair, light poured in from two high rounded gable-end windows and a vast light-well in the roof, revealing wide beamed eaves branching off into rooms with sloping ceilings and magnificent views over the treetops towards Highbury Fields.\n\nThe rooms, however, were full of junk \u2013 heaps and bundles and cardboard boxes, all piled dustily on top of each other. My heart sank. It would take ages to search through this lot. I opened one of the boxes at random \u2013 it was full of books. I pulled one out and flicked through the pages. _Saint Teresa of Avila: A Life of Devotion._ Not my sort of thing. Other boxes contained crockery, cutlery and some rather ghastly china ornaments. A cupboard that looked promising had nothing in it but rubber bands and jam-jar lids \u2013 dozens of them \u2013 and some pre-war recipe books and magazines. There were no documents or photos, or letters or a diary that would fill in the gaps in Mrs Shapiro's story.\n\nOn my left a narrow doorway opened on to a spiral staircase that led up into a small round room. This, I realised, was the fanciful little turret perched on the west side of the house. It was barely large enough to fit an armchair, and that's almost all that was in there, a wide armchair upholstered in faded blue velvet with claw feet and a scrolled back, and by it a little carved table in front of the window. As I sat down on the chair a cloud of dust rose up around me making me sneeze. I looked out over the jungly rain-washed garden, imagining how pleasant it would be to sit here on a quiet afternoon with a cup of tea, a Danish pastry and a good book; and then out of the blue I felt an intense sensation of presence \u2013 of someone else who had sat here looking out of the window just as I was. Whose chair had this been? Who else had sat here looking down into the garden? My restless hands had been stroking the velvet and now I felt something unexpectedly hard against my fingertips \u2013 a coin. It was one of those big old-fashioned pennies with a picture of Queen Victoria, pushed down the side of the chair. I carried on feeling with my fingers and pulled out a paper clip, a cigarette butt, and a small crumpled photograph. I smoothed it out. It was a picture of a baby, a beautiful brown-eyed baby. I couldn't tell whether it was a girl or a boy. Somebody's hands were holding it up under the arms as it grinned gummily into the camera.\n\n'Yoo-hoo! Anybody there?'\n\nI jumped. I'd left the front door open, I remembered. Guiltily, I shoved the coin and the photo back down the sides of the chair and made my way down the stairs. Mrs Goodney was standing in the hall with a smug smile on her face.\n\n'I thought I'd find you here. Having a good snoop around, are we?'\n\nShe was wearing the same pointy cube-heel shoes and an ugly raincoat with a slightly scaly texture in almost the same shade of lizard green. I suppose someone had once told her the colour suited her.\n\n'Mrs Shapiro asked me to feed her cats. She gave me the key.'\n\n'Feeding them in the bedrooms? I don't think so.'\n\nI blushed, more with fury than embarrassment, but I kept my mouth shut.\n\n'Anyway, you can hand the keys over now, because we've established that you're not in fact the next of kin. She's got a son.'\n\nI caught my breath \u2013 the baby! But there was something about the way Mrs Goodney looked at me that made me think she was bluffing. Or fishing for information. Well, that was a game two could play.\n\n'But I don't think he'll be coming over from Israel to feed the cats.'\n\nShe blinked, a quick reptilian blink.\n\n'We have our links with international agencies, you know. We'll be inviting him to help sort out his mother's business when the house goes up for sale.'\n\n'You can't put it up for sale without her consent.' Or could she?\n\n'Of course, he'll have an interest in the property, too \u2013 the son.' She watched me closely with her lizard eyes. 'In the meantime, she's in the care of Social Services. She said, by the way, that she doesn't want you to visit her any more.'\n\nHer words sent a tremor through me. Had Mrs Shapiro really said that? It was possible \u2013 she was cussed enough \u2013 but somehow I just didn't believe it.\n\n'So,' Mrs Goodney held out her hand for the keys, 'I'll be taking over the care of the cats.'\n\nVioletta appeared, as if on cue, purring and rubbing herself against Mrs Goodney's legs, and I noticed Mussorgsky creeping towards the bottom of the stairs, waiting for the right moment to sneak up to the bedroom. I realised Mrs Shapiro's bed was their love nest. I realised also from the way Mrs Goodney looked at them that her idea of care would be to call in the Council's pest control department.\n\n'I'm not going to hand over the keys without her written permission.' I tried to make my voice sound snooty, but this just annoyed her more.\n\n'I can always get a court order, you know,' she snapped back.\n\n'Fine. Do that.'\n\nCould she?\n\nAfter she'd gone, I locked up the house carefully, putting the new key from the back door on to my key ring, grabbed the carrier bag I'd filled with Mrs Shapiro's stuff (of course that would have been the perfect reason for me to be looking around upstairs, but you never think of those things at the time, do you?) and headed straight for the hospital. I raced around the antiseptic maze of corridors looking for Isis ward. But when I got there, she'd gone. Someone else was in her bed. I looked up and down all the bays, but she was nowhere to be seen.\n\nThe nurse on duty was another teen-child, thin and harassed.\n\n'Where's Mrs Shapiro? She was in that bed.' I pointed.\n\nThe teen-child looked vague.\n\n'She's gone into a nursing home, I think.'\n\n'Can you tell me where she's gone? I brought some things for her.'\n\n'You'll have to ask in the social work department. It's in the same block as physio.'\n\nShe pointed vaguely in the wrong direction. Just the thought of the smug smile on Mrs Goodney's face if I went there to ask made my blood boil.\n\nMaybe the bonker lady would know. I hadn't seen her in the lobby when I arrived, and when I went back to the ward where I'd first met her with Mrs Shapiro, I couldn't find her anywhere. I thought she might be down in the foyer cadging cigarettes, but she wasn't there either. I walked over to the porters' desk, but I realised I didn't even know her name. Then on my way out I spotted her hanging around outside the main entrance doors, by the No Smoking sign. She seemed to be involved in an argument with a couple of youths wearing baseball caps, one of whom had his leg in plaster. She grabbed me as I came out.\n\n'They've tooken me cigs off of me.'\n\n'Who? The nurse?' About time, I was thinking.\n\n'No, them.' She pointed to the youths, who were both smoking hard, their heads bent over their hands, as though their lives depended on it.\n\nI went up to them. 'Did you...?'\n\n'She's bonkers,' said the one who had his leg in plaster. They ignored me and carried on smoking.\n\n'You're better off without them,' I tried to console her. 'They're not good for you.'\n\nShe stared at me silently, a look that combined desolation and contempt.\n\n'Okay, I'll get you some more. Do you know where my friend is? Mrs Shapiro? The lady in the pink dressing gown?'\n\n'They've tooken 'er away. This mornin'. She give 'em some proper lip, too. You should've 'eard 'er carryin' on. Swearin' an' all. An' I thought she were a lady!'\n\nShe tutted disapproval.\n\n'Do you know where she is?'\n\n'Never 'eard naffink like it. Filfy tongue, she's got on 'er. They gonna put 'er in ar 'ome. Best place for 'er.'\n\n'Do you know the name of the home? Where it is?'\n\n'Nightmare 'ouse.'\n\n'Nightmare?' That didn't sound good.\n\n'It's where they all go. Bin there meself. Up Lea Bridge way. Not many comes aht alive.' She shook her head ominously and started to cough.\n\n'Thanks. Thank you very much.'\n\nI made to go, but she held on to my coat.\n\n'Yer won't forget me ciggies, will yer?'\n\nThere was no Nightmare House in the telephone directory or on the internet. (Well, there was, but it turned out to be a video game.) I telephoned Ms Baddiel and left a message, but she didn't ring back. Eileen said mysteriously that she was 'on a case'. I was furious and frustrated. Should I go to the police and tell them my friend had been kidnapped by Social Services? I could just imagine their faces. Should I write to my MP? See a lawyer? It came to me that the only person who might be able to help us was Mark Diabello. He'd know what happened in situations like this; and he had a strong interest in making sure Mrs Shapiro's house wasn't sold from under her.\n\nEver since our last encounter, I'd been avoiding him and not returning his calls. It's not just that I'd decided he wasn't my type \u2013 I'd come to the conclusion that I wasn't his, either, and that I was only one of dozens of women he slept with in the line of business. I guessed he was probably much more interested in Canaan House than in me. Still, I swallowed my misgivings and dialled his number. It rang just once.\n\n'Hello, Georgina.' (My number must be on his mobile.) 'Nice to hear from you.'\n\nThere was something in his voice that reminded me of... Velcro. I felt a flush rise in my cheeks. If I got him to help me, would we end up in bed again? And was that what I really wanted? I pushed the awkward questions to the back of my mind.\n\n'Mrs Shapiro's disappeared,' I blurted. 'She's in a nursing home, but I don't know where.'\n\nHe didn't seem surprised. 'Leave it with me, Georgina. When are we going to...?'\n\n'Thanks, Mark. Got to dash. Someone's at the door...'\n\nBefore he could get back to me, though, Mrs Shapiro found a way of contacting me herself. One day when I went around to Canaan House, I found a letter on the mat inside the door; I almost didn't pick it out among the junk mail. It was a used envelope, originally addressed to a Mrs Lillian Brown at Northmere House, Lea Gardens Close. The address had been crossed out, and Mrs Shapiro's address written in. There was nothing inside the envelope except a scrap of paper torn off from the corner of a newspaper, with two words scrawled in what looked like black eyebrow pencil \u2013 _HELP ME_. \n\n# 4 \n_Adhesives Around the Home_\n\n# 27\n\n# The breeze-block fortress\n\nNorthmere House was not really a house at all, but a squat square two-storey institution, purpose-built out of plastered breeze block punctured at regular intervals by square windows that opened wide enough for ventilation but not for escape. The only access to the interior was via a sliding glass door operated by a button behind the reception desk, which was guarded by a fierce middle-aged woman in a corporate uniform.\n\n'Can I help you?' she barked.\n\n'I've come to see Mrs Shapiro.'\n\nShe tapped a few strokes on her keyboard and said, without raising her eyes from the screen, 'She's not allowed visitors.'\n\n'What do you mean she's not allowed visitors? This isn't a prison, is it?'\n\nMy voice was a bit too shrill. Calm down, I told myself. _In \u2013 two \u2013 three \u2013 four_...\n\n'That's what it says on her notes. No visitors.'\n\n'Why not? Who made that decision?'\n\n'It'll be up to matron.'\n\n'Can I speak to her?'\n\nShe looked up at me finally, a cold, indifferent look.\n\n'She's in a meeting.' She indicated a row of pink upholstered chairs along the wall. 'You can wait if you like.'\n\n'And if I just go for a wander around while I'm waiting?'\n\nI tried to sound cool, but my heart was pumping away, making my voice wobble.\n\n'I'll have to call security.'\n\nFrom a window in the lobby I could see through to a central courtyard with a square of trim corporate grass, surrounded by a concrete path which led nowhere, and four benches, one at each side. The access was by way of another pair of sliding glass doors on the far side of the courtyard, presumably also button operated. Through the glass, I had a glimpse of a corridor, with doors opening off it. In one of these breeze-block cubicles Mrs Shapiro would be sitting in her bed waiting for me to free her. Somehow I had to get a message through to reassure her that I was trying. She would still be bandaged up, I supposed, and hopefully receiving some kind of medical care in here.\n\nI sat on a pink chair and waited for a while, wondering what to do. The place was eerily quiet, the sounds all muffled by the thick pink carpet and closed double doors, the air dead, with a synthetic smell that was sweetish and chemical. From time to time, a lift discharged someone into the lobby and the guard-dog lady pressed her button to let them exit the building. Some wore nurses' uniforms, some the same corporate skirt and jacket as the guard-dog lady, and there was a woman with a stethoscope who looked as though she might be a doctor. They all seemed busy and preoccupied. It dawned on me that the impassioned human-rights-violation speech I was composing in my head was going to cut absolutely no ice here.\n\nOn a low table next to the pink chairs was a bowl of polished waxy fruit, no doubt intended to reassure families that their incarcerated relatives would be getting a wholesome diet. I picked up a bright green apple \u2013 it was the same colour as Mrs Goodney's jacket \u2013 and bit into it, hard. The sound of my crunching filled the lobby. The guard-dog lady glared at me. When I'd finished it, I placed the apple core on the reception desk and left.\n\nWalking to the bus stop, I racked my brains for ways of springing Mrs Shapiro. I imagined a video-game scenario with the two of us haring along the corridors dodging security guards and ampoule-armed matrons, violins playing wildly on the soundtrack as we burst out through the sliding glass doors down to the Lea Bridge Road and on to a passing bus.\n\nThere's something magical about sitting in the front seat up on top of a double-decker bus, wending among the treetops. I could feel the tension seeping out of my shoulders and neck as we swayed along high above the road, like riding an elephant. As we crossed the bridge I caught a glimpse of the slim glassy curves of the River Lea as it slipped into London. All around me the sky was full of scudding clouds that fleetingly turned to pink when they caught the sunlight \u2013 not the dead chemical pink of Northmere House, but a bright transient gleam of colour like an unexpected smile. I thought of the young woman pregnant with her baby, sitting on the stony hillside, watching the sunset redden over the western sea, waiting for her lover. Now she was locked up in that breeze-block fortress waiting for me to release her.\n\nThe bus jolted and turned as we came out from among the treetops at Millfield Park, and for a moment the whole skyscape opened up in front of me, turbulent, vivid, with apocalyptic shafts of light breaking through the clouds. Somewhere it was raining. A coloured arc glimmered briefly and disappeared. For some reason, tears came into my eyes. I remembered my strange conversation with Ben. Liminal. A time of transition. The threshold of a new world. Poor Ben \u2013 why did he take everything to heart so?\n\nMondays were my worst days for missing Ben \u2013 two days still to go. They never warn you how much your children are going to hurt you; they never warn you about that needle-keen love-pain that gets in under your ribs and twists around just when you're trying to get on with your life. It was already four o'clock \u2013 home time. Would Ben be back at Rip's by now, eating Choco-Puffs and talking about his day at school? At the next bus stop, a load of schoolkids clambered on and joined me on the top deck, gabbling and laughing and throwing stuff at one another. Did they worry about Armageddon and liminal times? Actually, with kids, you can never tell.\n\nAs soon as I got home, I put the kettle on and while it was coming to the boil I listened to the messages on my answering machine. There was one from Mark Diabello asking me to ring when I had time, one from Nathan at _Adhesives in the Modern World_ , reminding me of the new deadline, one from Pectoral Pete \u2013 no idea what that was about \u2013 and a bald peremptory three-word message from Rip, 'Ring me straightaway.' Like hell I would. I tried to delete the one from Rip and accidentally deleted them all. Now I'd have to remember to phone everyone back. Another time. I put a tea bag into the cup and looked in the fridge for milk. Drat. I'd run out. I was still fuming at Rip's message \u2013 at the tone of his voice. Once, not so long ago, he'd have left a message with love. What had happened to all that tenderness?\n\nI hunted around for some powdered milk, and ended up pouring myself a glass of wine instead. Then another. The silence of the kitchen closed in on me. Two days still to go. Then the phone rang. It was Mark Diabello.\n\n'Georgina, you're at home. I've been... er... making a few enquiries. Shall I come round?'\n\nI should have made an excuse and put the phone down, but the wine had made me weepy, and the treacly sweetness in his voice filled me with unexpected longing. No, not for sex \u2013 I just wanted someone to be nice to me.\n\n'Sorry I didn't ring you back. I've been feeling...'\n\nI didn't get the end of the sentence out. A big sob rose up in my throat and washed the words away. He was around within ten minutes.\n\nI suppose I'd been hoping for a little tenderness, but I could see from the way Mark Diabello looked at me on the doorstep that sex was what was on offer. He led me straight into the bedroom, where he noted with a murmur of approval that the satin and Velcro handcuffs were still in position from last time. Then his shirt was off, and my top was off and his trousers were off and my skirt was up and... what happened next was far too disgusting to describe. He went through all the stages like someone working through a car service manual, and I surrendered with all the abandon of a Ford Fiesta having its eighty-thousand-mile service.\n\nAs the bedclothes cooled against my skin and my eyes adjusted to the dimness in the room I noticed that his clothes were folded up on the chair, while mine were all tangled in the duvet. Circling me in his arms, he stroked the hair back from my forehead.\n\n'Georgina, you're a very sensitive woman. I like that.'\n\n'I like you, too.'\n\nI forced myself to say it, but the words felt wooden and clunky in my mouth. I rested my cheek on his damp chest that smelled of sweat and musky soap and chlorine.\n\nHe ran a finger down my cheek. 'You're special. I mean... different. I'd like to see more of you, Georgina.'\n\n'Mmm,' I murmured non-committally.\n\nThe touchy-feely talk was probably fake, I'd concluded, and all he wanted from me was sex.\n\nWe hadn't spoken about Mrs Shapiro and Canaan House last time, as if by tacit agreement, as if our relationship floated above the world and its sordid concerns in its own enclosed bubble. But there was something so _purposeful_ about those neatly folded clothes.\n\n'You know, Mark, I still wonder about that house...'\n\n'What do you wonder, sweetheart?'\n\n'... what you and your partner are up to.'\n\n'I could ask you the same thing, you know, Georgina. Why did you come to me in the first place to have it valued? She's not your aunty. It's obvious she doesn't want to sell \u2013 so why the sudden interest on your part?' He propped himself up on one elbow, studying my face. 'I keep asking myself \u2013 what's in it for you? Why did you start this whole thing?'\n\nI gasped. He thought... he thought _I_ was like _him_. Mrs Goodney, I remembered, had made the same accusation.\n\n'I didn't start it.' I had a sudden vivid recollection of the rusty-gate voice talking into the mobile phone. I remembered the phrase she'd used to describe Mrs Shapiro \u2013 an old biddy. 'It was the social worker who started it. She wanted to put Mrs Shapiro in a home and make her sell the house. She was going to have it valued by Damian at Hendricks & Wilson. I heard her say it.'\n\nHe sat up, his limbs suddenly taut.\n\n'You should have told me that before. It's a well-known scam. All the estate agents have their contacts in Social Services. That's how we get to hear of properties with potential before they go on the market \u2013 old people going into homes, deceased estates, mortgage foreclosures. There might be a client in the wings, an investor or a developer, who'll pay a good price for the tip-off.'\n\nMy brain was struggling to keep up. The shameless red panties were crumpled under the bedclothes. Then I remembered something else.\n\n'Actually, that social worker had a man with her the first time. He could have been a builder \u2013 I think she was showing him the house. She must have been talking to him on the phone. But surely... what if Mrs Shapiro has a family?'\n\n'They do a deal with the family, Georgina \u2013 cash sale, no questions asked \u2013 the family get their hands on the money, and they get the house off their hands. There's always someone in every family that'll take that line. People \u2013 how can I put it? \u2013 in my line of business you tend to see them at their worst.'\n\n'But I still don't understand why the family goes along with it.'\n\n'If their old dad or aunty goes into a nursing home, the money from selling their house is supposed to pay the home fees, right? At five hundred quid a week or more, that can soon gobble up an entire estate that the family hoped they would inherit. But when the money runs out, the Council takes over the payment for the nursing home. So they get the valuer to put in a false low valuation. He gets his cut. They sell it cheap to an associate, based on the low valuation. The relatives pay the nursing-home fees until the money from the phoney sale's all gone, and the Council takes over the payments. After a few months, they can put the property back on the market at its true value, and they pocket the difference.'\n\nI tried to follow what he said, but all I could see was a gyre of money and bricks swirling around in my head. I was wishing I'd kept my mouth shut.\n\n'But that's just a rip-off.'\n\n'You're very innocent, sweetheart. I like that.'\n\nHe kissed me on the forehead in a way that made me feel suddenly queasy.\n\n'You'd better go now. Ben'll be back soon. Anyway, I don't think she has any family.'\n\nHe threw me a sharp look, as if he knew I was lying about Ben, and reached across for his underpants \u2013 sleek dark Lycra that perfectly defined his manly parts, as the shameless woman might have observed \u2013 but she'd gone off somewhere, and Georgie Sinclair was back home.\n\n'So the social worker could just be flying solo,' he said.\n\n'You mean, robbing solo?'\n\n'That's one way of seeing it. But look at it from the social worker's point of view \u2013 they don't get paid much, do they?' He slipped his arms into his shirtsleeves. 'Not many perks. And it's a pretty thankless job. Then once in a lifetime an opportunity like this comes along. Who's she robbing? There's no family. The old lady doesn't need millions, she just needs a nice, safe, clean home. Why not help her and help yourself at the same time?'\n\nI was shocked. 'Aren't social workers supposed to care for the elderly?'\n\nHe laughed, a cold laugh. 'Nobody cares for anybody in this world, Georgina.'\n\nHe was buttoning up his shirt now. The bleakness in his voice was like the mineral aftertaste of black treacle. I felt an unexpected pang of pity. Poor Mr Diabello with his sleek beautiful body and his sleek shiny Jaguar \u2013 condemned to live in a universe where nobody cares. I kissed his wrist where the black hairs curled out from under the starched white cuff of his shirt.\n\n'I thought you cared for me.'\n\n'That's different. _You're_ different, Georgina.'\n\nHe bent down and kissed me so gently that I was just beginning to think he might mean it after all, and my undisciplined hormones started up their chatter. Then he raised his head and I saw the glint of his eyes darken from gold to obsidian. 'So just out of interest \u2013 what did Hendricks & Wilson value it at?'\n\n'Seven million,' I hazarded.\n\n'You're lying to me.'\n\n' _You_ might be lying to _me_.'\n\nHe laughed, tilting back his head to knot up his tie, so I could see the attractive growth of five o'clock shadow dappling the handsome cleft in his chin. The Velcro was chafing against my wrists.\n\n'Mark, you've forgotten...'\n\n'Oh, yes.' He reached out and undid the fastenings. They dangled limply from the headboard as he made his way out into the dusk, and I retrieved my tangled clothes. \n\n# 28\n\n# Ancient and inexplicable\n\nIt poured with rain next day, and I sat at my laptop trying to think about adhesives. Bonding. For some reason, my mind kept drifting to Velcro \u2013 fascinating stuff. All those sexy little hooks. After a while, I gave up trying to work, put my wellies on, and went round to feed Mrs Shapiro's cats. They were waiting for me as I approached Canaan House, circling disconsolately out in the rain. The porch where they usually waited was one huge puddle. I looked up and saw that water was now pouring down from the broken gutter I'd first noticed nearly a fortnight ago, and splashing straight into the porch. I fed the cats in the kitchen, and shooed them out through the back door. I noticed Violetta sneaking round the back towards the derelict outhouses, and a few minutes later Mussorgsky slunk off in the same direction. I watched to see whether Wonder Boy would follow, but he was still hanging around for the last scrapings out of the tin. I dished it out slowly, to give the lovers the best chance I could. Then I went home via the Turkish bakery and treated myself to a Danish pastry.\n\nAs soon as I got in I phoned Mr Ali. He was hesitant at first when I described the problem.\n\n'I am a handyman not a builder. Big ladders needed for this job.'\n\nBut he agreed to take a look. Next, I rang Northmere House. I was annoyed but not surprised to discover that Mrs Shapiro was barred from receiving phone calls as well as visitors. No doubt her mail would be censored, too.\n\nFortified by my cup of tea and Danish pastry, I returned to my desk. Adhesives. Bonding. Bondage. Mark Diabello. The trouble was, I caught myself thinking, as I stared at the screen of my laptop, that we didn't have anything at all in common. Once the initial excitement of sex wore off, I found him \u2013 I hadn't been able to admit this to myself before \u2013 a bit, well, boring. Maybe that was the trouble with _The Splattered Heart_. Those romantic hero types can be limited in their appeal. What I needed was someone I could talk to: someone intellectual; preferably someone hunkily intellectual.\n\nI'd deleted Nathan's message without writing down the new deadline. Should I ring him to check? I hesitated. He already thought I was pretty stupid. I pictured him sweeping back his black hair in exasperation from his craggily intelligent brow \u2013 he was sitting down at his desk so you couldn't tell he was rather short. Anyway, size doesn't matter, does it? I dialled his number.\n\n'Nathan, I'm sorry, I deleted your message by mistake. What's the new deadline?'\n\nHe sighed and tutted in a way that suggested he wasn't really cross.\n\n'March twenty-fifth. D'you think you'll be able to have it ready in time, Georgie girl?'\n\n'I think so. Actually, Nathan,' I lowered my voice, 'I keep on getting distracted.'\n\n'Oh? Anything interesting?' he breathed. I wavered. No, better not mention Velcro.\n\n'Nathan, have you ever heard of a place called Lydda?'\n\n'You mean Lydda near Tel Aviv? Where the airport is? They call it Lod nowadays.'\n\n'See? I remembered you were good on place names.'\n\n'Are you thinking of going off on holiday? You'd better finish the April _Adhesives_ before you go anywhere,' he added with mock sternness. 'The coast's nice down there. I've got some cousins who live at Jaffa.'\n\nSomehow, it hadn't registered with me before that Nathan was probably Jewish, too. The thing is, in Kippax, everybody comes from Kippax. Mr Mazzarella who ran the chippie and his wife who ran the ice-cream van were the only exotic people in town.\n\n'No, I've been visiting an elderly Jewish lady who lives near me. She's got an old photo in her hall of Lydda.' There was silence on the other end of the phone. 'I thought it was a person. I didn't realise it was a place,' I mumbled. 'That's all.'\n\n'You thought it was a person? Like Georgia?'\n\n'I told you geography's not my strong point.'\n\nSomehow I'd managed to make a complete prat of myself again. But even as I said it, I was thinking \u2013 why does Mrs Shapiro have a photo of Lydda?\n\n'There was a terrorist attack there in 1972. A bunch of Japanese terrorists gunned down a load of people at the airport. You might have read about it,' said Nathan.\n\nI searched back through my memory. I would have been twelve years old at the time. Just finding my feet at Garforth Comp. It must have been one of those tragedies in a faraway place that flits across the television screen and vanishes in a day, wringing less grief than the death of Lionheart the school rabbit.\n\n'What did they do that for?'\n\n'They were avenging two Palestinian hijackers who'd been gunned down by the Israelis.'\n\nMy mind blanked over. Palestinians and Israelis killing each other \u2013 an enmity as ancient and inexplicable as Wonder Boy and Violetta. Somebody else's problem, not mine. \n\n# 29\n\n# The Abomination\n\nNext day I waited for a break in the rain to dash across to Canaan House on my feline mercy mission. They were all there, waiting for me, circling and purring. There's something very nice about getting such a warm furry welcome, even when you know it's really just the food they want \u2013 it isn't love at all. Maybe the emotions don't matter \u2013 maybe if Rip was just a bit more warm and furry when he talked to me, I thought, I'd be able to cope with the lack of feeling.\n\nI fed them in the kitchen, then just as I was about to lock up and go home, the rain started again, big heavy drops, presaging a downpour. I could have made a run for it, but getting back to _Adhesives_ just didn't seem that appealing. I excused myself by thinking I should check the roof for leaks, and made my way up into the attic. Despite the disrepair in the rest of the house, the roof was surprisingly sound. There was a place at the front, more or less above the bay window, where a couple of slates were missing and water was dripping in. I hunted among the junk for a container to catch the drips and found a pretty Victorian chamber pot with a blue-iris design, similar to the pattern in the bathroom.\n\nIn the turret room, the ceiling showed no damp patches. I settled myself into the blue armchair to wait for the rain to pass, and felt round the edges for the baby photo. It was still there. I took it out and studied it. Mrs Sinclair had once said, shortly after Stella was born, that in her opinion all babies were alike. I'd been outraged at the time; but now, looking at this crumpled photo of a bald gummy baby, I thought she had a point. Only the lovely dark baby-wide eyes stood out. I gazed back at them, and something from long-ago 'O' level biology popped into my head: the brown-eye gene is dominant; the blue-eye gene is recessive. So this baby must have had at least one brown-eyed parent. Mrs Shapiro's eyes were blue. And so were Artem Shapiro's.\n\nNow my curiosity was truly aroused. With my fingers, I explored the crevice around the edges of the armchair. There was a lot of fluff, cat hair and miscellaneous debris that stuck in my nails. At last, near the left armrest, I came across what felt like paper. It couldn't have fallen in by accident \u2013 it must have been pushed down deliberately \u2013 it must have been hidden. With one hand I held back the blue upholstery, and with the other I dug two fingers in deep enough to catch hold of one end and pull it out. It was a letter, concertinaed up, on the same flimsy notepaper as the one I'd found in the piano stool.\n\nKefar Daniyyel near Lydda 26th November 1950\n\nMy Dearest Artem,\n\nI am writing with some wonderful news for you. Our baby was born on 12th November, a little boy. Every day I watch him grow a little more beautiful like his father. Truly he has your face, Arti, but he has my brown eyes. I am often talking to him about his daddy in London, and he smiles and lifts up his little hands in the air, as if he is understanding everything. I have called him Chaim after our great president Chaim Weizmann. One day your daddy will come here to us I promise to him. Why do you not come, Arti? Why do you not write? Have you forgotten about us?\n\nWe are so eagerly waiting for you, to wrap you up with our love. My dear one the air here is so good and clean after the horrible smogs of London I am sure that your health will be improved straightaway. My friend Rachel is expectant also. You cannot imagine how it is good after half a century of death to be surrounded with new life. You will be feeling like at home among these olim who have made aliyah from every corner of the world. Many here at Daniyyel are from Manchester and everyone speaks English, though the big thing now is to learn again our own ancient tongue.\n\nThere is so much of our people's history in this red earth and in these white stones that are lying across the landscape like the bones of our forebears, sometimes I imagine their spirits sitting beside us on the hillside in the evening to watch the sun going down and the first stars to rise in the east. Finally after so much suffering they are in peace. When the wind whispers over the hilltop it is like the voices of our dead singing their kaddish prayers. Six million souls who have come home. Dear one, I am still remembering our house in Highbury and our happy evenings by the piano, and then my eyes are full of tears. Why do you not write?\n\nWith all my love,\n\nNaomi\n\nI read and reread the letter as I sat waiting for the rain to ease off. Then I folded it up and pushed it back down the side of the chair with the photograph. Who _was_ Naomi? She must have been the pretty brown-eyed woman \u2013 the mother of the baby. But then who was the old lady in Northmere House? How did the two Naomis fit together?\n\nThe rain showed no sign of easing off: the water streamed down the windows as though someone was playing a hose on them. There was something almost apocalyptic about this never-ending downpour. Was it one of the prophetic signs of the End Times? Ben would probably know. I glanced at my watch. It was three o'clock, almost time for him to be back. In the end, I just resigned myself to getting soaked, and made a dash for home.\n\nWhen I got in, I rubbed my hair dry with a towel, put on dry clothes, and guiltily sat down at my laptop. Okay. Concentrate. Glue. ' _Adhesive curing is the change from a liquid to a solid state_.' Sometimes the science of stickiness can be boringly obvious. Maybe it was time to start another novel \u2013 a novel about an old lady who lives in a huge crumbling house with seven cats, and a secret. I pushed the dissident thought out of my mind and forced myself to focus. _Adhesives in the Modern World_ was what paid the bills. Something else was niggling at the back of my brain. Ben seemed to be home later than usual.\n\nWhen at last I heard his key in the latch, I folded up my laptop and went downstairs to greet him. As I came into the hall, I stopped and caught my breath. I saw a stranger standing there \u2013 a bald weirdo who'd broken into my house.\n\n'Hi, Mum.' He grinned embarrassedly and hung up his wet coat. 'Don't stare like that.'\n\n'What...?'\n\nAll his hair, his lovely brown curls, had gone. His skull, knobbly and pale, looked obscenely naked.\n\n'It looks very...'\n\nHe met my eyes. 'Don't say it, Mum.'\n\nI put my hand over my mouth. We both laughed.\n\n'D'you want some Choco-Puffs?'\n\nHe shook his head.\n\n'I don't know why you always get those for me. Dad gets them, too. I hate them.'\n\n'I thought you liked them.'\n\n'I used to. I've gone off them now. They taste funny. Sort of metallic?'\n\n'So what would you like?'\n\n'S'all right. I'll get it.'\n\nHe made himself some toast and spread it with peanut butter a centimetre thick, a layer of strawberry jam on top of that, then a sprinkling of cocoa powder. I'd expected him to take it up to his room, but he pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table. Outside, the rain splashed and gurgled, overflowing the gutter. Surely such heavy rains in February were something new? I must remember to ask him. I poured myself a cup of tea. Ben, since our liminal conversation, had been drinking only water.\n\n'So isn't it a bit... cold?'\n\nHe gave me a look of mild reproach. 'Yeah. But when you think our Lord was crucified, it sort of puts it in perspective?'\n\nThe rising inflection made him sound defensive. I felt a flutter of panic.\n\n'Is it something you think about a lot, Ben?'\n\nHe opened his school bag, unzipped an inner pocket, and pulled out a book. With a shock of recognition I saw it was Rip's old school Bible \u2013 black, gilt-edged, with the crest of his public school inside the front cover. He leafed through to a page that was bookmarked with an old bus ticket.\n\n'When ye therefore shall see the... Abomination of Desolation...' he stumbled on the clunky words, 'spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, then let those who are in Judaea flee to the mountains. Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house. Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.' He read carefully, looking up from time to time to check I was still listening. 'And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.'\n\nHe paused to take a bite of toast. I had a sudden image of the skyscape I'd seen from the top of the bus. Those gleaming galloping clouds \u2013 they _were_ like chariots of glory.\n\n'And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.' When I didn't say anything, he added, 'Mark chapter thirteen? Verses fourteen to twen'y-seven?'\n\n'Ben...'\n\nIn the silence between us, a sweet curly-haired child hovered on the edge of extinction. I wanted to hug him in my arms. I wanted him to be my little boy again, to tell him stories about rabbits and badgers, but he was somebody different.\n\n'I'm not saying it's all rubbish, Ben. That language \u2013 it's very powerful. But don't you think it refers to things that happened a long time ago?'\n\n'The Abomination that bringeth Desolation isn't a long time ago, Mum \u2013 it's in the future \u2013 soon. Some nutter'll drop a nuclear bomb on the Temple Mount at Jerusalem. The holy place. That stuff about fleeing into the hills, not going back for anything, not even picking up your coat. The mushroom cloud. It's all there.' He reached over for the cocoa powder and gave his toast another dusting, then he licked his finger and circled it round in the surplus cocoa on the edges of his plate.\n\n'But...' How can you take this stuff seriously? I wanted to say. And yet I realised with a pang of apprehension that Ben was far from alone, and it was my own cosy secular world view that was in retreat before a sweeping global tide of belief.\n\n'Daniel predicted it first. In the Old Testament? Then Matthew and Mark picked up on it? They didn't even know about nuclear weapons, but the way they describe it... it's kind of uncannily accurate?' His voice, crackly and insistent, seemed alien.\n\n'But isn't it just symbolic? You're not meant to take it literally, Ben.'\n\nHis eyes brightened with zeal. He licked his fingers again.\n\n'Yeah, that's what it is. Symbolic. You've got to interpret the signs? They're happening all over the world, the signs of the End Times? If you know what to look out for?'\n\nWithout his crown of brown curls, the dark downy hair on his lip and chin seemed to stand out more against the pallor of his skin. He looked like a stranger \u2013 a stranger trying to impersonate someone I knew intimately.\n\n'But they're nutcases, Ben, the people who run those websites.'\n\nI shouldn't have let my exasperation show. His voice became whiny and defensive.\n\n'Yeah, a'right, some may be a bit nutty. But the big guys that run the world \u2013 they all know it's going to happen? George Bush 'n' Tony Blair? Why d'you think they're always praying together? Why d'you think they're so, like, totally obsessed with the Middle East? Why are they getting so stressed about Iran going nuclear? _They_ know it's the prophecy of the Second Coming that's working out in our time? Like, we're the last generation?'\n\nHe slapped two bits of toast together into a sandwich, and licked at the peanut butter that squeezed out around the crusts.\n\n'Want to know why America supports Israel? Because in the Bible it says when the chosen people go back to their promised land, like they did in 1948, that's the start of the End Times.' He bit into the sandwich with a crunch. 'It's sad cases like you and Dad that'll get left behind.'\n\n'Left behind what?'\n\n'The rapture? The Second Coming? When the elect get taken up to heaven, and all the sad gits with their _Guardian_ s and their anti-war placards'll be left behind to stew in the tribulations.' A spot of jam had oozed on to the edge of his plate. He licked it off. 'George Bush's pal Tim LaHaye wrote a book called _Left Behind_. It's all in there.'\n\n'Just because George Bush believes it doesn't make it true.'\n\n'Yeah, but maybe they know something you don't? Like, they've got their sources of information? The website's got five million subscribers?' He gave me a look that was both angry and pitying. 'Don't be so blind, Mum.'\n\nThen he took a swig of water, got up abruptly taking his bag and his Bible, and stomped off to his room, his pale skull bobbing up and down as he climbed the stairs.\n\nMy stomach clenched into a knot. I finished drinking my tea and went upstairs to my bedroom. I sat on my bed with a pillow behind my back and opened up my laptop. In the rain-washed light from the window, the blue sky of my desktop image seemed absurdly optimistic. I typed _End of Time_ into Google, just as Ben said he'd done. There were literally millions of entries. I started opening a few at random, following links, and all of a sudden I found I'd stepped over a threshold into an eerie parallel world I'd never even guessed existed. Ben was right \u2013 there were millions of people out there scouring their Bibles and actively trying to calculate the timetable for the end of the world from clues in the text.\n\nAt first I felt piqued. Why hadn't I read about any of this in the _Guardian_? Or heard about it on Radio Four? Why hadn't Rip told me? Then I started to feel scared. Some sites had bizarre names like _teotwawki_ (The End of the World As We Know It), _escapeallthesethings_ , _raptureready_. Millions of people clearly _were_ getting ready. The Old Testament prophecies of Daniel and Ezekiel, the four Gospels of the New Testament and the Book of Revelation were quoted again and again in rambling blogs by individuals offering their own personal interpretations of the prophecies, and in huge complex sites with links to dozens of organisations. There were even sites that marketed 'End Times Products'. One link led to a quotation from a speech by George Bush: 'We are living in a time set apart.' It was highlighted in red and animated with horrid little flames, sharp like razor teeth. Another linked mysteriously to a page called 'How to Fix Self-Tanning Mistakes'.\n\nAlone in my dusky room, with only the fan of my laptop purring away intermittently, and these creepy fundamentalists as my guides, I could feel the boundaries of reason start to dissolve and notions from the irrational hinterland encroach into my consciousness. Was this what Ben had felt? I remembered my dream, the formless malevolent spirit, and despite myself I shuddered. Everything in this other world seemed illusive, like a nightmare in which everyday things like bar codes, seen through a prism of unreason, take on a sinister skew, while war, disease, terrorism, global warming \u2013 the scourges of our age \u2013 are seized on with glee as signals of the Second Coming. A man who called himself Jeremiah \u2013 his website showed him with a neat little goatee beard and a Scotch plaid cap similar to Mrs Shapiro's \u2013 explained that the parable of the fig tree \u2013 ' _When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh' \u2013_ referred to seasonal changes from global warming, which were a sign of imminent rapture. Power up the central heating and the air conditioning! Roll on, four-by-fours! Fly by jet! Consume! As the earth warms up and the fig trees blossom, those lucky ones, the elect, will be seized and whisked off into heaven! His smug little smile said it all.\n\nHow come I didn't know about any of this? I thought back to my religious knowledge lessons at Kippax Primary School, Mrs Rowbottom wearing her mauve bobble-knit jumper and a porcelain rose brooch; the smell of closely packed children, and Lionheart the school rabbit snoozing in his cage; the little bottles of pre-Thatcher milk waiting in the crates by the door. We'd learned about forgiveness and mercy. We'd learned about the wheat and the tares, and the Prodigal Son. I'd even got a gold star for my drawing of the Good Samaritan. Mum had proudly put it on the fridge in the kitchen, even though Dad was a subscriber to the opium-of-the-masses theory of religion.\n\nWhen we were a bit older, we discussed motes and beams, and learned to recite the Beatitudes and Saint Paul's _faith, hope and charity_ epistle off by heart. It had all seemed very uplifting and benign. I had no idea about all this other stuff. Had Mrs Rowbottom known? If so, she'd seemed unperturbed.\n\nJeremiah's website had a Promised Land link which took me to a whole page of links to both Christian and Jewish sites discussing God's promise to the Jews. When was that promise to be fulfilled? In God's time, in the prophesied future? Or now, in the present-day Middle East? Was the rebuilding of the third Temple in Jerusalem a metaphor for spiritual rebirth? Or was it about bricks and mortar? The cyber-arguments raged. Something else Ben had said came into my mind. When the chosen people go back into Israel, in 1948, that's the start of the End Times. My mind flashed to the letter in the piano stool. _Our Promised Land._ The date on the letter was 1950. When I'd read it first, it had seemed like a quaint voice from another age. Now past, present and future were in terrifying collision.\n\nAnd it wasn't only Christians and Jews who were preoccupied with the Second Coming. Ben had said something about a Last Imam. Google came up with more than a million links to websites anticipating the imminent return of the Imam al-Mahdi. It all seemed a long way from the Prince of Wales's bar codes.\n\nAs I surfed from one link to another, the light from my laptop screen threw an eerie coloured glow on the walls and ceiling. I was beginning to understand why Ben was so rattled. Compared with the vast inevitability of this Rapture machine, the world of our own little secular family seemed puny and insubstantial. Dusk dimmed into darkness outside the window, where flurries of rain still pattered on the glass. Yes, the rain. I forgot to ask him about the rain. \n\n# 30\n\n# The broken gutter\n\nBy Saturday the rain had stopped but the pavements were still wet, and soft heavy drops dripped from the overhanging trees as I walked along to Canaan House, where I'd arranged to meet Mr Ali to take a look at the gutter. I'd set out a little early, hoping to catch him on his own. I wanted to ask him about Lydda; I wanted to find out about Islam and the Last Imam. But as I turned into Totley Place, I spotted a small battered red van parked in the lane that led to Canaan House, and then I heard men's voices in the garden, shouting. I quickened my step. The shouting got louder \u2013 I couldn't tell what they were shouting \u2013 it wasn't in English anyway. Violetta dashed out to greet me; she was running around in circles, mewing.\n\nAs I approached the gate, I glimpsed between the trees a terrifying sight \u2013 Mr Ali was dangling in the air, like a rather tubby Tarzan wearing a pink-and-mauve knitted hat. He was hanging on for grim death to a length of cast-iron gutter that had come away from the wall. I watched transfixed as he tried to reach with his toes for the window ledge, bawling something in a foreign language. All that was holding him up was a rusty iron bracket at one end, and a twine of ivy that had clambered over the roof and luckily got a grip on the chimneys. On the ground, floundering among the wet brambles, two young men in flowing white robes and Arabic headgear were grappling with an extendable aluminium ladder that had come apart.\n\nThey heaved it this way and that, their robes snagging in the brambles. The ladder definitely seemed to be winning. At last they slotted the three sections together and wielded it in Mr Ali's direction, trying to catch him as he hung with just one toe now resting precariously on the window ledge, and the other kicking at the air. But they swung the ladder too wide, then overcorrected and swung it too far the other way. Mr Ali let out a tirade of furious words. I could see the bracket straining under his weight and the ivy coming away from the bricks. If they didn't get their act together fast, he was going to plummet some thirty feet on to the stone terrace in front of the house. I held my breath, and a thought clicked in my head \u2013 these young men, they really are unbelievably useless.\n\nIn the end they managed to get the ladder under Mr Ali, but it was too short to reach the ground. So one of them held it up to Mr Ali's flailing foot, while the other one tried to extend it from below, jerking the catch-hooks down over the rungs, Mr Ali shrieking in terror at each jerk. Then he jerked too hard and the ladder fell apart again. Wonder Boy was sitting in the porch watching, flicking his tail with excitement, a beastly look on his face.\n\nI stood on the path, petrified, thinking I should definitely keep out of this. I didn't want to distract the men's attention for a single second, for I could see that a momentary lapse might be fatal. But just as they'd almost reassembled the ladder, the one at the front lost concentration at exactly the moment that Wonder Boy decided to make a dash for it. Swerving to avoid the cat, his foot caught in a loop of bramble and he staggered forward, holding the ladder high and crashing the top section right through the bedroom window inches away from Mr Ali, completely smashing away the bottom frame. A shower of glass tinkled on to the flagstones.\n\nMr Ali was still balancing with one leg on the window sill and one thrashing the air, yelling his head off. Then he spotted me by the gate. Our eyes met. It was too late for me to back away. He called down to the two men in the garden, and they looked round, shouting and beckoning. So I ran over to help. I grabbed one end of the ladder, determined to show that although I was a woman, I was not utterly useless like them. But it was much heavier than I thought. As I swayed under its weight, the other end swung round, clonking one of them on the head. He staggered back into the bushes and lay there, motionless. I rushed to his aid. Oh, heck! Had I killed him? Mr Ali and the other young man had gone silent, too. Wonder Boy, who had come over to investigate, gazed up at me and I thought I glimpsed in his slitty yellow eyes a look of... was it respect?\n\nAfter a few moments the young man pulled himself out of the bushes, no harm done, and between the three of us we managed to extend the ladder to its full length and get it up securely against the wall below Mr Ali's feet. He climbed down, bawling at the other two \u2013 he was literally spitting with rage. Then just as his feet touched the ground, all the fight seemed to go out of him, and he slumped down, his head resting on his knees, breathing deeply.\n\n'This job is for a younger, fitter man. Not double excel gentleman my age.'\n\n'But you _did_ excel, Mr Ali. Keeping so calm,' I said, though calmness, to be honest, was not the first word that sprang to mind.\n\n'No, size XXL, Mrs George.' He clasped his arms around his hamster tummy. 'My wife feeds me too much. No good for climbing up ladders.'\n\nI laughed. 'Next time, you should get one of the other two to go up the ladder.'\n\nHe shook his head with a melancholy sigh, but said nothing.\n\nThe other two were perched uncomfortably on the triple edge of the ladder. They had got out a packet of cigarettes, and were lighting up. I wondered why they were wearing those bizarre outfits \u2013 they looked more like extras out of _Lawrence of Arabia_ than any Palestinians I'd seen on TV. They were younger than Mr Ali, taller, and incredibly handsome in a dark-flashing-eyes white-flashing-teeth kind of way. (Tut. Isn't this an utterly incorrect stereotype? Get a grip, Georgie. They're young enough to be your sons.)\n\n'Hello,' I smiled. 'I'm Georgie.'\n\nThey nodded their heads and flashed their teeth at me. It was clear they didn't speak a word of English. Mr Ali struggled to his feet.\n\n'Allow me to make introductions. Mrs George, this is Ishmail, my nephew. He is completely useless. This is his friend Nabeel. He is also completely useless.'\n\nThe useless young men nodded and flashed their teeth. 'What a misfortune at my age to have two complete Uselesses for my assistants.'\n\nThen he spoke in Arabic to them, and something about the way he looked at me suggested that he was saying I was pretty useless, too. They nodded politely at me and smiled some more.\n\nWhen they'd finished their cigarettes and stubbed them out on the ground, they put the ladder up against the wall and Nabeel held the bottom of the ladder while Ishmail started to mount it, his feet tangling in his robe.\n\n'No, no, no!' yelled Mr Ali, jumping up, then he yelled something in Arabic. It was obvious even to me that the ladder was too short and the angle too steep to be safe. 'We must get a bigger ladder. I told you this one is no good.'\n\nThe Uselesses heaved the no-good ladder on to the roof-rack of the van with a lot of puffing and shouting, then sat on the step of the porch and lit up again. They were grinning like a pair of naughty kids and batting each other with a folded newspaper printed in Arabic. Mr Ali reached across and confiscated it.\n\n'This house \u2013 it needs too much work,' he sighed. There was a big damp patch on his trousers from sitting on the wet ground. 'I do not know if I can do it with these Uselesses.'\n\n'I'm sure you can,' I said, making my voice especially calm, which I felt was called for in the situation. 'There's no hurry. I think Mrs Shapiro will be away for a while.'\n\n'You think? Hm.'\n\nHe paused and gave me an oblique look. The Uselesses were still sitting in the porch, but now they'd started arguing in loud voices and shoving each other off the step. Then Mussorgsky appeared at the broken bedroom window (how had he got in there?) and began yowling with gusto, and Wonder Boy yowled back from the garden, a smug selfsatisfied yowl.\n\n'You know, Mrs George, I am thinking is a pity so big house must stand empty.'\n\nMr Ali stroked his neat beard and looked at me thoughtfully again. 'This, my nephew Ishmail \u2013 he has no place to stay. Sleeping on floor in my apartment. Drive my wife mad. This other useless one, too, sometimes sleeping in there.'\n\nI could see what he meant \u2013 they would drive me mad, too.\n\n'Well... I don't know what Mrs Shapiro would think...' I started. Then it occurred to me that these two might be useless at house repairs, but they could do a great job of keeping the likes of Mrs Goodney and Nick Wolfe at bay. And they could feed the cats. 'It would have to be on the strict understanding that they move out when Mrs Shapiro comes back.'\n\n'No problem. Even if they stay for short time it will make big difference for my wife. Give her chance to clean up.'\n\nI wondered what Mrs Shapiro would say if I told her they were Palestinian.\n\n'I am sorry they have no money for paying rent. But they will repair the house. Everything will be fixitup like new.' He saw the look on my face. 'I supervise, of course.'\n\nI suppose I should have said no there and then, but there was something irresistibly cuddly about Mr Ali. And besides, I was on the scent of another story.\n\n'Where did you learn all your building skills, Mr Ali? In Lydda?'\n\nHe shook his head.\n\n'No. We were sent away from Lydda. Do you not know what happened there?'\n\n'You mean the terrorist attack? I know about that,' I said, pleased with myself.\n\n'Ha! All of the world knows this.' He seemed annoyed. 'Terrorists shooting on innocent Israelis. But you know why? You know what happened before?'\n\nI shook my head. 'Tell me.'\n\nIn a clearing in the brambles Wonder Boy and Mussorgsky were now hissing and going for one another with their claws. Violetta was hovering close by, waving her tail and making little yelping noises of encouragement, though I couldn't work out which one she was encouraging. Mr Ali flicked the newspaper at them to chase them away.\n\n'In 1948 all Palestinians were sent out from Lydda. Not only Lydda \u2013 many many towns and villages in our country were destroyed. To make way for Jews. People still are living in the refugee camps.'\n\nHe went suddenly quiet.\n\n'But... but you learned to be a builder, yes?' I encouraged, wanting to reassure myself that something positive had come out of all that displacement, all that history clogged up with memories of unrighted wrongs.\n\n'In Ramallah I trained for engineer.' (He pronounced it inzhineer.) 'Here in England I must make new examinations. But I am old and time has tipped his bucket on me. This useless one,' he pointed at his nephew, 'he will study for engineering, too. Aeronautical.'\n\n'Aeronautical?'\n\nThat sounded quite brainy. I tried to imagine going up in an aeroplane engineered by Ishmail, and felt an uncomfortable tightening in my chest.\n\n'He has a scholarship.' He had lowered his voice to a proud whisper. 'Other one, I don't know. Now they are both learning English. First-class English language course nearby to here \u2013 Metropolitan University, next door from Arsenal Stadium.'\n\nThe Uselesses, realising that they were being talked about, chipped in.\n\n'Arsenal. Yes, please.'\n\nYes, it would need to be a first-class English course, I thought.\n\n'So why did _you_ come to England, Mr Ali? I mean, wasn't your family over there?'\n\n'You are asking difficult questions, Mrs George.'\n\nI could see he didn't really want to talk, but I was still filling in the gaps in the story.\n\n'I'm sorry. It's a Yorkshire habit. Where I come from, everybody knows everybody's business.'\n\nHe hesitated, then continued. 'You know, after my youngest son died, I saw no hope. No possibility of end to this conflict. I wanted only to come away from this place. I have a good friend, Englishman, he was a teacher in Friends School in Ramallah. He helped me to come here.'\n\n'Your son died...?'\n\nSuddenly, my nosiness had led me into a darker avenue than I'd intended.\n\n'He had a burst appendix.' He stared at the ground as though his son's face was pictured there. 'We were in Rantis, visiting wife's family. We wanted to take him to hospital in Tel Aviv but we were delayed at the checkpoint. My wife was weeping and pleading with the soldiers \u2013 one soldier \u2013 he was a boy of eighteen but he had a power of life or death over us. He was playing with his power. He said we must go back to Ramallah. When we got there it was too late.' His eyes glinted with a harder brightness. 'How can I forgive? My son was fourteen years old.'\n\nOn a corner of the newspaper, he started to draw a map.\n\n'This was five years ago. Now with wall is worse. You can see. Green Line. Wall line.' He drew another snaking line. I stared at the map \u2013 the crazy curling line \u2013 and felt a flutter of panic. Maps. Not my thing. But why did it snake around so much. In fact, why was there a line at all?\n\n'So you wanted to leave...?'\n\n'Now my daughter is married with this Englishman. I have three grandchildren.' He smiled briefly. 'Drive my wife mad.'\n\nI thought I'd like to meet his wife one day.\n\nThe Uselesses had finished their cigarettes, and gone off to sit in the van. They must have had a CD player in there, because I could hear strains of Arabic music, sweet and melancholy, drifting incongruously over the damp lawn and dripping brambles.\n\nBut maybe all places have their histories of sadness and displacement, I was thinking. People move in, others move on; new lives and new communities spring up among the stones of the old. In school, we'd learned about the history of Kippax, how in the 1840s miners from Scotland and Wales had been recruited as scabs to break up the union in County Durham \u2013 desperate hungry men sucking the marrow out of the bones of other desperate hungry men. When the seam at Ledston Luck was opened up, their grandchildren and great-grandchildren were brought down from County Durham to Yorkshire and settled in Kippax. There are men who shape destiny, who draw lines on maps and shift populations about; and there are men like Dad and Mr Ali who live their lives in the interstices of the grand plans of others, labouring to provide food and shelter for their families.\n\n'So, what you say, Mrs George?' Mr Ali interrupted my thoughts. 'They stay here and fixitup the house?'\n\n'I don't know,' I said weakly. My heart ached for sad exiled Mr Ali and his charming useless assistants, but I owed a duty of care to Mrs Shapiro, and the scenario with the ladder had filled me with apprehension. 'Maybe if you fix the gutter first, it'll give me time to have a word with Mrs Shapiro.'\n\n'Tomorrow,' he said, 'we come with the new gutter and big ladder. You will see.'\n\n'And, er, the window. That needs fixing, too, now.'\n\n# 31\n\n# The epoxy hardener\n\nSometimes when I try to understand what's going on in the world, I find myself thinking about glue. Every adhesive interacts with surfaces and with the environment in its own particular ways; some are cured by light, some by heat, some by the exchange of subatomic particles, some simply by the passage of time. The skill in achieving a good bond is to match the appropriate adhesive to the adherends to be bonded.\n\nAcrylics, for example, are known to be fast curing, and they don't require as much surface preparation as epoxies, which have high cohesive strength but a slower cure rate. Epoxy adhesives have two components: the adhesive itself, and a hardening agent, which accelerates the process. On Friday, I was sitting at my laptop, pondering this profound philosophical duality, when a cunning thought slipped into my head. What I needed to re-bond with Mrs Shapiro was a hardening agent. And who could be harder than Mr Wolfe?\n\nFlushed with inspiration, I rummaged in the desk drawer for a card and wrote a get-well-soon note to Mrs Shapiro, adding that I was doing my best to visit her and advising her under no circumstances to sign anything until we'd talked. I mentioned that I'd found some builders who might be staying at the house while they did some work there \u2013 I freely admit, I didn't go into much detail. I told her the cats were doing extremely well and that Wonder Boy was missing her (well, probably he was, in his own brutal and selfish way). I enclosed a stamped addressed envelope and a blank sheet of paper, put it all in an envelope with the card, and sealed it. Then I walked down to the office of Wolfe & Diabello. A quick reconnoitre in the car park round the back told me that Mark Diabello was out and Nick Wolfe was in.\n\nIn the small office, his physical presence was overwhelming; he seemed to fill the whole room, pushing me back against the wall. He greeted me with a bruising hand-grip and asked me what he could do me for. (Either he thought that old clich\u00e9 was still amusing, or his unconscious was speaking.) I told him in my specially friendly voice that Mrs Shapiro had been asking after him. On a yellow Post-it note, I scribbled the address of Northmere House and, handing him my envelope, said that if he found the time to call round, would he drop off the card from me, too.\n\n'Fine,' he said.\n\nThen I went home and got on with _Adhesives in the Modern World_. The article I was editing was about the importance of good joint design in bonding. You see, however good the glue, a poorly designed joint can snooker you. End to end joints should be overlapped if possible, or tongued and grooved, or mortised and tenoned. Or you could go for a hybrid joint \u2013 I remembered Nathan's joke, glue and a screw. You should always prepare the surfaces to maximise the bonding area. _'Surface atraction is increased, by rouhgening or scraching the surfaces to be bonded.'_\n\nThe article had been written by a young man who knew his glues but seemed to have a total contempt for spelling and punctuation. What do they teach them in school these days? I tutted to myself. Ben was just as bad.\n\nI found myself worrying about how he'd got on in school today. He'd struggled to settle into his new class when we'd moved down from Leeds; in fact the New Year's email chat with the strange semi-literate Spikey was the nearest I'd got to meeting any of his friends. I was anxious that his shaved head and religious leanings could make him a target for bullies, and while we were having tea that evening I tried to raise it with him.\n\n'What did they say at school, then, when you turned up with your new hair-do \u2013 your no-hair-do?'\n\n'Oh, nothing.'\n\nWithout his brown curls his face looked different. The brown hair was my genetic legacy, but those arched eyebrows, with their slightly haughty lift, and the intense blueness of the eyes \u2013 I could see more of Rip in him now.\n\n'Didn't the kids take the mick?'\n\nHe shrugged. 'Yeah, a bit, but I don't care. Jesus suffered taunts an' that, din't he?'\n\nYes, and look what happened to him \u2013 I held back the thought, and loaded my voice with maternal concern. 'But wasn't it a bit... horrible? I mean, kids can be very cruel.'\n\n'Nah,' he said. 'It's all earthly stuff. Don't bother me. Brings me closer to Our Lord.'\n\nWhen he'd finished his meal, he laid down his knife and fork, put his hands together briefly and closed his eyes. Then he picked up his bag and disappeared upstairs. Maybe I should have been pleased that he wasn't stealing cars or taking drugs, but there was a scary intensity about him that was almost like an aura of martyrdom. I felt a stab of guilt. Was it our failure as parents that had led him to seek out a different kind of certainty? Sometimes I felt I wasn't grown-up enough myself to be a parent \u2013 I always seemed to be just a step ahead, making it up as I went along.\n\nRip didn't have any such uncertainties \u2013 he always knew what was right, and committed himself to making it happen. It was one of the things I'd loved about him \u2013 his commitment. Yes, perhaps I had been wrong not to take more of an interest in his work. But what exactly was it that he did? Something about global systems for iterating progress. Or iterating systematic progressive globalisation. Or globalising iterative progressive systems. I understood each word on its own, but together, they had the same effect on my brain as phenolic hydroxyls. I'd made some notes once, ages ago, on a bit of paper, while he was explaining it to me, thinking I'd get my head round it in my own time, that one day we would converse about progress, globalisation, systems and suchlike. It was in the desk drawer somewhere, jumbled up with the old rubber bands and the out-of-ink biros.\n\nOn impulse, I picked the phone up and dialled his number. A young woman answered \u2013 I nearly didn't recognise her voice.\n\n'Stella?'\n\n'Mum?'\n\nThe pain of missing her caught me off guard like a thump in the chest.\n\n'Aren't you supposed to be at uni?' (Why was she visiting Rip and not me?)\n\n'I... It's reading week. I just came down to see...' I guessed from her hesitation that it might be something to do with her complicated love life. 'Do you want to speak to Dad?'\n\nHer voice \u2013 so sweet \u2013 still reedy like a child's, but with an adult's self-assurance. She'd always been a daddy's girl. Sometimes their closeness made me envious.\n\n'Yes \u2013 no. Stella, can _we_ talk? We always seem to communicate by messages and texts.'\n\n'So?' A prickly tone. She didn't want me making her feel guilty.\n\n'Listen, I'm worried about Ben. Have you noticed anything different about him?'\n\nI realised she wouldn't have seen his haircut yet, but she and Ben were close \u2013 they'd fought and loved one another all through their childhoods, just as Keir and I had done.\n\n'He's always been a bit mental, my little bro.'\n\nShe was always so confident in her judgements.\n\n'But does he seem unhappy to you?'\n\n'He's cool, Mum. He's got religion in a big way, that's all \u2013 like I had Leonardo DiCaprio when I was his age.'\n\n'That's what I mean \u2013 religion \u2013 it doesn't seem quite normal for sixteen.'\n\n'I don't know what's wrong with you, Mum. He could be shooting up or nicking cars, and you're stressing about him reading the Bible.'\n\nMaybe she's right, maybe that's all it is, I thought, a schoolboy phase. But there was something terrifying about his intensity, the strained look on his face, the dilated eyes.\n\n'He talks about the end of the world as though it's going to happen any minute now.'\n\n'Yeah, Dad keeps on at him about it. They had a big row over Christmas. Then Grandpa got stuck in.'\n\n'I wondered what that was about.'\n\n'Ben started banging on about religion.'\n\n'What did he say?'\n\n'Something about miring the sanctity of Christmas with alcohol and consumerism. They all laughed. Ben got really upset and tried to shut them up.'\n\n'Poor Ben.' I kept my voice even, but I could feel my rage boiling up in me.\n\n'It was gross. Grandpa called him a pansy.'\n\n'What did Ben say?'\n\n'He said, I forgive you, Grandpa.' She giggled. I giggled, too. I tried to imagine my father-in-law's face.\n\n'Good for him.'\n\nBen hadn't told me because he'd wanted to spare my feelings.\n\n'Stella, it's lovely to talk to you. Have you finished your teaching practice?'\n\n'Yeah. It was nearly enough to turn me into a mass child-murderer. I don't know if teaching's really me.' There was a slight whininess in her voice that I recognised, too. 'But anyway, I'll stick with it till the end of the course, then decide. Don't worry about Ben, Mum. He'll be fine.'\n\nWhen I put the phone down I was filled with a wonderful sense of ease, as if a sack of rocks had just rolled from my shoulders; I wanted to run out into the street and hug everybody. Instead, I burst into Ben's room and hugged him.\n\n'You all right, Mum?' He lifted his head from the computer.\n\n'I've just been talking to Stella.'\n\n'What did she say?'\n\n'Oh... she said she wasn't sure about teaching \u2013 whether it was right for her.'\n\nHe gave me a long intense look.\n\n'You need to calm down, Mum. You're getting hyper again.'\n\n# 32\n\n# UPVC\n\nOn Saturday morning, after Ben had left for Rip's, I got a phone call from Mr Ali.\n\n'You can come and see, Mrs George. House is all fixitup.'\n\nThey were waiting for me when I arrived \u2013 all three of them, plus the cats. The Uselesses were wearing jeans and baseball caps. I don't know what had happened to their Arabic gear. Mr Ali was grinning with pride.\n\n'See?'\n\nUpstairs, where the old Victorian window had been smashed, a brand new double-glazed white uPVC top-opening window unit had been fitted \u2013 it was a bit short for the opening, which had been bricked up with breeze blocks to make it fit. There was a new gutter running the length of the house, also in white uPVC. The brambles had been hacked back to make room for a white uPVC table and chair set, and a white uPVC birdbath sat in the centre of the lawn. Wonder Boy was sitting beside it, surrounded by feathers, licking his chops and looking very pleased with himself.\n\n'It's... er... lovely...' I put on a smile.\n\nThe useless ones beamed.\n\n'You let them stay, they will fixitup everything for you,' said Mr Ali.\n\n'Maybe... maybe not too many repairs. Just essential things. Maybe the woodwork just needs rubbing down and a lick of paint.'\n\n'Baint, yes,' he nodded enthusiastically, and said something in Arabic. The useless ones nodded enthusiastically, too.\n\n'I'll give you a ring. I need to get a spare set of keys cut,' I said, playing for time, thinking maybe Mrs Shapiro would be back soon.\n\nBut on Wednesday morning there was a letter for me on the door mat. I recognised my own handwriting on the envelope. The letter inside was written with thick blue marker-pen \u2013 the sort Mum used for marking her Bingo cards.\n\nDearest Georgine\n\nThank you for your Card and for you sending my Nicky to comfort me in Prison. He is quite adorable! He was coming with Champagne and white Roses. A real Gentleman! We were talking for Hours about Poetry Music Philosophy the Time was passing too quick like flowing Water under a Bridge and I am always asking myself what matters it if there gives a Gulf in our Ages so long as there gives a Harmony inbetween our Souls. It was like so with Artem he was twenty years my older but we have found Joy together. I wonder if I would ever find such a Joy again with another Man to feel the arms of a Mans around me and the warmth of a good Body close beside mine better than Cats. He has said he will come again now every Hour is dragging too long I wait for him to come and you also my dear Georgine. How have I escaped Transportation and Inprisonment in all my Life only to face it now alone in my Older Age. They are wanting me to sign a Confession before I can return to my Home. They are saying I must give the Power of Returning but my Nicky also is saying I must not sign nothing so I am putting a brave Resistance. I must stop the Nurse comes soon with my Injection. Please help me.\n\nYour dear Friend\n\nNaomi Shapiro\n\nI read it through a couple of times. Then I tried to read between the lines. Then I phoned Mr Wolfe.\n\n'Thanks for taking my card round. How was she? She looked awful in hospital. I was surprised they let her out so quickly.'\n\n'Bit of bruising. Gash to the head. Nothing too serious. We had a good laugh.'\n\n'She seems to be very fond of you.' I was wheedling for information.\n\n'Yes. And you know, in a funny way, I've grown quite fond of her, too.'\n\nThere was a glibness in his voice, as though it was something he'd been practising.\n\n'Do you know anything about this confession she's been asked to sign?'\n\n'Sorry?'\n\n'Something about power of returning.'\n\n'Ah. Yes. They're wanting her to sign a Power of Attorney.'\n\n'What does that mean?' It sounded ominous.\n\n'It means they \u2013 whoever she signed it over to \u2013 would have the power to sign legal documents on her behalf.'\n\n'Like the sale of a house, for instance?'\n\n'Got it in one.'\n\nI felt my heart starting to race. Things seemed to be spiralling out of control again, but I kept my voice steady.\n\n'What can we do to stop that?'\n\n'I've been wondering that myself.'\n\nWhatever he had in mind, he obviously wasn't going to share it. I needed to find out what he knew, without giving away too much myself. Then I thought of something that would put him on the back foot.\n\n'Did she tell you about her son? Apparently he's coming over from Israel. That'll be a great help, won't it?'\n\nI thought I heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the phone.\n\n'Indeed.'\n\nThere was something else I needed to know.\n\n'By the way, did you have any trouble getting in? They seem to have quite strict security.'\n\n'Oh, yes, they told me she wasn't allowed any visitors.'\n\n'So...?'\n\n'I just told them not to be so bloody ridiculous.'\n\nSo that's how it's done, I thought.\n\nAn hour or so later the phone rang. It was Mark Diabello.\n\n'Hi, Georgina. Glad I've caught you at home. Listen, I think I've got the answer to your dilemma.'\n\n'What dilemma?' I tried to remember our last conversation. It was something unpleasant and incomprehensible about bricks and money.\n\n'How to avoid Mrs Shapiro having to sell up if she goes into a home. Apparently the Council can just put a charge on her house. It's like a mortgage \u2013 the house is sold after the person dies, and that's when the Council calls in the debt. The residue, if any, goes to the estate.'\n\n'You mean the debt to cover the nursing-home fees? Nobody told me about that.'\n\n'Well, they wouldn't, would they?'\n\n'But the thing is, Mark, she doesn't need to be in a nursing home at all. She's fine at home. She likes her independence.'\n\n'You'd better get her back home as soon as you can, then. Or get someone else to live in the house till she gets back. These things've got a way of picking up their own momentum.'\n\n'Tell me about it.'\n\nThe whole house saga had picked up far too much momentum, as far as I was concerned, and he'd been among those pushing it along.\n\n'How about over dinner tonight, sweetheart?'\n\nThere was an earnest note in his voice that made me feel guilty; but I steeled myself.\n\n'I can't. I'm meeting... somebody. And I've got a lot of work on at the moment \u2013 something I'm trying to write,' I added quickly.\n\n'You're a very active woman. I like that.' A sigh or a crackle on the line. 'As it happens, I do a bit of writing myself. Poetry.'\n\n'Really?' Despite myself, I was intrigued. The hero of the original _Splattered Heart_ had been a poet, too. 'Will you show me?'\n\n'I'd love to. When...?'\n\n'I'll ring you.' I put the phone down.\n\nI'd arranged to meet Mr Ali and the Uselesses in the afternoon, and I still hadn't got a set of keys cut, so I walked down to the cobbler's on the Balls Pond Road then back up to Totley Place. It had turned cold again, a spiteful, stabbing cold, with a mean wind shaking the naked branches of the trees against a washed-out sky and flinging swirls of litter and dead leaves against my legs. At least the rain had held off.\n\nIt was just after two when I arrived at Canaan House. The red van was already parked outside, and the three of them were hunched up in the front, the Uselesses puffing at cigarettes, Mr Ali reading a newspaper. The house looked startlingly different, the white plastic window with its breeze-block base seemed to wink at me like a diseased eye. As soon as they saw me they jumped down, talking excitedly in Arabic, and followed me up the path, carrying their stuff with them in dozens of carrier bags. They looked as though they were planning to move in for a while. There were sleeping bags, books, clothes, a CD player, and even an old PC. In one carrier bag I spotted what looked like the Arabic outfits \u2013 obviously they hadn't given up on them yet. I showed them upstairs.\n\nWhile they were unpacking and sorting their stuff out, I walked around the house with Mr Ali, pointing out the things I thought needed fixing: the missing slates on the porch, the broken latch on the door to the sitting room and the faulty light, the peeling wallpaper in the dining room, the dripping taps in the bathroom and kitchen, the cracked toilet bowl, and the huge gaps around the edges of doors and window frames where the wind whistled in. Those were just the obvious things.\n\n'Hm. Hm,' he said, writing it all down in a notebook. 'All will be fixitup good, Mrs George.'\n\nHe'd never seen inside the whole house before. As his bright hamster eyes explored the details of the rooms he made little murmurs of amazement. 'Hm. Hm.' When we went up into the attic, he gasped. 'In here we could make beautiful benthouse suite.'\n\n'Let's just concentrate on the essentials to start with,' I said.\n\nDown in the hall, he stopped once more in front of the picture of the church at Lydda, his arms folded in front of him. I tried to read the emotion in his face, but he was turned in profile, so all I could see was the shadow of a furrow in his brow.\n\n'You know, exactly next door to this church was a mosque. Cross and crescent standing side by side in peace.'\n\n'Tell me more about Lydda,' I said. 'Is your family still there?'\n\n'Do you not know about Nakba?'\n\n'Nakba? What's that?'\n\n'Hm. You are completely ignorant.' He said it with a sigh, in the same way that he'd introduced the Uselesses. 'In my country we say that ignorance is the warm bath in which it is comfortable to sit but dangerous to lie down.'\n\n'I'm sorry. I'll make some tea if you tell me.'\n\nI put the kettle on, rinsed two of the less grotty cups as thoroughly as I could under the tap, and put a kr\u00e4utertee tea bag into each of them. We sat on the wooden chairs at the kitchen table. Fortunately I'd cleared away the remnants of Mrs Shapiro's last unfinished meal. He drank his pond water with three heaped spoonfuls of sugar, so I put the same into mine \u2013 obviously this was the secret. We stirred and sipped.\n\n'So you were going to tell me about your family,' I prompted.\n\n'I will tell you how they left Lydda. But you know the history \u2013 about British Palestine Mandate?'\n\n'Well, just a bit. Actually, not a lot.'\n\nHe sighed again.\n\n'But you know about Jewish Holocaust?'\n\n'Yes, I know about that.'\n\n'Of course, everybody knows about sufferings of the Jews.' He sniffed irritably. 'Only suffering of Palestinian people nobody knows.'\n\n'But I want to know, Mr Ali. If you'll tell me.'\n\nThis story \u2013 I could see by now that it was going to be much more complicated than a Ms Firestorm-type romance. But it had somehow got under my skin.\n\nMr Ali blew on his tea and took a sip, sucking the sweet liquid off the ends of his moustache.\n\n'You know in the end of the war, after what they have done to the Jews, the whole world was looking for a Jewish homeland? And the cunning British say \u2013 look, we will give them this land in Palestine. Land without people, people without land. Typical British, they give away something which does not belong to them.' He looked up to make sure I was still paying attention. I nodded encouragingly. 'This land is not empty, Mrs George. Palestinian people have been living there, farming our land, for generations. Now they say we must give half of it up to the Jews. Did you not learn about it in school?'\n\n'No.' I was embarrassed by my ignorance. Geography, okay I had an excuse. But I'd done history at 'O' level. 'In history lessons we learned about Kings and Queens of England. Henry the Eighth and his six wives.'\n\n'Six wives? All at one time?'\n\n'No. He killed two and he divorced two, and one died.'\n\n'Typical British behaviour. Same with us. Some killed. Some sent away into exile. Some died.' Mr Ali shook his head crossly and took a gulp of tea, scalding his mouth and sucking in air to cool himself down.\n\n'But that was a long time ago.'\n\n'No. Nineteen forty-eight. Same like the Romans did to Jews, Jews did to Palestinians. Chased them out. We call it Nakba. It means disaster in your language.'\n\n'No, I mean Henry the Eighth was a long time ago.'\n\n'Before Romans?'\n\n'No, after the Romans, but before... Never mind.' I saw the bemused look on his face.\n\n'It's all just history, isn't it?'\n\nThis seemed to make him even more annoyed.\n\n'You have learned nothing in school. Apart from a man with six wives. History has no borders, Mrs George. Past rolls up into present rolls up into future.' He made agitated roly-poly movements with his hands. 'Young Israelis also are ignorant. In school, their teachers tell them Jews came into an empty land, but not how this land was made empty.'\n\nI thought about the letter in the piano stool. Yes, that's what _she_ wrote \u2013 a barren and empty land.\n\n'So was it like... the Nazis and the Jews?'\n\n'No, not like Nazis,' he tutted angrily. 'You must not exaggerate. Israelis do not plan to exterminate all Arab people, only to drive them out of the land.'\n\n'But the Jewish people need a homeland, too. Don't they?'\n\nHe sighed. His mouth curled down.\n\n'But why in Palestine? Palestinian people never made any harm to Jews. Pogrom, ghetto, concentration camp \u2013 Europeans made all this. So why they make their revenge on us?'\n\n'It _was_ their land, wasn't it? Before the Romans sent them away?'\n\n'This land belongs to many peoples. All nomadic peoples wandering here and there, following their sheeps. Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Arabia, Mesopotamia. Who knows where everybody was coming from?'\n\nMy mind blanked out. All those places \u2013 how on earth did they fit together? I would have to look it up on the internet.\n\n'They will tell you Palestinians abandoned their farms and houses and ran away because their leaders told them. No, they ran away because of terror. Israeli state was made by terrorists. You think only crazy Arabs are terrorists?' Mr Ali was becoming intensely un-hamster-like.\n\n'I'm sorry to be so ignorant. At school we just learned British history.'\n\n'So you must know about Balfour Declaration?'\n\n'A bit.' I couldn't admit how little that bit was. 'Wasn't it about partitioning the Middle East at the end of the First World War?'\n\nI'd seen _Lawrence of Arabia_ once, with Peter O'Toole. He was great. Those eyes. But I'd never understood who betrayed whom over what. I remembered the bit where he fell off the motorbike. That was sad.\n\n'Balfour said to meet Jewish aspirations without prejudicing rights of Palestinians.'\n\nThere was something about those words that reminded me vaguely of the Progress Project. He took a gulp of pond water, and continued.\n\n'But Palestinian people still are sitting in refugee camps. They have lost their lands, fields, orchards. They have no work, no hope. So they sit in refugee camps and dream of revenge.' His eyes were glittering with unusual ferocity. 'They have no weapons, so they make their children into weapons.'\n\nI put the kettle on again, wondering about Ben. How had he blundered into this thorny Biblical world?\n\n'Isn't there a prophecy, Mr Ali? Don't the Jews have to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, where the Messiah will come back? The third Temple?'\n\n'Their book says they must rebuild the Temple. But it is not possible at this time, because on this site now stands our mosque \u2013 al-Aqsa Mosque. Next to the Dome of the Rock. One of our most holy places.'\n\n'But is it true that Muslims, too, are waiting for the Last Imam? The Imam al-Mahdi. Do you believe that, Mr Ali?'\n\nHe hadn't struck me as a man of extreme beliefs \u2013 beyond an extreme misplaced belief in white uPVC.\n\n'I will answer your question. Mostly Shia believe in the return of al-Mahdi. I am Sunni.' He gave me a curious look. 'You learned about this in school?'\n\n'No. On the internet.'\n\nI saw now that the hard glitter in his eyes was a trick of the light, and when he turned towards me his face was gentle and sad. I took a deep breath.\n\n'Actually it was my son who told me. He found all this stuff on the internet. Weird sites about the end of time. The Antichrist. Armageddon. Great armies and battles. The Abomination, whatever that is. He's so preoccupied with it... I was worried, that's all. I wanted to understand what it was about.'\n\nThe kettle whistled, and I made us another round of kr\u00e4utertee. Mr Ali spooned three more sugars into his cup and stirred, looking at me gravely.\n\n'Mrs George, the young are ready to believe anything that will lead them into heaven. Even to die for it. And there are always some whisperers who will say to them that death is the gateway to life.'\n\n'You mean...?'\n\nI shivered as though a cold draught had touched my neck. I had a sudden image of Ben \u2013 my lovely curly-haired Ben \u2013 his eyes radiant with conversion, his boyish body strapped up to that deadly payload, attempting a little smile or a joke as he said goodbye. The thought made me feel sick.\n\nUpstairs I could hear the young men \u2013 they'd managed to set up the CD player and bursts of wild jangling music were swirling downstairs. They were thudding about as though they were dancing, but probably they were just walking around. Ben, who's quite slim, always thuds like an elephant when he walks.\n\n'Do not worry about your son, Mrs George. He will grow up before too long. Ishmail and Nabeel used to talk also about these things when they lived under occupation. Now they talk about football.'\n\nThe thudding upstairs turned into thundering on the stairs, and a few moments later the Uselesses appeared in the hall. They said something in Arabic to Mr Ali, and he translated for me.\n\n'They want to say thank you. This is a very good place.'\n\nHis eyes were twinkling again.\n\n'There's something else they have to do,' I said. 'They must feed the cats.'\n\nI showed them the cupboard in the kitchen where the cat food was kept. They nodded enthusiastically.\n\n'And they have to clear up the mess.'\n\nI led them back into the hall and pointed out a small deposit the Phantom Pooer had left in the usual place. I'd spotted it earlier but not got around to cleaning it up. The taller one \u2013 I think he was Mr Ali's nephew, Ishmail \u2013 shuddered and put his hand over his nose and mouth. I shrugged and offered a sympathetic smile, but I was thinking, that's nothing \u2013 you wait till you find one of the big fresh ones. The other one, Nabeel, said something loud and urgent in Arabic. Mr Ali said something loud and urgent back. They argued like that, back and forth, for a few minutes. Then Ishmail went and got a piece of kitchen roll and started to wipe it up, but somehow just managed to spread it around even more. Mr Ali shook his head.\n\n'Completely useless.'\n\nAnyway, in the end, the cat poo was wiped up, and it was time for me to go, and I took the keys I'd had cut out of my pocket.\n\n'If anyone comes to the house, anyone you don't know, you mustn't let them in.'\n\nMr Ali translated it into Arabic, and they nodded emphatically.\n\n'No in. No in.'\n\nThey made waving 'keep out' gestures with their hands. I gave them the keys. And I must admit I felt a pang of extreme apprehension. The least bad thing that could happen would be that the repairs would be done less or more uselessly, and the house would be bedecked with white uPVC. The worst case didn't bear thinking about. Who were these young men? I didn't know anything about them. They could be illegal immigrants. They could be terrorists. Mr Ali could be the leader of a terrorist cell. A terrorist disguised as a hamster. He smiled.\n\n'Don't worry, Mrs George. All will be fixitup good for you. I will subervise.'\n\n# 33\n\n# Avocados and strawberries\n\nThe following Saturday afternoon I made my way down to Sainsbury's in Islington for my big weekly shop. Although there's a closer Sainsbury's in Dalston, this one is on a direct bus route. At the top of the end aisle, I spotted a crowd milling around \u2013 it was the sticker lady doing her reductions \u2013 and out of habit I made my way to join them. Without Mrs Shapiro there, it was all much more refined, just a bit of genteel basket-barging when something exciting turned up. One woman was helping the sticker lady by gathering up the sell-by-dates from the counters and passing them to her for re-stickering, standing over her to make sure she got first pick. What a cheek. Even Mum didn't do that. Still, I managed to get some good bargains on cheeses, and a plastic box with three avocados reduced to 79p, perfect apart from a dent in the lid. I remembered the letter I'd found in the piano stool at Canaan House \u2013 avo-kado she'd called them. They must have been newly discovered at the time. Mum called them advocados. Given her aversion to anything exotic, I'd been surprised to find she'd quite taken to them. She served them with defrosted prawns doused in salad cream. Even Dad ate them.\n\nThere were some bargains in the fresh-produce aisles, too. Bananas, slightly spotted \u2013 tastier that way \u2013 reduced to 29p; nets of oranges on buy-one-get-one-free; plastic-box strawberries flown in from somewhere or other, pretty but flavourless. I remembered the strawberries Dad used to grow on the allotment at Kippax \u2013 the fresh, intense flavour, the kiss of summer on your tongue, the occasional slug to keep you on your toes. Keir and I would go down after school and fill a bowl up for tea, then fight over them all the way home.\n\nNo, even at half price, these strawberries weren't worth it. Where can you get strawberries so early in March, I was wondering, as I made my way out of the store. A young woman was handing out leaflets near the entrance \u2013 I must have missed her on the way in. I took one from her hand absent-mindedly and was about to stick it in with my shopping when the words jumped off the page at me: BOYCOTT ISRAELI GOODS.\n\nSeeing my interest, she pushed a sheet of paper towards me on a clipboard.\n\n'Will you sign our petition?'\n\n'What's it about?'\n\n'We want the government to make a commitment to stop serving Israeli-sourced products in the Houses of Parliament. Until Israel accepts UN Resolution 242.'\n\n'Isn't that a bit...?' I stopped myself. The word that had come into my mind was 'pointless'. She looked so solemn, her pale eyes fixed on me as she talked.\n\n'It's all grown on stolen land. Watered with stolen water,' she said.\n\n'I know, but...' But what? But I didn't want to think about it \u2013 I wanted to get home with my shopping. 'But, I mean, it all happened so long ago. It was terrible, I know. The Nabka.' (Or was it Nakba?) 'But isn't it just \u2013 what they had to do?'\n\n'That's crap!' Then she checked herself. 'Sorry, I shouldn't get so worked up.' I realised she was very young \u2013 hardly older than Ben. Her hair was cut short and teased up into little spikes on top of her head. 'But it's not just something that happened long ago. It's still happening. Every day. They're stealing Palestinian land. Bulldozing Palestinian houses. Bringing in Jewish settlers. From Moscow and New York and Manchester.' She spoke very fast, gabbling as though frightened of losing my attention.\n\n'That can't be true.' Surely if it was true, I thought, somebody would put a stop to it.\n\n'It _is_ true. The International Court of Justice says it's illegal. But America supports them. And Britain.'\n\n'Why would anyone want to leave New York to go and live in the middle of a desert?'\n\n'They believe God gave them the land. To make an Israeli state. The people who were there before, the Palestinians, they've cleared them off. Those that are left, they've walled them in. Given them a few poxy reservations. Like the American Indians. The Australian Aborigines. They think if they make life hard enough, they'll just vanish away. Inconvenient people. Who just happen to be in the way. Of somebody else's dream.'\n\n'But you can't wind back the clock, can you?'\n\n'Why not? You'd only need to go back to 1967. Before the Six Day War. You know, the Green Line. Gaza and the West Bank.'\n\nThis was all getting a bit too geographical for me. What Green Line? But there was something very disarming about her earnestness. I ran my eyes down the leaflet. On one side was a crude map, showing a thin straight line between Israel and Palestine, and another line, drawn in green, some way to the right, showing the Palestinian land that had been occupied after the Six Day War. There was a gap between the two lines. And there was a third line, hatched in grey, a contorted snaking line on the right-hand side of the green line. Right is east: left is west, I reminded myself. The key said: Line of separation wall. I forced myself to study it, remembering the map Mr Ali had drawn and wondering why maps had suddenly taken on such importance. The more I stared, the less sense it seemed to make.\n\nI turned the leaflet over. On the other side were pictures of Israeli produce. Avocados. Lemons. Oranges. Strawberries. Well, at least I hadn't bought the strawberries.\n\n'But surely if they're on the sell-by date? If they're reduced...?'\n\nShe fixed me with a solemn look. 'Have you any idea how much water it takes to grow strawberries in the desert? Where do you think it all comes from?'\n\nSuddenly her head swivelled around, and following her gaze I saw a police car draw up and two officers get out \u2013 a man and a woman. They made their way towards us. They looked very young, too.\n\n'Would you mind moving on now?' said the man. 'You're causing an obstruction.'\n\n'No, we're not,' I said, though I could see he was really addressing the girl. She was shuffling her leaflets and her clipboard into a bag.\n\n'We've had a complaint,' said the woman officer, almost apologetically.\n\n'We're just chatting,' I said. 'About avocados. Surely we're allowed to stand on the pavement and chat?'\n\nThe policewoman smiled and said nothing. I looked round to the girl, but she'd disappeared.\n\nI was still wondering about the contents of my carrier bags as I made my way back towards the bus stop at Islington Green. After all, it was just the supermarket clearing excess stock. It would be wasteful to throw it all away. Wouldn't it? What would Mum have done? I remembered an incident during the last miners' strike. It was the winter of 1984, bitterly cold. Firewood was in short supply. I'd brought home a bag of coal that I'd bought at a petrol station. Dad had refused to have it in the house.\n\n'We're not burning no scab coal,' he'd said. 'I'd sooner freeze.'\n\nHe'd taken it outside, and tipped it into the dustbin. Next morning, though, when I went to put the rubbish out, it was gone. Mum didn't say anything, but I always wondered whether it was she who'd scooped it out of the bin in the night. Waste not want not.\n\nThere was quite a queue at the bus stop. The sun had gone, a cold wind had sprung up, and I was beginning to feel hungry. I hunted around in my shameful shopping bags and broke off a ripe banana \u2013 at least they were okay to eat \u2013 weren't they? I noticed a couple standing with their backs to me looking into a shop window. The man was tall, fair, solidly built; there was something oddly familiar about him. His head was slightly out of proportion to his body. I realised with a shock of recognition that it was Rip. I hadn't noticed before how big his head was. Gorgeous, but too big. Like Michelangelo's David. The woman was small, even in her high heels, with a sleek dark bob and scarlet lipstick. I stared. It was Ottoline Walker. What was going on? Where was Pectoral Pete? She was wearing a tightly buttoned coat that showed off her curves. I could see her reflection in the shop window. They were holding hands. She was laughing at something, looking up at him. The little bitch! He bent down and kissed her.\n\nSomething inside me snapped. A sound rose in my chest, swelled up and forced its way out \u2013 aaah! yaaah! \u2013 a high-pitched wail, rasping at my throat. They turned. Everybody turned. I lurched across the pavement. _Wait! In \u2013 two \u2013 three_... Oh, sod that! The banana pitched forward and mushed into a soft slippery paste in her face. She struggled, but the banana in my hand \u2013 it just kept going round and round. It forced its way up into her nostrils. It smeared the slut-scarlet lipstick all around her mouth. It made soft feathery streaks in her eyebrows. Rip's mouth opened wide \u2013 that round trouty look \u2013 O! Then he grabbed my arm.\n\n'Georgie! Stop! Have you gone mad?'\n\nWhat a stupid question.\n\n'Aaah! Yaaah!'\n\nNext she turns on me, sputtering.\n\n'What have I done to deserve this?'\n\nThat voice \u2013 her parents must have spent a fortune teaching her to talk like that. Spoiled brat. You can tell from her voice she's used to getting everything she wants.\n\n'You just thought you could have him, didn't you? You didn't stop to think of me. Me and Ben and Stella. He belongs to us, not you.'\n\n'What d'you mean?'\n\nThere's a bit of banana hanging down from her nose like a big creamy bogey. It makes me laugh.\n\n'We were just inconvenient people, getting in the way of your lovely dream.'\n\nI'm laughing like mad now, splitting my sides at the sheer symmetry of everything.\n\nThen \u2013 this is good \u2013 the Scarlet-mouthed Slut scrapes the mush off her face with her hands and starts to smear it over Rip, over his clothes and his hair. And he says, 'Ottie! Stop! What's the matter with you?'\n\nAnd she says, 'What's the matter with _you_? You told me it was okay. You told me she didn't mind. You lied to me.' She's wailing, too. 'You told me she'd gone off with another man! In a Jaguar!'\n\n'She did. She is.' He backs away. 'You're both bloody mad. Both of you!' He backs away and breaks into a run. She runs after him, stumbling on her bitch-stilettos. And I run, too. I'm wearing my batty-woman trainers, so I can almost keep up. I run after him up the street, dodging through the startled pedestrians.\n\n'Aaah! Yaaah!'\n\nBut he's fast, Rip, fast and fit, ducking and weaving through the Saturday crowd. He shakes us both off.\n\nIn the end, I have to give up. I've lost sight of him. I'm panting for breath, my chest heaving, my throat raw from screaming. My head is spinning. Everything's spinning. I stop and catch my breath, leaning forwards on to my knees. Then I straighten up and turn around. I've lost sight of her, too. She's disappeared somewhere, into her bitch-lair. Still panting, I make my way back down Upper Street towards The Green. About halfway down, on the pavement, I stumble across a discarded black suede stiletto shoe. I kick it into the road, and a Number 19 squashes it flat.\n\nThe crowd at the bus stop has thinned out. I look for my shopping bags where I left them on the pavement. But they've disappeared. Someone has picked them up and taken them. The settler avocados. The blood-soaked oranges. All gone.\n\nActually, it was worth it, I thought to myself, as I sat in the kitchen and poured a glass of wine. Okay, I'd made a fool of myself and I'd lost my week's shopping. But it was worth it just to see that creamy banana bogey hanging from her nostril. It was worth it to see his trout-mouth \u2013 O! To see him run.\n\nI couldn't face going back into Islington, so I just went out and got a bit of shopping at Highbury Barn. When I got back I saw that the answering machine was blinking. There was a message from Ms Baddiel. She was sorry she hadn't been in touch before. She'd been on a course (not a case!). It seemed odd that she'd phoned on a Saturday, but maybe she'd left the message before and I just hadn't noticed. I rang her back straightaway but she wasn't there. The second message was from Nathan. He wanted to know if I'd like to go to the Adhesives Trade Fair in Peterborough tomorrow with him and his father. I pressed Delete. I know I'm sad, but I'm not _that_ sad. I poured myself another glass of wine and settled down in front of the television. _Casualty_ would be on soon.\n\nAs my euphoria wore off, I realised that there was only one more glass left in the bottle, and that if I finished it off then there would be nothing to stop me drinking a whole bottle again tomorrow night. And the night after. And then I'd be well on the road to becoming an Unfit Mother. _Casualty_ was not satisfying \u2013 too much shouting and argy-bargy. What had happened to the heroic drama of life and death? What had happened to that dishy Kwame Kwei-Armah? I recalled my spree of shouting and bad behaviour earlier that afternoon with a prick of shame. Really, people don't want to watch that sort of thing. It's not gentile, as Mum would say.\n\nThen the reality of three Ben-less days loomed, and I started to think that maybe a trade fair in Peterborough was what I needed after all. Maybe Nathan's father would be okay when sober. And the more I thought about it, the more I realised that short men can be incredibly sexy. I dialled Nathan's number. As he picked up the phone at the other end ('Nathan Stein speaking') I heard in the background the familiar theme as the trailer credits rolled away \u2013 he'd been watching _Casualty_ , too. \n\n# 34\n\n# The glue exhibition\n\nNathan picked me up next day at ten o'clock. I'd been trying to imagine what kind of car he would turn up in, but the last thing I'd expected was an open-top sports car, a Morgan, pale blue. He greeted me with a hug. I dropped my knees a bit so our cheeks were just at the same height.\n\n'Sorry, my father couldn't make it.'\n\n'So it's just you and me?' My heart skipped.\n\n''Fraid so. Can you put up with me for a whole day?' (Could I just!) 'You'll need a warmer coat than that.' (I'd already put on my smart grey jacket over my revealing top.) 'And a scarf or something. Otherwise your hair'll blow away.'\n\nI changed into my brown duffel coat, fastened it up to my chin, and tied a scarf down over my ears.\n\n'Sit tight!' he said.\n\nWe whizzed up the Holloway Road and out on to the A1, the wind slapping my head, my eyes stinging, my ears ringing. Shops. Houses. Trees. Flats. Houses. Trees. Whoosh! We couldn't talk; I tried to open a conversation but my words just got blown away. All I could do was watch Nathan's hands on the wheel and gearstick \u2013 he was wearing fingerless leather driving gloves \u2013 and his hunky profile as he concentrated on the road. His silver-flecked designer-stubbly jaw was clenched in a daredevil look of defiance. My stomach was clenched in a knot. I was trying to decide whether it would be better to die instantly or to live out my life in a wheelchair.\n\nPeterborough emerged suddenly out of a fenland mist, the elegant towers and arches of its cathedral swanning above the rooftops. I'd never been here before. The exhibition centre was on the outskirts, a low featureless hangar of a building. The car park was almost empty. Nathan pulled up near the entrance, switched the engine off, and turned to me with a dimply smile.\n\n'Did you enjoy that, Georgia?'\n\nI smiled weakly. I couldn't bring myself to say yes, even to him.\n\nThe exhibition itself was nowhere near as exciting as the journey. It was basically a display of tubes and phials with long technical explanations mounted on card, and samples of things glued together, mainly materials \u2013 laminates stuck to concrete, glass stuck to wood, steel stuck to steel. We seemed to be the only punters, apart from a man in a black-and-white shell suit who was walking round taking notes. Our footsteps click-clacked in the echoing space. Well, what did I expect? The most interesting thing was a car, an old Jaguar, glued to a metal plate on its roof which was bolted to a chain suspended from the ceiling, so it dangled there in mid-air, spinning slowly if you touched it, held up by the power of adhesion.\n\n'Wow! That's amazing!'\n\n'Yes, I'll have to remember that next time I want to hang my car up,' said Nathan.\n\nI had a sudden thought.\n\n'Nathan, do you think you could use glue to stick something like, say, a toothbrush holder on to bathroom tiles?'\n\n'Absolutely. There are a number of purpose-made adhesives. Look for brands with \"nails\" in the name. No-nails. Goodbye-nails.'\n\n'But you wouldn't use nails in a bathroom. It'd have to be rawplugs, wouldn't it?'\n\nHe gave me a sideways grin. 'You mean instead of cooked plugs?'\n\n'What d'you mean?'\n\n'They're called Rawlplugs, Georgie.'\n\n'Rawlplugs?'\n\n'But you're right about one thing \u2013 they're on their way to obsolescence. Adhesives can do many of the same things nowadays.'\n\nMy heart bounced up. Rawplugs were history!\n\nNathan was wandering around with a notebook, an intelligent frown furrowing his brow. I kept very close, hoping he would take my hand or slip an arm around my shoulder. Should I ask after his father? Should I mention _Casualty_? I cleared my throat.\n\n'Did you enjoy...?'\n\n'Hey, look at this, Georgia.'\n\nHe'd stopped to examine a photograph on display near the cyanoacrylates. It was a very distressing full-colour closeup of a bottom stuck to a blue plastic toilet seat. From the angle it had been taken, you couldn't tell whether it was a man's bottom or a woman's. It had obviously been shot in a hospital: there was somebody in the background wearing surgical gloves and a mask. Just imagine if that was you \u2013 it would be bad enough getting stuck on the toilet and having to call for help, and then having blokes with tools break down the door, unbolt the toilet seat and rush you to hospital, and people phoning up \u2013 they would phone an expert like Nathan in this situation \u2013 for advice about solvents. And all the time you'd be wondering who put the glue there; in fact you'd probably be able to guess. You'd be fuming. Fuming but helpless. Then you'd have to be photographed for medical records. Everyone would be solemn and respectful, but behind your back they'd be laughing their heads off.\n\nThe explanation card at the side of the picture simply read:\n\n# CYANOACRYLATE AXP-36C \nA PRACTICAL JOKE\n\n'Deary me,' said Nathan.\n\nActually, that's not a bad idea, I thought.\n\nThe next stand was a display about the history of glue. There were pictures of trees with gum or resin oozing out and dark-skinned men catching it in little cups. There was a picture which showed Aztec builders mixing blood into their mortar. The explanation card said the Aztec structures were so strong they would withstand an earthquake. It seems that blood is sticky stuff, too \u2013 stickier than water.\n\nI tried another tack.\n\n'You seem very close to your father...' I ventured.\n\n'Ah, yes. Tati.' He paused. I waited for him to continue, but he just wandered on, looking at the exhibits.\n\n'Have you always lived with him?'\n\n'Not always.'\n\nI followed him round the stand, casually brushing against him when he stopped at the corner of the display, but he didn't seem to notice.\n\n'My parents live in Yorkshire,' I said. 'I miss them. But I couldn't live with them.'\n\n'I don't know that I can live with Tati much longer.'\n\nI brushed against him again, this time more determinedly. Surely my intentions must be totally obvious. He opened his notebook and scribbled something down.\n\n'It might make a nice article for _Adhesives in the Modern World_, Georgia,' he suggested. 'Something about the history of adhesion. Glue past and present. What d'you think?'\n\nMaybe he just didn't fancy me. Maybe I wasn't intelligent enough for him. Maybe he was involved with someone else. The thought filled me with gloom.\n\n'Mmm. Good idea.'\n\n'Or even glue past, present and future.'\n\nThe designer stubble on his chin gleamed with dashes of silver as he spoke.\n\n'I don't think I could do the future bit.'\n\nI was thinking of Mrs Shapiro. When you see a good man you have to grebbit quick. Should I just grab him?\n\n'You could just speculate. Glue made from recycled carrier bags. Glue made from liposuction by-products. Glue made from stray cats and dogs. Glue made from boiled-up illegal immigrants. Melted-down social undesirables.' He gave me a sideways grin. 'No?'\n\n'Like you told me once the Nazis made glue out of Jews?'\n\n'Very good glue it was, too. Now Jews are trying to make glue out of Palestinians. But with less success.' He dropped his voice to a whisper. 'They say God told them to.'\n\nI stared at him. How could he joke about that? He saw the look in my eye.\n\n'Sorry, it's only metaphorical glue. A sticky mess. And I mean the Israeli state, not the Jews. We have to distinguish.'\n\n'Really?' What the hell was he talking about? 'I'm not sure I understand...'\n\n'I'm what they call a self-hating Jew. A gay self-hating Jew.'\n\nAh! Gay! That explained everything! I smiled inwardly, grateful that he'd told me before I'd made an utter fool of myself. But why the self-hatred? Could it be because he was gay?\n\n'Do you really hate yourself, Nathan?'\n\n'As much as custard.'\n\n'Custard's one of my favourite things,' I hurried to reassure him.\n\n'Mine, too. Especially made with eggs and vanilla with a sprinkling of nutmeg.'\n\n'So why...?' Maybe it was his height. 'You know...'\n\n'Sorry, Georgia, I didn't mean to inflict my obsessions on you. Self-hating is just a label the neo-Zionists use for people who disagree with them; you're either an anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew.'\n\nHe gave me a hunkily intelligent grin, pushing back his horn-rimmed glasses that had slipped down his gorgeous nose. Gay. What a shame!\n\n'We just got it out of a tin. Bird's.' I heard my voice prattling on, filling the silence. 'But they weren't anti-Semites, my parents. My dad's a socialist. He once thumped someone for calling the man in the fish and chip shop a wop. Mum's more... more of an anarchist, I suppose. She'd thump anybody for anything.'\n\nEven as I said it, I was thinking about the banter of the men in the Miners' Welfare at Kippax. Poofs. Gays. Queers. Pansies. They were the casual everyday slights that were the currency of contempt down our way. Dad might not be an anti-Semite, but I'd never heard him threatening to thump someone for using those words. Mum on the other hand had once ticked Keir off for calling one of his teachers a poofter. 'He's very nice, your Mr Armstrong, even if he is hormosexual.'\n\n'What about _your_ father?' I asked.\n\n'Yes, well, Tati moved in with me after Mother died, and Raoul moved out. It's sort of put paid to my love life.'\n\n'Is he rude to your friends?'\n\n'Oh, no. He just sings.'\n\nI laughed. 'That sounds nice.'\n\n'It is. But there are only so many lieder a person can take.' He murmured conspiratorially, 'I keep hoping a nice widow will take him off my hands.'\n\nWe'd stopped in front of another photo \u2013 it was a little girl whose hands were stuck together. She was crying, her mouth open, her eyes screwed up in pain.\n\n'Oh, dear. As it says in the manual, one of the disadvantages of adhesive bonding is that disassembly is usually not possible without destruction of the component parts,' Nathan remarked drily.\n\nIt was one of the things about adhesives that had always secretly troubled me. I stared. There was something so hopeless about the mess the girl was in that my heart went out to her.\n\n'I know what you mean by self-hating, Nathan. I hate myself sometimes.'\n\n'Do you, Georgia?'\n\n'Yes. I mean, I often feel stupid. Or hopeless. Or despicable. Or I just wish I was somebody else.' My voice was wobbling pathetically. 'I feel as though I've made a mess of my life.'\n\nWhat would it have been like, I wondered, to grow up on custard made with eggs and vanilla and nutmeg, instead of on Bird's powder and oven chips? Would I have been a different kind of person, more articulate and witty? Would I have had a high-powered career, or a string of bestselling novels? Would my husband not have left me? The trouble is, I was bonded to Rip; cyanoacrylate: a permanent bond. He was the only man I'd really loved, and however much I raged against him I knew I would never love anyone in that way again. I felt tears brimming into my eyes. Nathan slipped his arm around me and gave me a friendly squeeze.\n\n'Glue can be messy stuff.'\n\nI rested my head on his shoulder, which was at just the right height if I bent my knees a bit, and let the tears roll down the sides of my nose, big and warm. Nathan didn't say anything. He just stood there and let me cry. After a while I pulled a crumpled ball of tissue out of my pocket and dabbed my eyes.\n\n'Nathan, there's something I'd like to ask you.'\n\n'Fire ahead.'\n\n'Would you mind, on the way home, driving more slowly?'\n\n# 35\n\n# Uses of superglue\n\nI woke up next day feeling full of life. It was late \u2013 almost nine o'clock \u2013 and intermittent bursts of sunshine were pushing in beneath the elastic of the black knickers. The crying yesterday had refreshed me, like the rain in the night, and so much exposure to the possibilities of glue had fired me up with new enthusiasm for my work. Sitting up in bed I switched my laptop on. The article I was working on was about medical uses of adhesives. Cyanoacrylate (superglue) had been used effectively in emergency battlefield situations in Vietnam to hold wounds together until they could be sutured properly. Now a number of companies were trying to develop specialist adhesives to be used in place of suture. Human bonding.\n\nThere were two technical problems, it seemed, to be overcome. One, how to get the sides to hold together for long enough for bonding to take place. Two, how to achieve separation without tearing the flesh.\n\nThen I remembered. Cyanoacrylate AXP-36C. I fumbled in the bedside drawer for a scrap of paper to write it down on before I forgot. I tried to picture Rip's face when he realised he was stuck. I tried to picture his bottom, the agony of tearing flesh as he tried to free himself. Who would rescue him? Who would call the ambulance? Ottoline Walker? Or would it be me? Would I laugh? Would I minister gently to his adhered behind? So many possibilities!\n\nI put aside medical uses of adhesives, just for a moment, and opened my exercise book.\n\n# The Splattered Heart \nChapter 7\n\n_One evening, as the Sinster family_ were was _were sitting down to their sumptuous_ tea dinner _evening meal in the vast candle-lit dining hall surrounded by deer's antlers and other dead things,_ they heard _the_ plangent pungent poignant _melodious_ twanging tinkling twinkling _(oh, sod this) sound of a mandolin assaultailled their eager ears and a moment later a tall dark handsome figure clad_ only _(clad only \u2013 what was I thinking of!)_ _in a swirling velvet cloak strode into the hall. After he had finished his performance Mrs Sinster threw him a few coins from her silk purse and said, 'Oh, Mr Mandolin Player, please come again. I am fascinated by your_ large mandolin _charming folk culture.'_\n\nPoor Mrs Sinclair \u2013 was I being a bit unfair? When I'd first met the Sinclairs, their world had seemed so alien and intimidating \u2013 governed by unspoken rules and veiled assumptions \u2013 but she had really tried to make me feel at home, had inducted me kindly into the arcane mysteries of napkin rings and the _Daily Telegraph_ crossword, and I suppose I must have seemed a sullen and ungracious daughter-in-law. At the time, it had irked me that they appeared to have no idea how privileged their lives were. It had irked me the way Mr Sinclair asked, in a hushed voice, whether I'd really met Arthur Scargill; I'm no great fan of the comb-over king, but the way the Sinclairs went on, you'd think he was the Antichrist himself.\n\nIt had taken me a long time to realise that the Sinclairs were probably as scared of me as I was of them. Okay, it can't have helped that on my third visit to Holtham I'd worn a large yellow badge with 'The enemy within' in bold letters. They must have seen me as an outrider of a sinister army bent on destroying order, decency, _Horse and Hound_ , and everything else they held dear. It wasn't long after the end of the miners' strike, and I thought they needed shaking up a bit \u2013 well, that's my excuse. Rip had tried to persuade me to take it off, but when I insisted, had stuck up for me valiantly and tried to explain to his bewildered parents what it was about.\n\n'But if it's supposed to be a _secret_ enemy, I can't understand why she's wearing a badge,' I overheard Mrs Sinclair whispering to Rip.\n\nYes, perhaps I was being a bit hard on Rip, too. But all's fair in love and fiction. I pressed on.\n\nSurprised in a compromising position with the mandolin player, Gina is expelled from Holty Towers. She protests that it was only a response to Rick's philandering, and determines to seek revenge by glueing his bottom to a toilet seat. The secret is to match the right adhesive to the adherends. Hurray! That would mean another visit to B&Q (strictly for research, of course). The trouble is, I couldn't help feeling a touch of sympathy for Rick. After all, he was just a weak and deluded male \u2013 easily led by the cunning spotty Spanish maid \u2013 he couldn't really help it. And Gina should have known better than to get involved with that wayward mandolin player. Something else was bothering me. I tried to focus on the image of Rip's bottom in the toilet seat, but the other photo from the glue exhibition kept intruding: the little girl, her screwed-up eyes as she tried to pull her hands apart; her scream.\n\nHauling myself out of bed, I stood at the window and looked down over the garden, stretching my arms above my head and waggling my shoulders, which were still stiff from the cold and tension of yesterday's car journey. The ground was wet, and the leaves on the laurel bush were dazzling with captive raindrops, but the sun kept coming in and out behind the rain clouds, casting fleeting rainbows across the sky. At the far end of the garden, a haze of mauve crocuses had spread, almost overnight. Birds were hard at work, hopping about in pairs with bunches of grass in their beaks.\n\nThen I spotted Wonder Boy slinking along the edge of the fence, making his stealthy way towards the blackbird couples. I banged on the window and they flew away. Wonder Boy looked up and gave me a long reproachful stare. I felt a pang of guilt. Okay, a visit to Mrs Shapiro was long overdue, I wanted to say to him, but it wasn't exactly easy, was it? The _HELP ME_ note Mrs Shapiro had sent was on my bedside table \u2013 I'd just scribbled the glue code on the envelope. As I looked at it with its scrawled-out name and address, I had a brainwave. \n\n# 36\n\n# The adhesion consultant\n\nAfter lunch, I dressed myself up in a red jacket that had belonged to Stella \u2013 I had to leave the buttons undone \u2013 and a glittery Oxfam scarf, and pulled a woolly hat down low over my hair. I put on bright red lipstick and an old pair of sunglasses by way of disguise \u2013 and made my way to the bus stop on the Balls Pond Road. Though in fact when I arrived at Northmere House I saw that my disguise was redundant, for there was a different guard-dog lady at the reception desk.\n\n'Can I help you?' she barked.\n\n'I've come to see Mrs Lillian Brown.'\n\nShe consulted her list. 'Are you family?'\n\n'A cousin. Once removed.' Well, I could have been.\n\n'Would you sign in please? Room twenty-three.'\n\nShe pressed the button that opened the sliding door. And in I went \u2013 into the muted realm of the pink carpet, the sickly chemical air, the rows of closed doors from behind which, from time to time, a television blared eerily. On the other side of the corridor was the long plate-glass sliding door which gave on to the courtyard with its square of grass and four benches, now all damp with rain. A demented bleeper sounded constantly in the background, reminding the absent staff that behind one of these closed doors, someone desperately needed help.\n\nI knocked on the door of number twenty-three. There was no reply so I pushed it open. The room was small and overheated, with a terrible deathly smell. A massive television set, volume on at full blast, dominated the room, so it took me a moment to notice the tiny figure lying motionless on the bed.\n\n'Mrs Brown?'\n\nThere was no reply. I shouted louder, 'Mrs Brown? Lillian?'\n\nI tiptoed over to the bed. She was lying there with her eyes closed. Her hand, I saw, was clutched around the bleeper on its cable. I couldn't tell whether she was breathing.\n\nI backed out and let the door close behind me. My chest was thumping. A fat woman in a pink corporate uniform was coming down the corridor.\n\n'In here,' I said.\n\n'Are you Mrs Brown's niece?' She seemed to be unaware of the bleeping alarm.\n\n'Actually, I'm...'\n\n'I hope you're not smuggling cigarettes.' She scrutinised me fiercely.\n\n'Oh, no. Nothing like that.'\n\n'Because last home I worked at, someone give an old lady a fag and some matches, and it all went up in flames.'\n\n'Oh, dear. Was anyone hurt?'\n\n'We was saved by a dog.'\n\n'Really?'\n\n'A mongrel,' she snorted. 'And then they tried to smuggle in a gearbox.'\n\n'A gearbox? What for?'\n\n'Beats me. Anyhow, matron got rid of it. Said it weren't hygienic.' Her face softened for a moment. 'It were a shame really, poor old man. Still, 'e got 'is revenge.' She chortled. 'Anyhow, we don't allow that sort of thing in 'ere. We got rules.'\n\n'Er... I think this lady needs some help...'\n\nBut she'd already vanished up the corridor. As I watched the door close behind her, I noticed there was now someone sitting out on one of the benches in the courtyard in the rain, a solitary hunched figure wearing a powder-blue dressing gown and matching peep-toe slippers, puffing away at a cigarette. It was the bonker lady.\n\nI banged on the window and waved. She looked up and waved back. But when I slid open the door and went out to join her in the courtyard, she put on a sulky face.\n\n'You never brought me cigs.'\n\n'I did,' I lied. 'You weren't there.'\n\nShe sniffed as though she knew it wasn't true.\n\n'Are yer lookin' for 'er? Yer pal?'\n\n'Mrs Shapiro. Yes.'\n\n'She's in solitary. She in't allaared visitors.'\n\n'Why not?'\n\n'Bin a naughty gel, ent she?'\n\n'Why? What's she done?'\n\nShe stubbed out her cigarette on the path and threw the butt into the middle of the lawn, where there was already quite a scattering.\n\n'It's what she ent done. She won't sign the Powah. Keeps refusin'. Bonkers, if yer ask me. They won't let 'er aht till she signs it.'\n\n'Do you know which room she's in?'\n\nThe rain had almost stopped. She pulled a cigarette packet out of her dressing-gown pocket and looked inside. There were only two left.\n\n'Yer won't forget me cigs next time, will yer?'\n\n'No. I promise.'\n\nShe placed one of the cigarettes between her lips and let it rest there for a few moments, savouring the anticipation, before she took the box of matches from the other pocket.\n\n'Twen'y-seven.'\n\n'Thanks.'\n\n'If she in't there, she'll be watchin' telly in twen'y-three. That's my room. They all watch telly in there.'\n\n'Isn't there a day room?'\n\n'Yeh, there is. But the telly's crap.'\n\nMrs Shapiro's room was just as small as the other one, and just as hot, but the smell was more sickly than deathly, and there was no television. She looked dreadful. She was lying on her bed, fully clothed, staring at the ceiling. Her hair was wild and matted, the silver line now a highway, her skin loose and baggy, folding in deep yellowy wrinkles around her mouth and chin.\n\n'Mrs Shapiro?'\n\n'Georgine?'\n\nShe struggled to her feet groggily and stared at me.\n\n'How are you?' I hugged her. She seemed so frail, like a bird. All bones.\n\n'Thenk Gott you come.'\n\n'I'm sorry I didn't come before. I tried, but they wouldn't let me in.'\n\n'Did you bring me cigarettes?'\n\n'Sorry. I forgot.'\n\n'Never mind. Good you heff come, Georgine. I do not want to die in here!'\n\nShe sat down on the edge of the bed and immediately started to cry, her skinny shoulders shaking. How small and bent she seemed. I sat beside her, stroking her back until the sobs turned to sniffles. Then I passed her a tissue.\n\n'We've got to get you home. But I don't know how.'\n\n'Too much guards in this place. Like in prison.' She blew her nose, then opened up the tissue to examine the snot. It had a horrible greenish colour. 'How are my dear cats?'\n\n'They're fine. Waiting for you. I've got some young men staying there, looking after them. Fixing the house up.' I saw the look of alarm on her face. 'Don't worry. As soon as you're ready to come home, they'll leave.'\n\nThe smell in the room was making me feel faint. I stood up and opened a window. The soupy overheated air stirred, and we could hear the traffic on the Lea Bridge Road, and voices of children playing somewhere nearby. Mrs Shapiro took a deep breath, and her eyes seemed to brighten a bit.\n\n'Thenk you, darlink.' She squeezed my hand, studying me with her wrinkled eyes. 'You looking better, Georgine. Nice lipstick. Nice scarf. You got a new husband yet?'\n\n'Not yet.'\n\n'Maybe soon I will heff a new husband.' She smiled archly to see the look of surprise cross my face. 'Nicky is saying he wants to marry mit me.'\n\n'Mr Wolfe?'\n\nI gasped. The scheming devil! I remembered how fluttery she'd been when he'd sat in her kitchen plying her with sherry.\n\n'I was thinking he would be for you the perfect husband, Georgine. But you heff showed little interest. So maybe this is an opportunity for me.' Her smile now was coyly flirtatious. She had cheered up considerably. 'What you think? Should I marry my Nicky?'\n\n'Does he know how old you are?'\n\n'I tolt him I was sixty-one.' She caught my eye and giggled. 'I am too notty for you, Georgine, isn't it?'\n\n'You are a bit naughty, Mrs Shapiro.'\n\n'Why get ready for the grave? It will catch you soon enough anyway, isn't it? Why not to enjoy the moment as it flies.' She flapped her hands like birds' wings. 'You know Goethe?'\n\nI shook my head. Then I thought of something.\n\n'Maybe it's because...' I remembered his intake of breath on the phone. 'I told him you had a son.'\n\nA son who would inherit her estate. Unless, of course, she remarried.\n\nShe looked at me sharply. 'How you know about this son?'\n\n'The social worker told me. Mrs Goodney.'\n\nShe stopped. I pretended to be looking out of the window. Go on, go on! I was silently willing her, but she went quiet.\n\nAfter a few moments, she said, 'Ach, this woman. All she thinks about is how to shvindel me. I told her I heff a son because she was wanting me to sign the Power of Returning. I said my son will be returning. He will heff the house.'\n\n'But he's not your son, is he?' I said gently.\n\nThere was a pause. 'Not mine. No.'\n\n'So who was his mother?'\n\nShe sighed. 'This whole _megillah_ is too long for you. You will be falling asleep before I tell it.'\n\n'But tell me anyway.'\n\n'It was the other one. Naomi Shapiro.'\n\nLittle by little, I drew it out of her. Her real name was Ella Wechsler, she said, pronouncing it carefully, as though not quite sure it belonged to her. She was born in 1925 in Hamburg. I calculated that would make her eighty-one. Her family was Jewish, but of the pick and mix variety. Speck but no sausages. Sabbath and Sunday. Christmas as well as Hanukkah \u2013 not that all this made any difference to the Nazis, when the time came. Her father, Otto Wechsler, ran a successful printing business; her mother, Hannah, was a pianist; her two older sisters, Martina and Lisabet, were students. Their house, a solid four-storey villa in the Grindel Quarter, was a hanging-out place for musicians, artists, heartbroken lovers, dreamers, travellers arriving or departing, four cats, and a German maid called Dotty. There was always coffee _mit schlagsahne_ , always music and conversation going on. She chuckled.\n\n'We were better at being German than the Germans. I thought this life was normal. I did not know such happiness was not permitted to Jews, Georgine. I did not know what it means to be a Jew until Herr Hitler told me.'\n\nBut by 1938, Hitler's message was loud and clear \u2013 clear enough for the family to realise they had to get out of Germany before things got worse.\n\n'You see in that time Hitler was thinking only how to clear out the Jewish people from Germany. The plan for exterminations came after.'\n\nThe Wechslers \u2013 Ella, Martina, Lisabet, and their parents \u2013 fled to London. Ella was nearly thirteen years old, Martina was seventeen, Lisabet twenty. In 1938 the Wechslers had been able to bribe their way out of Germany, but England did not hold out her arms in welcome. The 1905 Aliens Act meant that they could only come to Britain if they already had a job to come to.\n\n'Even the English they did not want us. Too many Jews were running away from pogroms in Poland, Russia, Ukrainia. Everybody thought it was a big sport to chase the Jews, isn't it?'\n\nThrough a cousin on his mother's side, Otto Wechsler had managed to secure a job in a print shop on Whitechapel Road \u2013 it was a huge ancient Heidelberg press which he coaxed back into life. The owner, Mr Gribb, was a widower from Elizavetgrad who had changed his name from Gribovitch when his family fled the pogroms in 1881. Hannah Wechsler became his housekeeper. Lisabet worked in a bakery. Martina trained as a nurse. Ella went to the Jewish school in Stepney. They lived in a poky two-roomed flat above the print shop ('Everything we touched was bleck from the ink') in the heart of the East End Jewish community, and they counted themselves blessed.\n\nThey received coded letters via Switzerland from their family describing the impact of the Nuremberg Laws, the enforced wearing of yellow stars, the terror of Kristallnacht, the expropriation of businesses, the expulsion from the professions (Cousin Berndt turned out of his surgery and made to sweep leaves in the park), the public humiliations, the increasingly ugly assaults in the streets (Uncle Frank's front teeth broken by a cheering, jeering gang of schoolboys). Actions that an individual would find morally repugnant became amusing when there was a crowd cheering you on. Then the mass transportations started, and the letters stopped.\n\nI felt the tremor in Mrs Shapiro's shoulders, the long catch of her breath. We were still sitting side by side on the bed. The light had faded in the window, and the roar of traffic outside intensified with the onset of rush hour. But we were in a different world.\n\n'Tell me about Artem. When did you meet him?'\n\n'In 1944 he arrived in London. In the spring. Eyes crazy like a madman. Still asking if they had seen his sister.'\n\nSkeletal, louse-ridden, hollow-eyed, he'd fetched up at the Newcastle docks on a British merchant ship that had snuck out from Gothenburg with a cargo of butter and ball bearings. The Seamen's Mission had taken him in and he was passed on, via Jewish relief organisations, to the flat in Whitechapel Road. He stayed with them for a year, helping to run the printing press and sleeping on a camp bed at the back of the workshop. He was clever with his hands. He didn't say much \u2013 he spoke Russian and only a few phrases of German and English \u2013 but his silence, brooding and mysterious, seemed to the girls to speak volumes. In his spare time, he started to make a violin. Lisabet, Martina and Ella watched him working with the fretsaw and the glue, his head bowed over the workbench, a thin self-rolled cigarette hanging from his lip, humming to himself. By then, Ella was eighteen, Martina was twenty-three and Lisabet twenty-six. All of them were a bit in love with him and a bit in awe of him.\n\n'Did he finish the violin?'\n\n'Yes. Gott knows where he got the strings. But in Petticoat Lane at that time you could buy all what you needed. When he was playing, it was like the angels in heaven. Sometimes I or _Mutti_ accompanied mit the piano.'\n\nI remembered the music in the piano stool. Delius. 'Two Brown Eyes'. Ella Wechsler. Her name was written in the front of the songbook, but the brown eyes had belonged to somebody else.\n\n'Do you still play the piano, Mrs Shapiro? Ella?' Somehow, the new name didn't seem to fit the old lady I'd grown fond of.\n\n'Look at my hends, darlink.'\n\nShe held them out in front of her, bony, with swollen joints and shrivelled brown-stained skin. I took them and warmed them in mine. They were so cold.\n\n'And Naomi? Who was she?'\n\nI had such a strong image from the photographs of the sweet heart-shaped face, the tumble of brown curls, the playful eyes. Mrs Shapiro didn't reply. She was gazing into a place beyond the dusky window. When at last she spoke, all she said was, 'Naomi Lowentahl. She was rather tall.'\n\nThen she went quiet again. I didn't interrupt. I knew she'd tell me in her own time.\n\n'Yes, nice looking. Always mit red lipstick, nice shmata. Who would heff thought she would be the type to go away digging in the ground in Israel?' Her mouth twitched. Another silence. She withdrew her hands from mine and started to fiddle with her rings. 'Some people said she was beautiful. Eyes always blazing like a fire. Yes, she was like a person on fire. She was in loff with Arti, of course.'\n\n'And he...?'\n\nShe sniffed. 'Yes. And he.'\n\nArtem Shapiro and Naomi Lowentahl were married in the synagogue at Whitechapel in October 1945, after the end of the war. Ella, Hannah and Otto Wechsler went to the wedding. Lisabet was away in Dorset on her own honeymoon with a Polish Jewish airman. Martina had been killed by a V2 rocket raid in July 1944, on her way home from the Chest Hospital in Bethnal Green \u2013 one of the last air raids of the war. But Mr Gribb put on a good spread for the couple. People came from all over Stepney just to get a bit of chicken.\n\nA sharp rap on the door made us both jump. Then without waiting for an answer, the woman in the pink uniform, the same one I'd met earlier, barged into the room.\n\n'Tea time, Mrs Shapiro.'\n\nShe caught sight of me.\n\n'You'll have to leave,' she said. 'Mrs Shapiro in't allowed visitors.'\n\n'I'm not a visitor. I'm a...' I thought fast. 'I'm an adhesion consultant.'\n\n'Oh.' That stopped her in her tracks. She looked me up and down, trying to assess my status. 'I thought you was Mrs Brown's niece. You'll 'ave to make an appointment through matron.'\n\n'Of course.' I stood up and put on a Mrs Sinclair-ish voice. 'If you could just leave us now. We've almost finished our consultation.'\n\n'I'll have to report it to matron.' She shook her head. 'We can't just 'ave people wandering in off the streets.'\n\nWhen we were alone again, Mrs Shapiro gripped my hands.\n\n'You will keep my secret, Georgine?'\n\n'Of course I will.'\n\n'What should I do?'\n\n'Don't sign anything. Don't marry Nicky.'\n\n'But if I am married, they will heff to let me go home, isn't it?'\n\n'I'll try to get you out.'\n\n'If I will say no to him, he will stop coming. Is better if I say maybe yes and maybe no.' She winked.\n\n'You're naughty, Mrs Shapiro,' I laughed. 'How does he manage to get in? Doesn't the matron stop him?'\n\n'He told them he is my solicitor.'\n\n'Ah. Clever. But...'\n\nActually, I thought, what she needs is a proper solicitor.\n\nThere was a sudden rush of footsteps and voices in the corridor. I kissed Mrs Shapiro on the cheeks and quickly said goodbye, just as they reached the door. The pink-overalled lady was in front, followed by a big green-cardied woman and a security guard. Their faces were flushed with purpose. But before they could say anything they were distracted by a ghastly scream from down the corridor outside number twenty-three. I ran out \u2013 we all ran out \u2013 to see the bonker lady waving her hands in the air and yelling, ''Elp! 'Elp! There's a dead body in 'ere!'\n\nThey forgot all about me in the ensuing chaos. I slipped out through the sliding door while someone else was rushing in, and kept my head down as I walked to the bus stop on the Lea Bridge Road. All the way home on the top deck of the bus, I was working out a plan to get Mrs Shapiro out. \n\n# 37\n\n# A trip to B&Q\n\nNext morning, I phoned Ms Baddiel. Amazingly, she answered on the first ring.\n\n'Oh, thank goodness I've got hold of you. Something terrible's happened. Mrs Shapiro's been kidnapped,' I gabbled. I didn't want to complicate things by mentioning the body.\n\n'Sssh. Ca-alm down, Mrs Sinclair. Now, take a deep breath for me. Hold. Two \u2013 three \u2013 four. Breathe out with a sigh. Two \u2013 three \u2013 four, and rela-ax.'\n\nI did as she instructed. My stomach-knot eased and my fists turned back into hands.\n\n'That's perfect. Now, you were saying...?'\n\nI tried to explain that Mrs Shapiro had been kidnapped and held against her will until she agreed to sign away her house. I avoided directly accusing Mrs Goodney of theft, but Ms Baddiel was more concerned that Mrs Shapiro's lifestyle choices were being violated.\n\n'There are a number of options open to her. If she is to live at home, the house needs to be made suitable. It's easy to move a bed downstairs and convert a living room into a bedroom. The problem is usually to create a downstairs bathroom. Alternatively, of course, she could install a lift. Even a stairlift.'\n\n'Mm. Yes. Good idea. I've got some men in there at the moment, fixing it up. I could ask...'\n\n'Perfect.'\n\nI tried to picture Mr Ali and the Uselesses installing a stairlift. Mmm. No.\n\n'There used to be grants available for that kind of work, but unfortunately now it usually has to be self-financed. Has she got any funds, do you know?'\n\nI thought of the receipts from the secondhand traders I'd found in her bureau drawer.\n\n'I'm not sure. I'll ask her.' Though I knew as sure as hell she wouldn't tell me. My heart sank. Then I imagined trying to persuade her to have a stairlift installed.\n\n'And we could increase her care package. I take it that worked out all right?'\n\n'Yes. Fine. Fantastic.'\n\nWe arranged to meet at the house on Friday. I wanted time to be sure that the Uselesses had made some progress, and to check that the place was at least habitable. Ms Baddiel undertook to visit Northmere House in the meantime, and to challenge the terms of Mrs Shapiro's incarceration.\n\n'It's a violation of human rights,' she said confidently in her peachy voice.\n\nOn Wednesday afternoon I set out to visit Mrs Shapiro at Northmere House again. I walked down to the Balls Pond Road to get the Number 56, and I must have dozed off on the bus (or _sunk into a reverie_ , as Ms Firestorm would put it) for when I looked out of the window we were already on the Lea Bridge Road, and I realised I'd missed my stop. I rang the bell hastily and raced down the stairs, and when the bus finally came to a halt I found myself standing near a familiar jolly orange-and-grey building. Another branch of B&Q! It must be destiny, I thought.\n\nThe B&Q store was tattier than the one at Tottenham and almost empty, silent with a hush of reverence \u2013 like a temple, I thought, dedicated to some peculiar male cult. The high ceilings and echoing aisles, the air of solemn devotion, the acolytes walking with bowed heads, the obscure objects of veneration, the mysteries. Apart from me, there was only one other woman in the place, a stunningly pretty Asian girl with a sparkling nose stud, on one of the checkouts. With the air of a slightly bored priestess, she pointed me in the direction of the adhesives on aisle twenty-nine.\n\nCyanoacrylate AXP-36C. I had pulled the crumpled Mrs Brown envelope out of my pocket and started to look at the labels on the packaging. It was easy enough to distinguish between the PVAs, the epoxies and the acrylates, but there didn't seem to be one with that precise formulation. A number of them carried warnings about misuse. I browsed the packets, looking for the ones with the direst warnings.\n\nAfter a while, a nice blokey type appeared and asked me if I needed any help. I showed him my paper. He studied it for a few moments with a puzzled frown, then asked, 'What's it for, sweetheart?'\n\nI noticed that he had a Kent NUM tattoo on his forearm. How strange, I thought; if I had met him instead of Mr Ali when I was first looking for the lock, there would have been a different point of connection, and quite a different story.\n\n'It's for... er... just, you know, general use.' I smiled mysteriously, picked up a few superglues, and put them in my shopping basket with a nonchalant air.\n\nAnother discovery I made, by the way, at the end of the adhesives aisle, is that duck tape has nothing at all to do with ducks. No quacking or waddling involved. In fact it's duct tape. What a disappointment.\n\nOut of interest, I passed by to look at the toilet seats. Although they had exotic names \u2013 Chamonix, Valencia, Rossini \u2013 they weren't in fact very exciting. There were no musical ones or ones which lit up, as I'd seen advertised in the Sunday papers \u2013 seats designed to attract a curious bottom. I'd have to look on the internet. Ideally, I should get one that played a ridiculous but catchy tune like 'Jingle Bells' or 'The Birdie Song', that would keep going until the person got up \u2013 _if_ they _ever_ got up!\n\nBy the time I remembered I'd meant to call at Northmere House on the way back, I'd already overshot the stop again. That would have to wait for another day. I was filled with a pleasant feeling of satisfaction on my way home, sitting in my favourite seat, upstairs at the front, with my purchases in a bag on my knee, and enjoying the changing patterns of clouds and light as the bus lumbered down the Lea Bridge Road.\n\nAt Clapton a group of schoolboys got on, jostling and giggling. I didn't notice at first that they were wearing small skull caps. They crowded on to the top deck, and made a rush for the other front seat, all four of them, barging with their backpacks and trying to shove each other out of the way. Mrs Shapiro's story was still fresh in my mind, and I wanted to talk to them, to ask about their parents and grandparents \u2013 about the countries they'd left and the journeys they'd made. But why should they have to worry about any of that old painful stuff? These lads \u2013 they didn't have the air of exiles. They were gossiping about one of their teachers who, apparently, had been spotted at a Westlife concert wearing a dress that revealed too much. Let them be, I thought. Let them be happy. As we thundered along among the treetops, I closed my eyes and felt through my eyelids the brilliant spring light flicker over my face: dark-light-dark-light-dark-light. When I got off at Balls Pond Road, a few stops later, I could still hear their peals of laughter as the bus pulled away. Let them be happy while they can.\n\nAs I turned the corner into my road, I saw there was a car parked outside my house. A black car. A Jaguar. I stopped. How long had he been waiting for me? Since the debacle with Nathan, I'd been feeling a sort of blank emptiness inside me. Now I felt my heart quicken, a beat between panic and pleasure. Or maybe I was just inexorably drawn. I carried on walking, wondering what I should say. As I got closer, the driver's-side door opened, and he stepped out on to the pavement, all lean and hungry six-feet-something of him, with a bunch of flowers in his hand \u2013 blue irises. My heart did a skip.\n\n'Doing a spot of DIY, are you, Georgina?' He was looking at my B&Q carrier bag with interest. 'Have you got time for a quick word? About Canaan House? There are some... er... developments you should know about.'\n\n'Developments?'\n\nI glanced at my watch. It was just turned three o'clock.\n\n'It'll have to be quick. Ben'll be back soon.'\n\nI noticed he had a fresh white handkerchief in his jacket pocket, and despite my resolution, a tremor like a Pavlovian response ran through me.\n\n'I thought you should know... my colleague, Nick Wolfe. You were right. His intentions are not honourable. _Very_ not honourable.'\n\n'You'd better come in.'\n\nHe followed me into the house. I shoved the B&Q bag in the bottom of a cupboard in the mezzanine study on my way down into the kitchen, and put the kettle on. While it boiled, I arranged the irises in a vase. They reminded me of Mrs Shapiro's toilet bowl. He stood very close beside me, watching. I could sense the heat of his body through the centimetre of air between us, and that pleasant pelvic glow \u2013 it was the shameless woman, putting in a surprise guest (gusset) appearance.\n\n'Tell me,' I said.\n\n'Yes. Nick. He's \u2013 how can I put it? \u2013 he's got obsessed with Canaan House. He's commissioned an architect; had plans drawn up to turn it into a gated community. Luxury flats. Done out to the highest spec. Penthouse suite. Basement gym. Enclosed Japanese-style garden with pebble and stone water-feature. The full monty. Plus six mews studios.'\n\nI took a deep breath. I could smell the expensive soap, and beneath it the chlorine.\n\n'Okay. And so what's he planning to do with Mrs Shapiro?'\n\n'He's planning to marry her.'\n\nHe delivered his punchline with a slight lift of the eyebrows. I pretended to be shocked, but inside I was smiling.\n\n'Apparently they struck up quite a friendship, and one day he asked her age. She had him on that she was sixty-one. Well, that roused his suspicions, so he sneaked a look at her medical records in the nursing home. They gave her age as ninety-six.'\n\n'No! Really?' I feigned surprise.\n\n'He thought \u2013 well, at that age her life expectancy \u2013 how can I put it? \u2013 it left a lot to be desired. A couple of years, at most. He reckoned he was on to a good thing.'\n\n'Did he tell you she has a son?'\n\n'He mentioned something along those lines. That's why he's in a hurry to tie the knot. If she's married to him, he gets the lot when she pops her clogs. Unless she's made a will, of course.'\n\n'The son's supposed to be coming all the way from Israel. He obviously thinks he's on to a good thing, too. But I don't know if he's really her son. Her husband was married before, you know.'\n\nBefore what? That's what I couldn't work out. If Ella Wechsler had married Artem Shapiro, her name would have become Ella Shapiro. But why had she changed her first name from Ella to Naomi? Why would someone change their whole name?\n\n'If she wasn't married to him,' I was thinking aloud, 'if she was just living with him...'\n\n'Mm. Good point. Would she still have a claim on the house?' I could see his mind working in the gold flickering of his eyes.\n\n'Does it make any difference, who was married to who? Surely, if she's lived there all these years, the house is hers?'\n\n'It depends on how the deeds were drawn up.' He was stirring the sugar into his coffee, tinkling the spoon against the china and looking at me with those vari-coloured eyes. I could feel myself melting inside. 'It'd be interesting to sneak a look, Georgina. Do you know where they're kept by any chance?'\n\nThey were probably among the sheaves of paper up in the attic. 'I haven't a clue,' I said, squeezing my tea bag sexily and fishing it out with a provocative little flick of the spoon.\n\n'It might be possible to find out from the Land Registry,' he murmured.\n\nHe finished his coffee and stood up, leaning in the doorway, smiling darkly. 'Shall we...?'\n\nHe led, I followed.\n\n'You said you were going to show me your poems,' I said, teasing, but to my surprise he produced a slim cream envelope from the pocket of his jacket \u2013 not the handkerchief one, the one inside the lining.\n\n'I've written one specially for you, Georgina.'\n\nThe envelope was slightly warm and curved to the contours of his body. I opened it curiously as he undressed me. There was a poem, written out by hand, the letters squat and confident on the creamy paper.\n\n_I wandered through the city streets_\n\n_My heart was burdened down with care,_\n\n_And then I saw thee standing there_\n\n_With raindrops sparkling on thy hair._\n\n_Sweet Saint Georgina, thou art_\n\n_The dragon slayer of my heart._\n\n_Tell me thou love me, for I know_\n\n_We'll never be apart._\n\nI couldn't stop myself; I cringed; then I covered it up with an embarrassed kiss.\n\n'Mmm. That's lovely,' I said.\n\n'Glad you like it, sweetheart. Have you got the...?'\n\n'The...?'\n\nI fumbled in my bedside drawer for the shameless accessories, and slipped them on. He checked the gusset. He tightened the satin handcuffs. Thank heavens for IKEA slatted headboards. Where would we be without them? thought the Shameless Woman as she sighed and lay back on the pillows. But the poem \u2013 the ugly doggerel \u2013 jangled in my head. I tried to abandon myself to shamelessness but it was no use. 'Sweet Saint Georgina...Tell me thou love me...' And to think I had once dreamed of having an entourage of poet toy-boys! In the end I just had to fake it. Afterwards, when I was lying tense and sweaty in his arms, and he was stroking my hair and doing his hankie thing, I had a sudden memory of the first night Rip and I had spent together in his attic flat in Chapeltown. We'd lain together in the crumpled sheets looking at the candlelight flickering on the sloping ceiling, and he'd reached down a well-thumbed book from his shelf and read me John Donne's 'The Sunne Rising'. ' _She is all states, and all princes I. Nothing else is._ '\n\nWhat had happened to _that_ Rip \u2013 not the always-in-a-hurry destiny-shaping Progress Project Rip, but the other Rip who was as bouncy as a puppy, curious, funny, eager, idealistic, who read Donne and Marvell when we made love, and brought me Marmite on toast in the morning? What had happened to _him_? A pain like the shock of bereavement hit me right in the heart, making me flinch. What was I doing here? Why was I in bed with this man?\n\n'Why did you use those words, thee and thou?' I asked.\n\n'Don't you like them?'\n\n'I do, but... they're a bit old-fashioned.'\n\n'You strike me as being \u2013 how can I put it? \u2013 quite an old-fashioned girl, Georgina.' He ran a finger down my cheek. 'I can change it if you don't like it, sweetheart.'\n\nThe trouble is, I realised, I only wanted him wicked and wolfy. I didn't want this touchy-feely gooey stuff. And I definitely didn't want the poetry.\n\n'No, leave it. It's fine as it is. But... it should be thou lovest, not thou love.'\n\nAs soon as I said it, I wished I hadn't. I didn't mean it as a put-down \u2013 it was just my Eng Lit degree popping out in the wrong place.\n\n'Lovest?' He sounded utterly crushed.\n\n'But it's fine as it is. Romantic. Please! Don't change anything!'\n\nBut he was already sitting up and putting on his neatly folded clothes.\n\n'Mark, you've forgotten...'\n\n'Lovest!'\n\nThe door closed with a quiet click and he was gone.\n\nI lay there for a while thinking about the poem. It wasn't just the archaisms that bothered me, it was the flaky metaphor of Saint George and the dragon, and that ugly fore-shortened last line, like a broken tooth. You'd have thought he could have found a couple of spare syllables to patch it up with. A sudden vivid memory caught me off guard: it was the first time Rip and I went down to Holtham at Christmas. Rip slipped his hand between my thighs as I drove and read me Donne's poem 'Nocturnal upon St Lucy's Day' as we crossed the wintry Pennines, rough with browned-off heather beneath which new shoots were already pushing into the black oozing peat. ' _I am every dead thing, In whom love wrought new alchemy._ ' I was so overcome with passion that we had to stop in a lay-by. It's not easy to make love in the back of a Mini, but I remembered how our bodies closed together like two shells of a bivalve.\n\nRiding in on the memory came an intense pang of longing for Rip \u2013 for his warm solid body, his alert clever mind. In spite of the Sinclair confidence that bordered on arrogance, in spite of the Progress Project and the destiny-shaping work, in spite of the dereliction of DIY duties and the irritating BlackBerry habits, in spite even of the Scarlet-mouthed Slut, he was still Ben and Stella's dad; yes, and he was still the man I loved. Maybe it was time to stop messing around with other men and start glueing together my marriage.\n\nJust then, the front door slammed. It must be Ben letting himself in. I sat up and... no, I tried to sit up, but my wrists were still firmly strapped to the headboard. I tugged. Nothing happened. Irritated, I pulled harder, but the Velcro held fast.\n\n'Mum?' Ben called from the kitchen.\n\n'Hi, Ben. I'm just finishing something off. I'll be with you in a minute.'\n\nFor God's sake. It was only Velcro. But because of the way it was fastened on my wrists, when I tugged I was just pulling tighter on to the join. I tried to squeeze up my hands and slip them through the loops, but there was no slack. I could hear the crickle-crickle of the Velcro hooks under strain. Then the crickling stopped. My thumb joints were still in the way. My wrists were getting sore. My arms were aching. My heart was racing. _Don't panic. In \u2013 two \u2013 three \u2013 four. Out \u2013 two \u2013 three \u2013 four._\n\n'D'you want some tea, Mum?'\n\n'Lovely, thanks. NO! No, it's all right. Just put the kettle on. I'll come down.'\n\nNext I tried using my teeth. I found that if I strained and wriggled, I could get my mouth within an inch of my left wrist. Half an inch. But no more. I tried the other side. That was worse. My arms weren't long enough. Or maybe they were too long. I went back to the left side. I strained and strained. If I stuck my tongue out I could even touch the Velcro with the tip of it \u2013 I just couldn't get it with my teeth. When my shoulder felt as though it was going to break, I gave up. Exhausted, I lay back on the pillows and considered my options. Then I realised I had no options. Well, the only option was to call out to Ben for help. That wasn't really an option. I'd rather die. Then I became aware of another unpleasant sensation. I needed a pee.\n\n'Kettle's boiled!'\n\n'Right! Thanks!'\n\nI could tell Ben it was an accident. Oh, yeah. I could pretend I'd been trying out an experiment. Playing a game. Practising for a pantomime. Like you do. Trouble was, the duvet was down around my knees, and I was still wearing the red panties. And nothing else. There was nothing for it but to go back to the crickling. Each little crickle-crickle was a hook opening, I told myself. Just take it slowly. Forget about the bladder. Concentrate on the wrists. Concentrate on one wrist at a time. I seemed to have more power in my right wrist. I found that by moving the thumb joint and flexing my fingers up and down I could increase the crickling. Cricklecrickle-crickle. Crickle-crickle-crickle. The more gently I did it, the more it crickled. I could move my right thumb quite a bit now. I could fold it into my palm and ease it... ease it... yes, there it goes. My right hand was free. I reached across and freed my left hand. Then I grabbed my dressing gown and dashed to the toilet.\n\n'Is everything all right, Mum?'\n\n'Yes. Just get that kettle on.'\n\nTwo minutes later I strolled into the kitchen wearing my jeans and jumper and an insouciant smile on my face. I poured the hot water over the tea bag.\n\n'Thanks, Ben. Just something I had to get finished by today.'\n\nHe studied me curiously. I slipped my hands behind my back so he wouldn't see the raw marks on my wrists.\n\n'Are you all right, Mum? You look a bit... red.'\n\n'Red?' I blushed.\n\n'Have you been in a fight?'\n\n'No. Not exactly. Why?'\n\n'You seem \u2013 sort of \u2013 irregular.'\n\nIt wasn't until I had another pee at bedtime that I spotted the red lace-trimmed panties still crumpled up on the floor in the toilet. Had Ben noticed them when he went upstairs? Should I say anything? Should I pretend they were Stella's? (Shame on you, Georgie!) Or should I just keep quiet? That's what I did. \n\n# 38\n\n# Without walls\n\nBen and I had taken to sometimes having our tea in front of the gas fire in the sitting room with the television on in the background \u2013 a comfy Kippax habit, which we'd adopted now there were just the two of us. So there we were on Thursday balancing our plates on our knees and watching the seven o'clock news \u2013 the usual gloom, doom and trivia. I was about to flick the remote when an item came up about the nuclear missile defence shield that the Americans were supposed to be stationing in Poland to stop missiles from Iran. I know my geography's a bit shaky, but wasn't that, like, the wrong continent? Then I noticed Ben had gone very still.\n\n'I wouldn't worry,' I said. 'I'm sure it won't work, anyway.'\n\nBen was staring at the screen.\n\n'It's the prophecy. Gog and Magog.' His voice was almost a whisper. 'They're getting ready for the missiles.'\n\n'What missiles?'\n\nBen put his plate aside, slid off the sofa, and knelt in front of me.\n\n'Mum, I'm begging you. Take Jesus into your heart.'\n\nHe stretched out his hands to me as if he was pleading or praying \u2013 my poor broken-in-half boy. I took his hands \u2013 they were shaking. I knew that nothing I said would be the right thing, so I kept quiet and just held his hands tight in mine. Then he closed his eyes, and started to speak \u2013 it was more like a chant \u2013 in that grating up-talk inflection.\n\n'Ezekiel thirty-eight? Thus saith the Lord God? Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, Prince of Meshech and Tubal. I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, all thine army, horses and horsemen? Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them? Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togar-mah of the north quarters, and all his bands? All of them clothed in all manner of armour _,_ shields and swords?'\n\nIt reminded me of the _Lord of the Rings_ poster on his wall: the Orcs with their sub-prime dentistry, the vast exotic computer-enhanced armies marching into the field. I would have dismissed it as lads' fantasy, but for what came next.\n\n'In the last days I will bring thee against my land? Thou shalt come into this land, that is brought back to peace from the sword, gathered out of many people to dwell amongst the mountains of Israel, which had been a wasteland before, but is brought forth out of the nations. And they shall dwell safely? All of them? Dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates?'\n\nHis voice was wobbling.\n\n'Oh, Ben...' I squeezed his hands. Phrases from Naomi's letter from Israel \u2013 the letter I'd found in the piano stool, which I'd reread so many times, flashed into my mind. _Our place of safety_... _of barren wasteland_... _our people gathered out of every country where we have been exiles_... _a land without barbed wires._ But Mr Ali had told me there were walls now, and checkpoints, and barbed wire.\n\n'And I will rain upon him an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone.' Ben's eyes were still closed. Then he looked up at me. 'Take Jesus, Mum. Please? Before it's too late?'\n\n'Okay, Ben. Okay.'\n\nHe was pale and trembling.\n\n'But you don't believe it, do you?' He shook his shaved head \u2013 covered now with fine dark stubble \u2013 in a gesture that could have been frustration or despair.\n\n'Well...'\n\n'You're just saying it to keep me happy, aren't you?' His eyes were liquid, backed up with tears. 'What's the point? What's the point in being saved, if everybody... like everybody you really love is going to be damned?'\n\nThe television was still burbling in the background, and I flicked the remote to turn it off \u2013 to cut off that terrifying stream of madness that kept leaching into our own little fireside world.\n\n'Come here, you.' I pulled him up on to the sofa beside me, and put my arms round his shoulders, squeezing him tight. 'It's just talk and posturing. It'll all blow over.'\n\nI said it with a confidence I didn't feel, putting on a brave face for Ben, for a part of me was scared, too. However much my rational mind dismissed the gibberish of prophets, there was a dark cave hidden away beneath my brain where the monsters slept, fears and nightmares chained up since childhood, but still with a residual power to instil dread. We sat together, holding hands and listening to the silence settling back into the room. It was raining again outside, a soft pit-pat, not a downpour. I could hear Ben's breathing getting slower. His hands were very cold.\n\nSuddenly, outside in the street, we heard the sound of a car pulling up, tyres splashing in the rain, a diesel engine idling, footsteps on the path, a knock on the door. Ben and I stared at each other. There was another louder knock, then a man's voice \u2013 an unfamiliar voice \u2013 'Anybody there?'\n\nI got up and opened the door. I didn't recognise the man standing there, a bulky, dark-skinned man. But after a moment, I realised he was the driver of the taxi that had pulled up outside on the road. Then the door of the taxi opened, and out clambered Mrs Shapiro.\n\n'Georgine!' she exclaimed. 'Please \u2013 help me! Do you heff some money for the taxi?'\n\n'Of course,' I said. 'How much?'\n\n'Fifty-four pound,' said the taxi driver. He wasn't smiling.\n\n'Isn't that a bit...?'\n\n'It should be more than that. We been going round in circles for hours.'\n\nI went to look in my purse. I had forty pounds and some change.\n\n'Ben, can you help?'\n\nHe was standing behind me, trying to work out what was going on.\n\n'I'll have a look.'\n\nHe went upstairs. I remembered some loose coins in my duffel coat pocket. And there were some pounds I'd put in the Barnardo's envelope by the door. Ben came down with a fiver. Mrs Shapiro fished a pound coin out of the lining of her astrakhan coat. Between us we rustled together \u00a352.73. The taxi driver took it crossly, mumbled something, and disappeared.\n\n'Come in, come in,' I said to Mrs Shapiro.\n\n'Thenk you,' she said. 'Some persons are living in my house. Will not let me in.'\n\nAs she crossed the threshold, Wonder Boy appeared out of the darkness and slunk in beside her.\n\nShe sat by the fire cradling a mug of tea in her hands, which Ben had brought on a tray, with some chocolate digestives.\n\n'Thenk you, young man. Charming. I am Mrs Naomi Shapiro. Please \u2013 tek a biscuit.'\n\nWonder Boy stretched himself out in front of the fire and started rubbing himself up against the _Lion King_ slippers, making a gruff rasping noise which was as close as he could get to purring. Through sips of tea and mouthfuls of biscuit crumbs, she told us the story of her escape.\n\nAfter the discovery of the dead body, the bonker lady had become totally bonkers.\n\n'Crezzy. Brain completely rotted away.'\n\nNot content with hanging around in the corridor cadging cigarettes from visitors, she would embellish her patter with an invitation.\n\n'I show you the dead body if you give me a ciggie.'\n\nThat upset the staff \u2013 they thought it was giving a bad impression of the home. From time to time, just to wind them up, she would rush down the corridor yelling ''Elp! 'Elp! There's a dead body in 'ere!' It came to a head when a party of relatives accompanying their aged mother on an inspection tour were accosted by the bonker lady, who somehow led them to believe (they were all smokers) that finding corpses was almost a daily occurrence. The staff member who was showing them round lost her rag and tried to push the bonker lady back into her room.\n\n'But she was fighting them like a tiger. Clawving and skretching mit the hends!'\n\nIn the end the security guard had to be called. Then matron arrived in her green cardie with an ampoule of sedative and a needle, but the bonker lady kept struggling and yelling, ''Elp! 'Elp! They gonner kill me!'\n\nThe relatives, rattled by so much violence, tried to call the police on a mobile phone. By now all the residents \u2013 those of them who were upright \u2013 had crowded into the corridor and were cheering the bonker lady on. In all the kerfuffle Mrs Shapiro managed to slip unnoticed through the door into the lobby and out on to the Lea Bridge Road, where a passing taxi whisked her to safety.\n\n'And here I am, darlinks!' she exclaimed, flushed with the excitement of her adventure. 'Only problem is some persons are living in my house. We must evict them now!'\n\nShe put her empty cup down and rose to her feet. I tried to persuade her to stay for a bite to eat, and even offered her a bed for the night, but she was desperate to get home. Wonder Boy had stopped purring and was thrashing his tail against the floor.\n\nWe set off down the road, Mrs Shapiro leading the way \u2013 it was surprising how fast she could move in those _Lion King_ slippers \u2013 Ben and I lagging behind, and Wonder Boy bringing up the rear. It was quite dark and cold, the air still damp from the recent rain. As we turned into Totley Place a couple of the other cats appeared out of the bushes and tagged along, too. Violetta was waiting for us in the porch, ecstatic with pleasure at Mrs Shapiro's return. Wonder Boy hissed, batted her with his paws, and sent her packing.\n\nThere were lights in some of the windows, and this was surprising in itself, because I'd never before seen Canaan House lit up so brightly from the inside. I noticed that the front door had been painted yellow and the broken floor tiles in the porch replaced with what looked like modern bathroom tiles. While Mrs Shapiro was fumbling for her key, I rang on the doorbell.\n\nIt was Mr Ali's nephew, Ishmail, who answered the door. He recognised me at once, and beaming broadly gestured to us to come inside.\n\n'Welcome! Welcome!'\n\nHe'd learned another word. The inside of the house had been painted, too, in white and yellow. It looked lighter and fresher, and smelled much better. I saw Mrs Shapiro looking around, and tried to judge the expression on her face. She seemed to be quite pleased.\n\n'You've been busy,' I said to Ishmail. 'This is Mrs Shapiro. She's the owner of the house. She's come home now, so I'm afraid you'll have to leave. It's what we agreed. Remember?'\n\nHe smiled and nodded blankly. He obviously had no idea what I was on about. I tried again, talking more loudly, with accompanying gestures.\n\n'This lady \u2013 live here \u2013 come back \u2013 you must go \u2013 go now.' I pointed at Mrs Shapiro and made shooing hand movements.\n\n'Yes. Yes.' He smiled and nodded.\n\nThen Nabeel appeared on the scene, and joined in the smiling and nodding, offering his three words of English.\n\n'Hello. Please. Welcome. Hello. Please. Welcome.'\n\n'Hello. Yes, please. Welcome,' said Ishmail.\n\nI went through my pointing and shooing routine. They smiled and nodded.\n\n'Hello. Yes. Please.'\n\nWe were getting nowhere.\n\nThen Ishmail \u2013 you have to credit him with some intelligence \u2013 got his mobile phone out, keyed a number, and started talking in Arabic to the person at the other end. After a few moments he passed the phone to me. It was Mr Ali.\n\n'You'll have to tell them to leave,' I said. 'Now that Mrs Shapiro's home. They can't stay. You promised \u2013 remember? I'm really sorry. I thought we'd have some warning, but...' I was getting a bit hysterical.\n\nI passed the phone to Ishmail. He listened for a few moments, then uttered a stream of Arabic, then listened again, then passed the phone to me.\n\n'Tonight too late. I have no van.' Mr Ali's voice sounded faint and crackly. 'Please let them to stay for tonight. Tomorrow I come with van.'\n\n'Okay,' I said. 'Just tonight. I'll talk to Mrs Shapiro. Mr Ali, thank you for the work you've done \u2013 the painting \u2013 it looks wonderful.'\n\n'You like this yellow colour?'\n\n'Very much.'\n\n'I knew you would like it.' He sounded pleased.\n\nMrs Shapiro had lost patience with our three-way conversation, and had disappeared somewhere. Ben and Nabeel had wandered off into the study, where a television had been rigged up with an internal aerial. They were watching football, sitting side by side grinning and cheering when a goal was scored. Nabeel pointed to himself and said, 'Hello! Please! Arsenal!' Ben pointed to himself and said, 'Hello, Leeds United!'\n\nI found Mrs Shapiro in her bedroom. She was curled up in bed with Wonder Boy, Violetta, Mussorgsky and one of the pram babies. Wonder Boy had actually got under the covers with her. They were all purring, and Mrs Shapiro was snoring. \n\n# 39\n\n# Home improvements\n\nNext morning, I woke up with the feeling that I had something important to do, but I couldn't remember what it was. I'd left Mrs Shapiro sleeping at the house last night, and I thought maybe I should go back this morning and check up on her. Then the phone rang. It was Ms Baddiel, reminding me of our meeting. After I'd put the phone down, I had a bright idea. I picked it up again, and dialled Nathan's number.\n\n'I wonder whether you could give us some advice. About the use of modern adhesives in home improvements. This morning. Eleven o'clock.' I gave him the address.\n\n'Great. I'll bring the DIY demonstration kit.'\n\n'Bring your father, too.'\n\nI smiled as I put the phone down. Matchmaking is a game that two can play.\n\nI went up there a bit earlier to make sure everything was shipshape for Ms Baddiel, and to supervise the departure of the Uselesses \u2013 I hoped they'd be all packed up and ready to go. When I rang on the bell at about half past ten, it was Ishmail who opened the door again and invited me in. The house was pleasantly warm, and smelled of woodsmoke, freshly brewed coffee and cigarettes. I followed him through to the study at the back of the house where a fire had been lit in the hearth. They were burning sheaves of papers and bits of old wood \u2013 including some of the boards that had been taken down from the windows. The television was on, and a sofa, still draped in a white dust sheet, had been dragged through from the sitting room. On the sofa sat Mrs Shapiro and Nabeel. They were smoking and drinking coffee from the silver pot and watching _The Hound of the Baskervilles_ in black and white on the television. Mrs Shapiro was wearing her candlewick dressing gown and her _Lion King_ slippers. Violetta was curled up on her lap, Mussorgsky was on Nabeel's lap and Wonder Boy was stretched out on the rug in front of the fire. It was a scene of cosy decadence.\n\n'Georgine! Darlink!' She swivelled round and patted the empty space at the end of the sofa. 'Come and drink a coffee mit us.'\n\n'Maybe later,' I said. 'We have to get ready. The social worker's coming.'\n\n'What for I need the social work?' Mrs Shapiro sniffed. 'I heff my young men.'\n\n'But they're going home now, Mrs Shapiro. They have to go.'\n\nOn the screen, the hound started roaring terrifyingly. Wonder Boy pricked up his ears and started swinging his tail. Mrs Shapiro gripped my hand.\n\n'This dog is a monster. Same like the matron in the Nightmare House. Grrah! I will not go back to this place. Never.'\n\n'No, definitely not. But _this_ social worker is nice. She'll help you to stay at home. It's Ms Baddiel. You met her before. Remember?'\n\n'I remember. Not Jewish. Too fet.'\n\nShe'd lost interest in our conversation, and was watching the fearsome hound racing over the darkening moors.\n\nIshmail thrust a cup of coffee into my hands. It was thick, black and bitter. He handed me the sugar bowl and though I don't usually take sugar I helped myself to a couple of heaped spoonfuls. I declined the cigarette he offered me, but Mrs Shapiro took it and lit it from the end of the one that was still smouldering in the ashtray at her feet.\n\n'What is this brown boots?' she asked, coughing a little.\n\nAs I was trying to explain the significance of the black and brown boots in the plot, the doorbell rang.\n\nThe other three were completely gripped by the drama so I got up to answer it. Ms Baddiel was standing there. She was wearing a floaty silk aquamarine coat, and her honey-gold hair was twisted up in a loose braid. Behind her on the porch stood Nathan, with a large attach\u00e9 case under his arm, and Nathan's Tati, looking very spruce in a collar and tie. They had obviously introduced themselves already.\n\n'Nathan's come along to advise us about adhesives,' I said. 'In case there are any urgent repairs that need doing.'\n\n'Perr-fect.' She followed me through to the study, sniffing the air and looking around her, taking in all the improvements. 'Lovely.'\n\nMrs Shapiro hardly looked up as we came into the room, her eyes were fixed on dashing Basil Rathbone on the screen, but Ishmail, with impeccable politeness, jumped up and offered Ms Baddiel his corner of the sofa.\n\n'Hello, Mrs Shapiro.' She leaned forward towards the old lady. 'How are you doing? I understand you've had some adventures.'\n\n'Ssh!' Mrs Shapiro held her finger to her lips. 'The hund is killing.'\n\nHalf an hour or so later, as the final credits rolled, she turned to us and said in a croaky voice, 'I heff seen this film once before. Mit Arti. When we were still in loff. Before the sickness snetched him away. So long ago. What has heppened to all the years?'\n\nThere were tears in the corners of her eyes. Ms Baddiel leaned forward and hugged her in her plump arms. Then she reached in her bag for a vanilla-scented tissue.\n\n'It's all right now. You can let it all out. Take a deep breath. Hold. Breathe out with a sigh. There. Perfect.'\n\nVioletta stretched her paws and rubbed her head against Mrs Shapiro's thigh. Tati put a piece of wood \u2013 it looked worryingly like an antique chair leg \u2013 on the fire and reached down to stroke Wonder Boy, who rolled on his back, legs thrown apart abandonedly, and started to purr. Nathan and I exchanged smiles. Nabeel went and made another pot of coffee. Ishmail offered round a packet of Camel cigarettes.\n\n'Are you her carer?' Ms Baddiel asked.\n\n'Hello. Yes. Please.' He flashed his lovely teeth at her.\n\nShe took out her Labrador-puppy notebook and wrote something down. Then Nabeel came back from the kitchen with a steaming coffee pot and fresh cups.\n\n'And you? You're a carer, too?'\n\n'Hello. Yes. Welcome!'\n\n'Well, you may be entitled to claim the Carer's Allowance,' she said. 'One of you. The Carer's Allowance is payable if you spend at least thirty-five hours a week looking after someone who is in receipt of Attendance Allowance. Are you claiming Attendance Allowance, Mrs Shapiro?'\n\n'What for I need attendents?' said Mrs Shapiro. She was still sniffling a bit.\n\n'Well, you know,' Ms Baddiel offered her another tissue, 'after what you've been through, Mrs Shapiro, I think you deserve a bit of help. Of course it's up to you, entirely.'\n\nA skinny tabby cat jumped up into her lap. She ran her little chipolatas over its fur making it purr so much it started to dribble and she had to get another tissue out. Nathan's Tati was sitting watching all this with such a solemn look on his face I thought she'd have to hand him a tissue, too.\n\nThen the doorbell rang again. Ishmail was already on his feet so he went to answer it. I heard him talking animatedly, and another quieter voice replying. A moment later, Mr Ali joined us in the study. He and Ishmail were still arguing in Arabic, and now Nabeel joined in. Mr Ali turned to Mrs Shapiro.\n\n'They are saying they want to stay here. They are saying they can baint all house and fixitup and help you make it clean. I will supervise of course. You pay only for materials.'\n\nI saw a quick flicker pass through Mrs Shapiro's eyes. She said nothing.\n\n'You know in our culture we have great respect for old people,' Mr Ali pressed on. 'But I think mebbe you do not like to have young men into your house, Mrs Naomi?'\n\nEveryone's gaze was now focused on Mrs Shapiro. She looked around cannily. Her eyes were still moist but her cheeks were flushed with excitement, or maybe with too much strong coffee, and I could see her mouth twitch as she weighed up her options.\n\n'I donnow. I donnow.' She put one hand dramatically to her brow, and ran the other through Wonder Boy's shaggy belly-fur. 'Wonder Boy, what you think?' Wonder Boy purred ecstatically. 'Okay. We try it.'\n\nThere was a general exhalation of breath.\n\nMr Ali led us on a guided tour around the house to show us the improvements he'd made. The dingy hall looked much brighter under its coat of white paint, and the loose floor tiles had been fixed or replaced with shiny white bathroom tiles. I noticed with dismay as we climbed the stairs that the grand old mahogany banisters and handrail had been painted with yellow gloss to match the front door, but Mrs Shapiro didn't seem to mind.\n\nHowever, the most spectacular change was in the bathroom. The original chipped and cracked white tiles had been retained, but beneath them an entire new bathroom suite had been installed. Well, it wasn't exactly new \u2013 it looked as if it dated back to the sixties and had been taken out of a house undergoing renovation \u2013 two houses, in fact. There was a wide rose-pink washbasin and matching lavatory complete with pink plastic seat cover, and under the window an avocado-green bath with curved chrome handrails. The rotten floorboards under the lavatory had been patched up, and a piece of lino in blue-and-white mosaic covered the whole floor. If you were colour-blind, it would have been lovely.\n\nAs my eyes scanned the room, they fell on a white porcelain toothbrush holder fixed on to the wall above the basin. I bent closer to take a surreptitious look while everyone was oohing and aahing over the bath. Yes, it was definitely the same one. There was a small chip on one side \u2013 must be from where I'd tossed it into the skip. It was quite stylish \u2013 clean lines, Scandinavian-style. But really, at the end of the day, it was just a toothbrush holder. To imagine I'd once got so worked up over it!\n\nThen Mr Ali turned the taps on and off to demonstrate that they all worked. As he flushed the lavatory, steam rose. He stared into the toilet pan with a puzzled frown.\n\n'Some small mistake. Maybe wrong beep. Soon fixitup.'\n\n'But the hot water is much better!' cried Mrs Shapiro. 'You are a very clever-kn\u00f6del, Mr Ali.'\n\nHe beamed at her. 'Colours you like?'\n\n'The pink is nice colour,' she said. 'Better than the green.'\n\n'Lovely,' I said.\n\n'Lovely,' agreed Ms Baddiel, who had seen \u2013 and smelled \u2013 the original.\n\n'They've developed a new kind of flexible non-crack tile adhesive based on a thixotropic gel,' said Nathan, producing a tub of something from his demonstration pack. 'Should you be thinking of replacing the tiles.'\n\nNathan's Tati cleared his throat and sang a verse of the 'Toreador Song' from _Carmen_ that resonated in the small space.\n\n'Good acoustics!' he said. Everyone applauded, apart from Nathan.\n\nThe bedroom the Uselesses were sharing was the one with the white uPVC window. It had been replastered over the breeze block and actually, from inside, it didn't look so bad. The walls were freshly painted white, and the beds neatly made with the burgundy velour curtains for bedcovers. Their shoes, folded clothes and carrier bags were lined up tidily against one wall. I caught Nathan's eye.\n\n'Admirably spic and span,' was all he said.\n\nMrs Shapiro's bedroom was untouched, the wallpaper a faded-out colourless fawn with small nondescript flowers picked out in muddy taupe.\n\n'We will baint it up next. What colour you like it?' asked Mr Ali.\n\nShe pressed her fingers against her brow as she tried to envision a new room.\n\n'What about the penthouse?' I whispered to Mr Ali. 'Have you started up there?'\n\n'Not yet. Still clearing rubbish. Boys burning it. But slow.'\n\n'They're burning all the papers?' I had an image of priceless historical records going up in smoke. 'Mrs Shapiro? Aren't some of your belongings up there?'\n\n'Is all the rubbish belonging previous inhebitents,' she said dismissively. 'Was some type of religious persons living here before. Orsodox or Kessolik I don't know. They heff left behind all their rubbish and run away.'\n\n'They ran away?'\n\n'In the bombing. They ran and left it all behind. Yes, eau de nil.'\n\n'But who...?'\n\n'Eau de nil is the most charming colour for the bedroom, isn't it?'\n\n'An admirable choice,' murmured Nathan's Tati sonorously into Mrs Shapiro's ear, brushing her cheek with the tips of his whiskers.\n\nAs we came back down the stairs, he held out his arm for Mrs Shapiro, and she rested her weight on it lightly. She seemed to be blushing more than usual under all the rouge. My plan was working!\n\nThe last room we went into was the large sitting room downstairs at the front \u2013 the one with the grand piano. The stench in there made us recoil as we stepped inside, and now it was obvious why the room had been out of use for so long. Mr Ali had removed the boards from the window, and in the daylight we could see the sagging ceiling and a great crack in the bay, so wide that you could see daylight on the other side and the green of the monkey puzzle tree. A trail of muddy paw prints led from the base of the crack across the carpet towards the door with its broken latch. So this explained the mystery of how the Phantom Pooer got in and out \u2013 even though I still didn't know which one was the culprit. In fact that was the least of our problems.\n\nNathan, Nathan's Tati and Mr Ali went over to examine the crack, rubbing their chins solemnly and pacing up and down with lowered eyes, the way men do in B&Q.\n\n'There are new types of heavy-duty fast-setting foam fillers, called structural methacrylates, suitable for construction work...' Nathan began hesitantly.\n\n'But this does not fixitup the problem,' Mr Ali scratched his head. 'First we must find out what causes. Maybe this tree...'\n\nThey were looking into the break in the floorboards below the ruptured skirting board. 'We could cut the tree down, dig the roots out, then pump the gap full of methacrylate foam,' suggested Nathan.\n\n'Concrete may be better,' said Mr Ali. 'But pity to cut up such a fine tree.'\n\n'Mind the gap,' Nathan's Tati murmured to Mrs Shapiro, who had come over to have a look, placing his hand on her shoulder and letting it linger there.\n\n'What do you think, Mrs Shapiro? Should we cut the tree down?' asked Ms Baddiel.\n\nMrs Shapiro looked shifty. 'No. Yes. Maybe.'\n\nI remembered her correspondence with the Council's tree department.\n\n'It may have a preservation order on it,' I said. 'Shall I contact the Council and find out?'\n\nEveryone seemed pleased with this suggestion. As we stood staring into the crack, a skinny feline head poked up between the floorboards and the Stinker eased himself into the drawing room. Crouching low, he looked around the semicircle of human legs, found a suitable gap, and made a dash for the door.\n\n'Raus! Little pisske! Raus!' cried Mrs Shapiro, waving him on, but you could see she didn't mean it. A cheerful, almost skittish mood had come over her; she was revelling in the presence of so many visitors \u2013 or maybe of one visitor in particular. She moved over to the piano, lifted the cover and tinkled a few notes. Even those out-of-tune keys seemed to come alive under her touch. To my amazement, without any music to read, she started to play the 'Toreador Song', embellishing it with broken chords and little trills, and Nathan's Tati, standing behind her, gave us a full baritone rendition \u2013 he was more in tune than the piano. Nathan joined in the choruses. At the end, Mrs Shapiro sat back, placing her gnarled ring-encrusted hands together with a sigh.\n\n'Hends no good, isn't it?'\n\n'Nonsense, Naomi,' said Tati, taking her hands and holding them in his.\n\nThen we all made our way back towards the entrance hall to say our goodbyes. Nabeel had to intervene to halt a hissing and scratching match between Mussorgsky and Wonder Boy \u2013 despite his initial aversion to cat poo, he had turned out to be quite a cat lover. Mr Ali talked to his nephew softly in Arabic and embraced him in a hamstery hug. Mrs Shapiro sidled up to me and, nodding her head towards Nathan, whispered, 'He is your new boyfriend, Georgine?'\n\n'Not my boyfriend. Just a friend.'\n\n'Good thing,' she whispered. 'He is too petit for you. But quite intelligent. The father also is charming. Pity he is too old for me.'\n\nAfter they'd all gone, Mrs Shapiro and her attendants went back to sit by the fire, leaving me alone in the hall for a moment, and that's when I noticed that the framed photograph of Lydda which used to hang above the hall table had disappeared. There was nothing but a nail sticking out of the wall to show it had been there. Who had moved it? I was still puzzling over it when suddenly I heard the distinct clack of the front gate. I thought it must be one of the others coming back for something they'd forgotten so I opened the door. Coming down the path towards the house was Mrs Goodney in her lizard-green quilted jacket and her pointy shoes, with an important-looking black briefcase under her arm. Behind her came a dark thickset man I'd never seen before, middle-aged, wearing a crumpled brown suit. Neither of them was smiling. There was something odd about the way the man was looking at me: his eyes seemed asymmetrical.\n\nMrs Goodney stopped in her tracks when she saw me standing in the doorway. She eyed me up for a few moments. Then she continued her advance. Now a third person, a tall spindly youth, appeared on the garden path and made his way towards us. It was Damian, the young man from Hendricks & Wilson, his hair sticking up with gel, his suit a bit too short in the legs. Blue socks. He was looking up and around, studying the house, avoiding my eyes.\n\n'Feeding the cats again, are we?' said Mrs Goodney to me. I was so taken aback by her rudeness that I forgot to ask her what she was doing here. She turned to Damian and smiled toothily.\n\n'Glad you could make it, Mr Lee. The gentleman just needs an initial estimate of value at this stage.'\n\nThe thickset man nodded. He was looking at the house in frank amazement, his misaligned eyes sliding around this way and that. Then I realised one of them was made of glass.\n\n'Must be vort a bit, eh?' he said. 'Big house like this. Good part of London town. I am somewhat impressed.' His English was better than Mrs Shapiro's, if a bit pedantic, with just a slight guttural accent.\n\nDamian took a dog-eared notebook out of his pocket and started to make notes with a stub of pencil. He was still avoiding my eyes.\n\n'Unfortunately it's not worth as much as you think. It's in poor condition, as you can see.' Mrs Goodney was simpering at the glass-eye man. 'I've had a reputable builder to view it and he reports that it needs a substantial amount of money spending on it to bring it up to present-day standards. I'll show you his report if you like.' The glass-eye man sniffed discontentedly, but Mrs Goodney placed one plump red-nailed gold-ringed hand on his arm and the other on Damian's. 'Don't worry, Mr Lee'll quote you a good price. Won't you, Mr Lee?'\n\nDamian nodded and chewed the end of his pencil.\n\n'This is what you do for your five grand, is it, Damian?' I hissed. He ignored me and carried on chewing.\n\n'Seems like she's already had some builders in. Cowboys, by the look of it.' Her eye had fallen on the uPVC window on the first floor.\n\n'He's not a cowboy,' I blurted out. They all stared at me. 'He's...'\n\nThen I noticed that their gaze had shifted away from me to a point somewhere beyond my left shoulder. I turned round. Mrs Shapiro was standing there, and behind her, Nabeel and Ishmail.\n\n'Hello, Mrs Shapiro,' Mrs Goodney's rusty-gate voice squeaked with fake cheeriness. 'What are you doing here, sweetie? You're supposed to be...'\n\n'I am come home. Finish mit Nightmare.'\n\n'But you can't stay here on your own. This house isn't safe for you, poppet.'\n\n'Poppet schmoppet.' She pulled herself up into her five-feet-tall, chin-out-fighting pose and looked the social worker in the eye. Her cheeks were still flushed from the excitement of the morning. 'I heff my Attendents. I will claim the Attendents Allowance.'\n\nThe young men standing behind her flashed their teeth and their eyes at everybody. Violetta, who seemed to have snuck up with Mussorgsky, was hovering around our feet rubbing herself against Mrs Shapiro's legs and purring. Unexpectedly, she arched her back and hissed at Mrs Goodney, who almost \u2013 you could see it in her face \u2013 hissed back.\n\nSuddenly the man with the glass eye stepped forward and fixed Mrs Shapiro with his disconcerting gaze.\n\n'Ella? You are Ella Wechsler?'\n\nMrs Shapiro drew back. I couldn't see her face, but I could hear her throaty intake of breath. 'You are mistooken. I am Naomi Shapiro.'\n\n'You are not Naomi Shapiro.' His voice was gravelly. 'She was my mother.'\n\n'I don't know what you talking about.' Mrs Shapiro elbowed past me, reached out, and slammed the door.\n\nThey didn't go away for about half an hour. Standing inside the freshly painted hall, the four of us listened to them ringing on the doorbell and rattling the letter box. Then we heard their voices as they walked round the outside of the house and started rapping on the kitchen door. Somewhere in the depths of the house, Wonder Boy started to yowl. Eventually they gave up.\n\nI didn't leave until I was sure the coast was clear. I walked home slowly, trying to make sense of what had happened. He must be the real Naomi Shapiro's son \u2013 the child she wrote about in her letters, the gummy brown-eyed baby in the photo \u2013 this thickset, ugly middle-aged man who had embodied all the idealism and hopes of his beautiful mother. But who was she? And how had Mrs Goodney contacted him? Maybe this was why I'd found no documents or papers in the house \u2013 Mrs Goodney had got there first. Had got them and used them to summon up this genie from the past.\n\nAs soon as I got home I went up to my bedroom, and spread the photos out on the floor. Baby Artem; the wedding photo; the couple by the fountain; the woman in the archway; the two women at the Highbury house; the Wechsler family; the moshav near Lydda. At half past four, Ben wandered in to see what I was doing, and pointed out something so obvious I should have noticed it before.\n\n'I wonder why he's carrying a gun.'\n\n'Who?'\n\n'The man who took the photo. Look.'\n\nHe pointed to a dark patch on the stony foreground in the landscape photograph. It was the shadow of the photographer \u2013 the sun was behind him, and you could see the outline of the head and shoulders, the arms raised to hold the camera to the eye, and something long and straight hanging down from one shoulder. Yes, it could be a gun.\n\nHe picked up the photograph of the woman standing in the stone archway and turned it over.\n\n'Who's she?'\n\n'I think she must be Naomi Shapiro.'\n\n'The old lady down the road?'\n\n'No, someone else.'\n\n'It says Lydda.'\n\n'That's a place. In Israel.'\n\n'I know, Mum. It's in one of the prophecies. It's supposed to be where the Antichrist returns.' His voice had gone husky.\n\n'Don't be daft, Ben,' I said. Then I saw the look in his eyes. 'Sorry \u2013 I didn't mean _you're_ daft, I meant _it's_ daft. All that Antichrist stuff. Putin and the Pope. The Prince of Wales and his evil bar codes.' I was trying to sound jokey, but Ben didn't smile.\n\n'The Muslims call him Dajjal? He's got one eye? He gets killed by Jesus in this massive battle at the gates of Lydda?' There were beads of sweat on his forehead.\n\n'Ben, it's all...' The word on my lips was 'rubbish', but I held back.\n\n'I know you don't believe in it, Mum. I'm not gonna argue about it, all right? I'm not even sure I believe all of it myself. But I know there's something in it. I just know. Like, I can feel it coming?' \n\n# 5 \n_If Only It Came in Tubes_\n\n# 40\n\n# Heavy as watermelons\n\nI walked round to Canaan House the next day, hoping to have a chance to speak to Mr Ali. I wanted to ask him about Lydda. After my unsettling talk with Ben last night, I'd logged on to the internet to look up information about the prophecies relating to Lydda. This story \u2013 I wasn't sure where it was leading me, but now, because of Ben, it had become my story, too, and I knew I had to follow it through.\n\nThe sun was shining for once, a hard clear brightness, with even a touch of warmth, and I could smell the trees and shrubs catching their silky breaths as if taken by surprise: this is it at last \u2013 a real spring day. Around the margins of the lawn, daffodils were poking their yellow heads up between the cut-back loops of bramble that had already started to regrow. Mr Ali was there, standing up on a ladder painting the outside of Mrs Shapiro's bedroom window, singing wordlessly to himself. Wonder Boy was supervising him, sitting on one of the white uPVC chairs in the garden with his tail wrapped round his legs.\n\n'Hello, Mr Ali!' I called. 'Is everything okay?'\n\nHe came back down the ladder and wiped his hands on a piece of cloth from the pocket of his blue nylon overall.\n\n'Hello, Mrs George. Nice day!'\n\nActually, I realised that Wonder Boy wasn't supervising Mr Ali at all; he was supervising a couple of thrushes which were hard at work building their nest among a thicket of ivy in one of the ash trees. I watched them come and go with their bits of moss and dry grass. Wonder Boy was watching too, flicking the tip of his tail.\n\n'Tomorrow I borrow the van, we take Mrs Shapiro to choose a colour of paint for inside.'\n\n'That's good.'\n\n'How is your son?'\n\n'He's okay, but...' I hesitated. An image of Ben slipped into my mind, his waxy face, the fear in his eyes. He'd gone off to bed last night without eating anything. I'd knocked on the door of his room, but it was locked from the inside. I was beginning to doubt whether this was normal teenage behaviour, something he would grow out of.\n\n'Mr Ali, that picture in the hall \u2013 of Lydda. Was it you who took it down?'\n\n'Lydda.' He stuck his paintbrush in a pot of turpentine and swirled it around. 'In the old times this town was famous for its beautiful mosques. But do you know, Mrs George, that this town is a special place to you also? Is home town of your Christian Saint George. You are named from him, I think?'\n\nI didn't want to admit that in fact I'd been named after George Lansbury. It was Dad's idea, and Mum hadn't been able to think of a suitably inspirational female socialist icon to suggest instead.\n\n'Really? Saint George the dragon slayer came from Lydda?'\n\n'You can see his picture carved above the door of the church.'\n\nSweet Saint Georgina. I recalled Mark Diabello's poem with a shudder. But Ben had also talked about a one-eyed devil.\n\n'The picture of Lydda that was in the hallway, why did you take it down, Mr Ali?'\n\n'Why you are always asking questions, Mrs George?' He wasn't exactly being rude, but the easy friendliness of our previous conversation had gone. 'Everything is okay. Sun is shining. I am working. Everybody is happy. Now you start asking questions, and if I tell you the truth you will not be happy.'\n\n'You were going to tell me about your family, remember? What happened in Lydda?'\n\nHe didn't say anything. He was concentrating on cleaning his brushes. Then he pulled up one of the white plastic chairs and sat down at the table. Wonder Boy had slunk off; I saw him sitting directly beneath the thrushes' tree, staring up into the branches. I shooed him away and sat myself down opposite Mr Ali. He put aside the brushes, poured some of the turpentine on to his hands, rubbed them together and wiped them on his piece of cloth.\n\n'You want to know? Okay. I will tell you, Mrs George.' He put the cloth back in his pocket and folded his arms across his XXL tummy. 'I come from Lydda. I had one brother, born the same time.'\n\n'A twin?'\n\n'If you will please stop interruption, I will tell you.'\n\nMustafa al-Ali, the man I knew as Mr Ali, was born in Lydda in 1948 \u2013 this much he knew. He didn't know his mother's name, nor that of his twin brother, nor even his exact date of birth, but he reckons he was a few months old on 11th July 1948.\n\n'Why, what happened then?'\n\n'Have patience. I will tell you.'\n\nLydda was at that time a busy town of some 20,000 inhabitants that had grown up over centuries in the fertile coastal plain between the mountains of Judaea and the Mediterranean sea. But that summer, the summer of Nakba, the town was filled up with refugees from Jaffa and smaller towns and villages all up the coast. 'You can imagine how everybody was jittering, talking about expulsions and massacres.'\n\nOne late morning in July, when everything was hot and still, and even cats and sparrows had gone off to look for shade, there was a sudden roar of engines overhead. People who looked up saw a flight of planes swoop low out of the glimmering sky. Then the explosions started. One after the other after the other, as the planes began unloading their bombs on the sleepy little town. Houses, shops, mosques, market stalls. One after the other after the other. There was nowhere to flee to. No bomb shelters. No anti-aircraft guns. People just scurried around like frenzied ants. Some caught a blast and fell in the street. Some died when rubble collapsed on them. Some sat tight in a corner and covered their heads and prayed.\n\n'But their purpose mainly was not to kill,' Mr Ali continued, fixing me with his eyes. 'They wanted to drive us out, with terror.'\n\nNext day, as people were emerging from the rubble to inspect the damage and bury their dead, a battalion with mounted machine guns suddenly rolled into town at high speed. At first they thought it was the Jordanian army, come to defend them, but all at once the machine guns let rip, barrels blazing, bullets flying in all directions. Men, women and children were gunned down \u2013 some 200 fell and died in the streets. Others fled in fright.\n\n'You can read it on your internet, Mrs George. How it was reported in American newspapers. Blitzkrieg. Ruthlessly brilliant. Corpses riddled with bullets by roadside. All this was done to create terror. This is how they emptied Lydda of its population.'\n\nSome tried to take safety in the great Dahmash Mosque. But later that night, the people who lived nearby heard round after round of gunfire coming from the building. Next day 176 bodies were found inside.\n\nAs dawn broke, soldiers ran from house to house, banging on the doors with their rifle butts and ordering those inside to leave at once.\n\n'\"Go! Go to King Abdullah!\" the soldiers shouted. What they mean is \u2013 get out of this country, and leave it for us! Go to Jordan! Flee to any Arab country that will take you! You never heard about this?'\n\nI shook my head. 'Go on.'\n\nThe terrified population, expelled from their homes, grabbed what they could and fled. The al-Ali family \u2013 the women and children, for their father had disappeared \u2013 were dragged out of their house on to the street, given only a few minutes to grab their valuables. Soldiers were herding everyone out into the streets, shoving them with the barrels of their guns if they were too slow, shooting them if they resisted.\n\n'Where are we going?' the mother had asked, grabbing her children to her in all the chaos.\n\nSomeone had said, 'They're taking us to Jordan,' and someone else had said, 'We're going to Ramallah.'\n\nThey were marched to the outskirts of the town, the soldiers firing shots in the air to make them run.\n\n'Go! Run to Abdullah in Jordan!'\n\nAs they passed through a cordon, soldiers searched them, stripping them of their possessions. Ahead of them, one of their neighbours, recently married, who quibbled about surrendering his savings, was shot dead before the horrified eyes of his new bride. After that, no one protested. The al-Ali family were robbed of their money, their gold jewellery, their watches, even their silver coffee cups. All they were allowed to keep was a bundle of clothes, some bread and olives and a bag of oranges.\n\n'Run! Run!' The soldiers fired volleys of shots above their heads. But the asphalt road was barred, and they were forced to make their way eastwards across the stubbly, newly harvested fields.\n\nBy now it was midday and the heat was intense, the sky so blue and hard it seemed to glimmer like lazurite. In the coastal plain, the temperatures in July can easily reach forty degrees. There was no shade at all \u2013 only a few prickly thorn bushes growing among the rocks. Beyond the plain stretched a long hill, and they could see a miserable procession of their fellow townspeople already stumbling towards the stony horizon.\n\nMr Ali paused. He sat back in his chair and stared at the sky, his eyes wrinkled up as though to keep out too much brightness.\n\n'Each time I remember this story, my heart turns into stone.'\n\n'Go on,' I said.\n\nThe al-Ali family joined the procession walking across the fields, stepping out briskly at first, buoyed up by their anger, and confident that this was just a temporary situation, that soon the Arab armies would drive out the intruders and they would be able to return to their home. After a couple of hours, as they mounted what they thought was the crest of a hill, only to find another steeper one stretching out ahead of them, their hearts sank. Sitting with their backs to the sun, the women with their scarves pulled over their heads for shade, they ate some of their bread and olives, and quenched their thirst on the oranges. They had brought so little water \u2013 who would think of carrying water instead of silver and gold? All around them, other families were sitting, too exhausted and dehydrated to move, while others abandoned the possessions they could no longer carry, and plodded on up the hill in the searing sun.\n\nAs the day waned, they came into the small village of Kirbatha. There was a well there \u2013 but no bucket. The women took off their scarves, tied them together, and lowered them down till they tipped the little black circle of water, then pulled them up and sucked the water from the damp cloth.\n\nThe third day of the march was the worst. The women's sandals were already falling apart, their feet were bleeding and swollen. Netish thorns and blue field-thistles snagged at their skirts and legs.\n\n'Go,' said his mother to her older son, Tariq. 'Go on ahead and find us some water to drink. Maybe there is a village up there with a well.'\n\nBut there was no water. All along the way people were fainting from thirst and exhaustion. On a rocky scree the boy came across a woman staggering under the weight of a huge bundle. Two watermelons, it looked like; and he thought, if she drops them, I'll pick them up and take them back to my mother. But as he drew closer the woman sank to the ground and he saw that she was carrying two babies.\n\n'Help me, brother,' she pleaded. 'My boys are too heavy for me. I cannot carry them.'\n\nThe boy hesitated. He was only fourteen years old, and he already had his mother and sisters to look after; but it was clear this woman was not going to make it.\n\n'Take just one of them,' she said in a voice that was barely more than a whisper.\n\nTariq looked at the two babies. They looked terribly red and wrinkled, their eyes screwed shut against the light. How could he choose? Then one of them stirred and opened its dark bright eyes, which seemed to stare straight into his. The woman, seeing him waver, wrapped the baby in her shawl and thrust it into his arms.\n\n'Go on ahead. Don't wait for me. Go. I'll meet you in Ramallah.'\n\nMr Ali went silent. I gazed at the green sunlit garden, the busy thrushes, the bursting daffodils, but I could feel a desert wind on my cheek, and all I could see was dry rocks and thorn bushes.\n\n'That was you? The baby in the bundle?'\n\nHe nodded.\n\nA door opened and from the interior of the house I heard the sweet jangle of Arabic music and the noisy patter of daytime television. Then Mrs Shapiro appeared on the doorstep wearing her dressing gown and her _Lion King_ slippers.\n\n'Will you take a coffee mit us?'\n\nMr Ali didn't reply. His eyes were fixed somewhere else.\n\n'My name is Mustafa,' he said quietly. 'It means one who is chosen. My brother Tariq told me this story.'\n\nI wanted to touch him, to take his hand or put my arm round his shoulder, but there was a reserve about him, a self-containedness, that made me hold back.\n\n'Did he tell you what happened to the other baby?' I asked.\n\nMr Ali shook his head. 'He told me only that the soldier who shot the bridegroom had on his arm a tattoo \u2013 a number.'\n\nMr Ali's story had cast a shadow over me, and I found I couldn't join in with the cheerful gossip over coffee. I caught his eye once or twice, and I kept wanting to ask him what had happened to the al-Alis; whether they had all made it to Ramallah, and whether he, Mustafa, had ever found his mother and brother. But in my heart I knew the answer.\n\nI was troubled, too, by the story of the soldier with the number tattooed on his arm \u2013 what was in his mind when he shot the young bridegroom? How could a Jew who was himself a survivor of the death trails of Europe act with such casual cruelty against the hapless civilians of his promised land? What had happened in his heart? Then I started to wonder about Naomi herself \u2013 when she had let herself be photographed in the archway at Lydda, did she really not know what had taken place there two years before? Or did she know, and consider it a necessary price?\n\n'What are you thinking about, Georgine?' Mrs Shapiro reached across and patted my hand. 'Is it your running-away husband, darlink? Don't worry, I heff a plan.'\n\n'No. I'm thinking about... how hard it is to live in peace together.'\n\nShe threw me an oblique look. 'Ach, this is too serious.' She lit a cigarette for herself and one for Nabeel. 'Better to enjoy the happiness of today.'\n\nAfter we'd finished our coffee I left to go home. The sun was still shining and Wonder Boy was still sitting patiently under the tree, gazing at the thrushes' nest. Mr Ali was back up his ladder. Inside the house, Nabeel was clattering pans and playing music, and Ishmail was vacuuming. A westerly breeze stirred the tips of the saplings and made the daffodils dance. But I kept thinking about the twin babies in the bundle, heavy as watermelons \u2013 the one who was chosen, and the one who was not.\n\nIf only I had Mrs Shapiro's gift for living in the present, I thought, as I walked home past the front gardens greening with new growth; trees, shrubs, weeds, grass \u2013 everything was coming to life. Near the corner of my street, a willow tree was sticking out its silvery buds through a railing. I thoughtlessly snapped off a pussy-paws twig, and my mind flashed back to the bunches of pussy willows and catkins we used to bring in to decorate our classroom at Junior School in Kippax. Soon it would be Easter. I remembered Mrs Rowbottom's plonkety-plonk on the piano and our thin wobbly voices as we sang ' _There is a green hill far away_ '. How that hymn had scared me as a child. It had seemed a harsh intrusion into the happy world of Easter bunnies and foil-wrapped eggs. I knew now, as I hadn't known at the time, that those hills were not green at all \u2013 they were rocky and barren. I'd been puzzled, then, by the absence of a city wall; now I realised that so many walls had been built and knocked down and rebuilt again over the centuries, that time itself had lost track of what belonged to whom.\n\n' _He hung and suffered there._ ' Yes, the history of that place was steeped in cruelty. Mrs Rowbottom had glossed over the details of what happened during the crucifixion and tried to convince us that ' _without a city wall_ ' meant 'outside'. But when I asked Dad he said, 'War and religion \u2013 they both 'ave an unquenchable thirst for human blood. They feed off each other like nuggins.'\n\nMum rolled her eyes to the ceiling.\n\n''E's off again.'\n\n'What's...?'\n\n'Dennis, she's only nine.'\n\nI never did find out what a nuggin was.\n\nMum always waited until closing time on Easter Saturday to buy chocolate eggs for us, when those that were left were reduced to half price.\n\n'What d'you want them fancy eggs for, Jean?' Dad said. 'We're remembering an execution, not celebrating a birthday.'\n\nBut he ate them anyway. He had a real fondness for chocolate.\n\n# 41\n\n# Cyanoacrylate AXP-36C\n\nOn Sunday I'd planned to make the most of the fine weather and do some gardening, to get some good dirt under my fingernails, have a go at the nasty spotted laurel bush and see off the fat brown slugs. But it felt like I spent the whole day on the phone, and each phone call left me feeling more upset.\n\nThe first call was at nine o'clock (on Sunday morning \u2013 would you believe it!) from Ottoline Walker, the Scarlet-mouthed Slut.\n\n'Hello? Georgie Sinclair? Is that you?'\n\n'Who's speaking?' I kind of recognised the voice already.\n\n'It's me. Ottoline. We met. You remember?'\n\nLike hell I remembered. Big banana bogey. Ha ha.\n\n'Yes, I remember. Why are you ringing me?'\n\n'It's about Rip...' (Well, it would be, wouldn't it?) '... I just wanted to tell you I had no idea you were still... sort of... involved.'\n\n'Sort of married, actually.'\n\n'He told me it was over between you two ages ago. He told me you didn't mind...'\n\n'He told _me_ he was advancing human progress.'\n\n'Oh. I see.' There was a pause on the other end of the phone as she fumbled for a response. 'Look, I'm really sorry. It sort of changes things... I mean, when you're in love, you don't always do the right thing... you don't think about the consequences for other people.' She paused. I said nothing. 'I believe in commitment, you know.'\n\n'Like you were committed to Pete. And now you're committed to Rip.'\n\n'That's not what I mean. You make it sound terrible.'\n\n'Actually...' I stopped myself. I didn't want her to have the satisfaction of knowing how much she'd hurt me.\n\n'Ben doesn't know, if that's what you're wondering.'\n\n'What about Pete? Does he know?' I almost called him Pectoral Pete.\n\n'He found out. Poor Pete. It was awful. He was going to kill himself. Then he was going to kill Rip.'\n\nShe sounded as though she was sniffling on the phone, or maybe I imagined it. Anyway, for a moment I felt sorry for her.\n\n'You'll not get much commitment from Rip. He's committed to the Progress Project.'\n\nThere was a silence. In the background, I could hear music on the radio \u2013 a woman singing blues.\n\n'That's the other thing I wanted to ask you. This Progress Project. What is it, exactly?'\n\n'Didn't Pete tell you?'\n\n'He did, he talked about it endlessly. But he wasn't very good at explaining. I somehow couldn't get it.'\n\n'It _is_ quite complicated.'\n\n'But then with Rip it was just the same. All those big words. I realised it must be me who's a bit thick.'\n\nShe gave a little self-deprecating giggle that was quite endearing.\n\n'Er... hold on a minute. I've got written it down.' Where was that bit of paper? I rummaged in the desk drawer. 'Here it is.' I read aloud. 'The human race faces unprecedented challenges as we enter the millennium of globalisation. We need to iterate new synergies if we are to make progress in meeting the aspirations of the developing world, while clearly understanding at the same time that nothing shall prejudice the economic achievements of the developed world.'\n\nThere was another pause. The woman blues singer let out a long throbbing moan.\n\n'That's it?'\n\n'Isn't it enough?'\n\n'Well, sort of, I suppose. What does it mean exactly?'\n\n'Why don't you ask _him_?'\n\nShe made that sound again on the end of the phone. It could have been a sniffle, or a giggle. I put the phone down.\n\nGrabbing my secateurs, I pulled on my gardening gloves and stomped out into the garden. The sun was shining, but my head was full of dark clouds. Still fired up with thoughts of Rip and the Scarlet-mouthed Slut, I hacked away pitilessly at the ugly laurel bush \u2013 Wonder Boy's favourite haunt \u2013 grinding the fallen leaves into the mud. What gave her the right to ring me on a Sunday morning to cadge sympathy? Snip. Still sort of involved! Snip. I believe in commitment! Snip. Snip. I should have just put the phone down as soon as I heard her voice, instead of letting myself get drawn into conversation. Now I felt so wound up and angry that all thoughts of peace in the world had evaporated like water in the desert. And yet I had felt a frisson of fellow-feeling, and I was secretly glad to discover that despite her big scarlet mouth and her slut stilettos, it was the Progress Project that was his real mistress.\n\nAfter an hour or so the phone rang once more. I carried on snipping and let it ring until the answering machine clicked on. Then a minute later it started ringing again. And again. This was some persistent bastard. I put the secateurs down and went to answer it.\n\n'Hello, Georgina, I've been trying to get hold of you.'\n\nThat voice. I shivered as though a cool hand had touched my bare skin. It was the first time we'd spoken since the episode with the poem and the Velcro handcuffs. 'Have you got a minute? I just wanted to let you know that I've heard back from the Land Registry about Canaan House.'\n\nI took a deep breath. Despite my resolution, I could feel that warm red-panties glow coming over me again. I mustn't let my hormones take over.\n\n'And...?'\n\nHe explained that the house was unregistered, and that if Mrs Shapiro wanted to sell it she would need to register it, for which she would need the deeds. I had to force myself to concentrate on what he was saying.\n\n'What about that son you mentioned, Georgina? The son in Israel? Maybe he knows where they are.' He was still angling for information.\n\n'I met him the other day.'\n\nI told him an edited version of our doorstep encounter. I didn't mention Mr Ali and the Attendents, but I told him about Damian.\n\n'Damian Lee from Hendricks & Wilson. There he was, chewing on his pencil and pretending he was making a valuation.'\n\n'Ah!' Mark Diabello caught his breath. 'That explains the BMW I saw parked round the back of their offices.'\n\n'So Damian's job is...?'\n\n'To persuade the son to let the social worker's friendly builder have the house for, say, a quarter of a million, then disappear back off to Israel with the cash in his pocket.'\n\n'Just like you tried to persuade me?'\n\n'That was different. I wasn't working for the buyer. Tsk. Naughty Damian.' His voice oozed disapproval. 'I told you they were crooks. And it's only a 1 Series two-door hatch.'\n\n'You mean, just a starter model, really.'\n\nI tried to picture Damian with his gelled-up hair sitting at the wheel of a secondhand BMW. The little shit!\n\nAt about five o'clock, just as I was trying to decide what to have for tea, Rip rang. I listened to his facing-unprecedented-challenges voice leaving a message on my answering machine, telling me to ring him immediately. Well, let him wait. He still thought he could boss me about. Typical. Probably he was ringing to tell me he wanted to take the kids up to Holtham at Easter with the Scarlet-mouthed Slut \u2013 'He told me it was over between you two ages ago. He told me you didn't mind.' There was something about the tone of Rip's voice on the answering machine that reminded me of... glue. Cyanoacrylate AXP-36C. I thought of the B&Q package stowed in the mezzanine study and smiled to myself. Peace in the world was all very well, but no way was it going to extend to Rip and me. No way. When someone hurts you like that, what you want is revenge, not peace.\n\nI didn't ring back. I went upstairs to my room and got out my exercise book.\n\n# The Splattered Heart \nChapter 8 \nGINA'S REVENGE\n\n_Early next morning, heartbroken Gina made her tearful way to the Castleford branch of B &Q. The sight of the jolly orange-clad building made her broken heart leap with smile. Inside it was vast and creepily echoing like a church, and full of weird men prowling around the aisles, eyeing lovely curvaceous Gina lustfully, and wiggling their saucy screwdrivers suggestively. She made her way to the extensive adhesives section. At last her eyes lit on a tube of glue that said in large letters:_ DANGER! AVOID CONTACT WITH SKIN.\n\nI stopped. The picture of the little girl at the glue exhibition stuck in my mind. Human bonding. Messy stuff.\n\nThe last phone call came just as I was getting ready for bed. I knew it was Mum \u2013 she usually rings about this time \u2013 but I was taken aback by the flatness in her voice.\n\n'Your dad's been took poorly,' she said. 'He's got to have that operation on 'is prostrate. Doctor says it could make 'im imputent.'\n\nI could just imagine poor Dad with that long-suffering look on his face and seedy Dr Polkinson telling him what did he expect at his age and we've all got to die of something. The operation date wasn't fixed, but it would be sometime soon after Easter. My mind went into overdrive at once, trying to work out the logistics of going up to Kippax, leaving Ben with Rip, and meeting my deadline for Nathan.\n\n'D'you want me to come up to Kippax, Mum?'\n\n'It's all right, duck. I know you're busy.'\n\n'Mum...'\n\nI was racking my brains for some cheerful or uplifting comment, when Mum chipped in.\n\n'Did you hear about that friend of yours, Carole Benthorpe?'\n\n'She wasn't my friend, Mum.' I shuddered as I remembered her watery reproachful eyes. 'Her dad was a scab.'\n\nCarole Benthorpe _had_ been my friend once, before the miners' strike \u2013 the short Heath strike of 1974, not the year-long Thatcher strike of 1984\u20135. 'Scabs take the gain without the pain,' Dad had said. 'You never get a scab giving up his wage rise that were won on't backs o't strikers.'\n\nThere were only four scabs in Kippax, and Carole's father was one of them. After that she didn't have any friends.\n\n'Dad always told me not to talk to scabs.'\n\n'Aye, and he's right,' said Mum. 'But she weren't a scab, were she? She were only a little kid.' She sighed. All this had suddenly become too heavy. 'Anyroad, all I was going to say is, she won the Jackson's Saleswoman of the Year award. It were in t' _Express_. She got a weekend in Paris.'\n\n'Oh, that's so brilliant! Good for her!'\n\nI felt an unexpected burst of joy for Carole Benthorpe, not about Jackson's or the award, but because she'd survived what we did to her.\n\nThat cold winter in 1974 \u2013 the men hanging around in knots on the streets instead of disappearing underground as they were supposed to, the women pawning their rings and chuntering about how they would make do without a wage coming in. One day after school some of the kids waylaid Carole Benthorpe on her way home. They jostled and taunted her as she walked along, then things got a bit rough and a couple of lads pushed her into the icy tadpole ponds by the back lane. Everybody cheered and laughed as they watched her flounder. Me, too \u2013 I'd stood and laughed with the others. I recalled with a shock of remorse how great it had felt to be part of that cheering, jeering gang. Carole Benthorpe crawled out covered in slime and ran home, all wet and bawling. Next day in the school toilets she carved the word SCAB into her forearm with a Stanley knife.\n\n'If you see her, Mum, give her my love.'\n\n'Oh, I never see 'er. She lives up Pontefract way now.'\n\n# 42\n\n# The right glue for the materials\n\nI was half-heartedly trundling the vacuum cleaner around the house on Monday afternoon, worrying about Mum and Dad, when the phone rang. I thought it might be Mum with some more news of Dad's operation, but it was Mrs Shapiro.\n\n'Come quick, please, Georgine. Chaim is mekking trouble.'\n\nI realised I'd been half expecting it. Apparently Mrs Shapiro and Ishmail had gone off with Mr Ali in the red van to choose some paint at B&Q in Tottenham. Nabeel had stayed behind to start sanding down the woodwork and the kitchen door had been left unlocked. They got back at about four o'clock with their five litres of matt emulsion \u2013 'Eau de nil \u2013 very charming colour \u2013 you will see it' \u2013 to find Nabeel and Chaim Shapiro wrestling on the carpet in the dining room.\n\n'Fighting like the tigers. You must come, Georgine, and talk to them.'\n\n'But what's that got to do with me?'\n\n'Why you are always arguing, Georgine? Please come quick.'\n\nBy the time I got there, the wrestling, if it had ever really happened, was over and there was an uneasy truce around the dining-room table. Mr Ali was sitting on one side of the table, flanked by the Uselesses, and opposite them sat Chaim Shapiro, leaning back heavily, his arms and legs splayed out as though the chair was too small for him, cracking his knuckles from time to time. Mrs Shapiro sat next to him, chain-smoking and fidgeting with her rings. Wonder Boy was sitting on a chair at the head of the table, looking very magisterial. I could hear their voices arguing as I came in through the front door, which had been left on the latch for me, but as I entered the dining room they went quiet. I sat down at the other end of the table, opposite Wonder Boy.\n\n'Hello, everybody!' I said, looking round with a cheery smile. No one smiled back. The atmosphere was like curdled milk. Maybe we should start with Ms Baddiel's breathing exercises, I thought, just to calm us all down.\n\nMrs Shapiro poured me a glass of water from a jug and introduced the newcomer to me as Chaim Shapiro, adding, 'This is Georgine, my good neighbour.'\n\nHe pounced on me at once, demanding to know why I had invited these strangers into his house \u2013 I winced at the emphasis \u2013 ' _my_ house' \u2013 but before I could get a word out, Mrs Shapiro pounced back.\n\n'Is not your house, Chaim. I been living here sixty year paying rets.'\n\n'Shut up your mouth, Ella. You have no feet to stand on, letting Arabs come into your home.'\n\n'You shut up the mouth,' Mrs Shapiro snapped. He ignored her.\n\n'So, Miss Georgiana. Please, we are awaiting your explanation,' he rasped in a breathy voice not unlike Wonder Boy's purr. 'Speak up now or for ever hold your pieces.'\n\nI started to explain that the house needed repair and renovation and that's why Mr Ali and his assistants had been called in. He gave a dubious sniff and rocked back in his chair. Then there was the issue of security, I told him, describing the stolen key and the turned-off water main and hinting at Mrs Goodney's involvement. That made him sit up. The eyebrow above his glass eye started to twitch.\n\n'That Goody with her young stick-up-the-hair-nik, they think I am made of short planks. They think I will sell them my house cheap so they can make some quick bucks out of me. But I have a different plan.'\n\n'Is not your house, Chaim.'\n\n'It is my father's house. Father likes son.'\n\n'My house,' hissed Mrs Shapiro. 'When your father died, he give it me.'\n\n'So what's your plan, Mr Shapiro?' I interrupted, to move the conversation on.\n\n'My plan is to undertake some major renovations here in _my_ house.' There were sharp intakes of breath all around. Wonder Boy's tail started to flick. 'In fact I am something of a do-it-myself enthusiast. I have already purchased a tool kit.' He looked around the table, but nobody met his eye. I glanced across at Mr Ali, but his face was impassive.\n\n'Chaim, darlink, your mother would be eating her own kishkes to hear you speaking like this. She was giving up everything to build the new Israel. Beautiful homeland for the Jews. Why you are not staying there? Why you are coming back now and putting me on to the street?' There was a wheedling note in her voice.\n\n'Nobody is putting you on to any street, Ella. You are putting yourself on to the street living with these Arabs.'\n\n'These are my Attendents.'\n\n'Ella, you have lost your screws. All Arabs are the same \u2013 they are only waiting for the opportunity to push Jews into the sea.'\n\nAcross the table, Mr Ali was whispering something to Ishmail. The Attendents' faces were sullen.\n\n'Nobody is pushing me into the sea. The sea is a long way from here, Chaim. Sea is at Dover. I heff been there mit Arti.' Her chin was sticking out defiantly.\n\n'I know this Dover Beach. Where ignorant armies splash at night,' Chaim Shapiro tutted, taking little sips from his glass of water as if to cool himself down.\n\nMrs Shapiro stared at him. Then she leaned across and whispered to me, 'What is he talking about, Georgine?'\n\n'It's a poem.'\n\n'A poem? Is he med?'\n\n'I am talking about terrorism, Ella. Look at my blinded eye. What I was doing? Nothing. Sitting minding my own businesses.' He was cracking his knuckles furiously as he talked, from nervousness or anger.\n\n'We are in London now, Chaim. Not in Tel Aviv.'\n\n'And you see they have commenced bombing here in London.'\n\nMr Ali translated for Ishmail, who leaned over and whispered to Nabeel. All three of them were scowling.\n\n'We are already in the darkened plain.'\n\n'Darlink Chaim, this is a house, not an aeroplane. Please, be a little calm. And these are my Attendents, not suicideniks. See, they are even animal lovers.'\n\nNabeel had reached across and was stroking Wonder Boy behind the ears, whose rhythmic purring was a soothing background to the fractious discussion. If only someone would stroke Chaim Shapiro behind the ears, I thought.\n\nNow Mr Ali spoke, his voice splintering with anger. 'Arabs, Christians, Jews been living side by side for many generations. Making businesses together. No broblem. No bogrom. No concentration camp. Even we selled you some of our land. But this is not enough. You want whole bloody lot.'\n\nChaim Shapiro ignored him and turning towards me explained in a teachery tone, 'All Palestinians have the same story. They come along with some old key, saying this is the key to my house. You must move out immediately! But when my mother came to Israel nobody was living there. It was empty as a desert. Abandoned. All the inhabitants had scarpered.'\n\n'Driven out with gunpoint!' Mr Ali tried to shout, but his voice was shaking and it ended in a little squeak. The last time I'd seen him so mad was when he was sitting on the wet grass at the bottom of the ladder.\n\n'If you want to live alongside us in our land, all you must do is to stop attacking us. Is that not fair enough?' Chaim smirked and spread his hands theatrically.\n\n_In \u2013 two \u2013 three \u2013 four. Out \u2013 two \u2013 three \u2013 four._\n\n'Look, we're not going to solve all the world's problems today,' I said cheerily. 'But it's quite a big house. Especially if we convert the penthouse suite. Maybe everyone can live here together.'\n\nThey all turned towards me, and I could feel myself turning crimson under their collective gaze. In fact everybody had gone a bit beetrooty, even Mr Ali. Wonder Boy was snarling like a dog, swinging his fat tail from side to side.\n\n'I do not want to share my house with three Arabs,' Chaim Shapiro grouched.\n\n'Chaim,' said Mrs Shapiro appeasingly, 'the Peki is not living here. He is only a visitor.'\n\n'You do not understand the Arab mentality, Ella. They will not let us in peace. Do you think Israel would exist today if half its population was Arab, and trying to destroy it from within?'\n\nI felt a stab of anger, remembering the twin babies, heavy as watermelons, and the soldier with the number tattooed on his arm.\n\n'But you can't expect people to give up their homes and land and not fight back!'\n\nMr Ali translated for the benefit of the Attendents, who nodded fervently in my direction. Chaim Shapiro's face was sweating, his good eye blinking rapidly.\n\n'Ha! Then we have the right of self-defence! Every time you strike Israel we will strike back harder. You give us homemade rocket-launchers, we give you US-made helicopter gunships. Bam bam bam!' He aimed his hands like a gun across the table. Then, turning to me, he added, 'As your immortal bard William Shakespeare said, to do great right, we have to do a small wrong! It isn't pretty, but it is necessary, Miss Georgiana.'\n\nWhen I said nothing, he lurched forward and slapped the table suddenly like a volley of gunfire. 'Bam bam bam! Bam bam bam!'\n\nWonder Boy, who was still sitting on the chair at the head of the table, flattened his ears at the noise and hissed, showing his horrible fangs. Then he leapt up on to the table in fighting pose, his back arched, his tail puffed out, and with a yowl he flew at Chaim Shapiro, going at his face with his claws. Chaim Shapiro fought back, trying to pull the big cat off, but Wonder Boy clung tight, his tail thrashing, his claws lashing. Mrs Shapiro shrieked frenziedly at both of them.\n\n'Halt! Chaim! Stop this smecking! Wonder Boy! Raus!'\n\nThe cat hissed and fled, knocking over the jug of water that trickled down on to our legs. Chaim Shapiro pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at his bleeding cheek. When he looked up, we saw that his glass eye had swivelled round grotesquely in its socket. Only the white was showing, staring out blankly like a hard-boiled egg.\n\nEveryone went quiet, as if shocked at how quickly the confrontation had flared up, and a sudden thought lit up like a light bulb in my head: these people \u2013 they're all completely mad. In another part of the house, we could hear a menacing yowl \u2013 Wonder Boy sizing up his next victim (feline, I suppose, for Mrs Shapiro's slippers were on her feet). It was Mrs Shapiro who spoke first. I noticed an appraising look in her eyes as she leaned over to Chaim and patted his arm.\n\n'Darlink Chaim, there is no need to fight. If you heff no home you can live here mit us. You can take any room what you like \u2013 except of mine, of course. You can make all your beautiful renovations, mit your tool kit. Build in kitchen units. Dishwashers. Meekrowaves. My Nicky has told me everything what is needed for the modern kitchen.' She took his hand and gave it a squeeze. 'We will make dinner parties mit cultured conversations. Concerts in the evenings. Even we will heff poetry recitals if that is what you like.' I could see his face softening as he pictured these delectable scenes. 'You are my Arti's son, Chaim. This is always your home whenever you want. But my Attendents also must stay here mit me.'\n\nHer voice was so seductive that I might almost have applied for residency myself, even though I knew, as Chaim did not, about the Phantom Pooer. Chaim, I could tell, was already seduced.\n\n'Ella, I can see you are quite a little home-pigeon, and I will gladly accept your invitation to take up my residence with you. And if the Arabs must stay, maybe we can divide the house between us. They keep to the top part of the house, and we stay in our part.' He beamed magnanimously across the table.\n\n'Hm! Next you will build a wall,' said Mr Ali drily. 'Checkpoint on the stairs. Then you will steal some more rooms for settlements.'\n\nIshmail and Nabeel smiled confusedly.\n\n'Have you got a sticking plaster, Mrs Shapiro?' I asked, to defuse the tension.\n\nChaim's cheek was bleeding badly \u2013 Wonder Boy had taken quite a swipe. She scuttled off to find one. Mr Ali and the Attendents had convened a separate meeting in the kitchen. I could hear the clink of the coffee pot, and soon after the smell of freshly brewed coffee drifted into the room. So for a few minutes, Chaim Shapiro and I were alone together. He took off his jacket, hung it on the back of his chair, and undid the top button of his white shirt. He was sweating profusely under the arms. Without the jacket he seemed to shrink in size. His bulk, I realised, was mainly shoulder pads.\n\nThe eye that looked at me \u2013 his good eye \u2013 was dark and sad, but it reminded me of the blazing brown eyes of the young woman in the photographs, and his round pudgy face ended in a little pointed chin like a crude copy of hers. I was still thinking that someone should stroke him behind the ears, but instead, I leaned forward and said, 'You remind me of your mother.'\n\nHe turned towards me and his look changed entirely, lit up with a smile so sweet and childlike it seemed to have strayed on to the wrong face.\n\n'You knew my mother?'\n\n'I didn't know her,' I said. 'I've seen her photo. You look like her.'\n\n'I wish you could have met her. Everybody who met her loved her.' He was smiling that same baby smile, his heavy cheeks dimpling with pleasure at the memory.\n\n'And your father...'\n\n'Yes, Artem Shapiro. The musician. She was always talking about him, like the legs of a donkey.'\n\n'... why didn't he join her in Israel?' I found myself holding my breath.\n\n'He was too sick. Lungs kaput. Ella was looking after him. Here in this house.'\n\nThe death certificate had said lung cancer.\n\n'And your mother never went back to him?'\n\n'She wanted to build a garden in the desert. Can you imagine \u2013 with her naked hands? She would never leave until it was finished.' A shadow settled over him and he seemed to shrivel up even more inside the white polyester shirt. 'Then she got sick. Blood sickness. She died when I was ten years old. A few months after my father.'\n\nI remembered the date on the letter from Lydda. Chaim was born in 1950, so she must have died in 1960.\n\n'I'm sorry. To lose your whole family... And then your injury...'\n\nI wanted to ask how it had happened. I guessed he didn't know without looking in a mirror that the glass eye was turned the wrong way in its socket.\n\n'But my family was the moshav \u2013 father, mother, sister, brother. After she died I stayed there with them. Everybody was family in our new nation.'\n\nIt must have been the same moshav she wrote about in the letter, the stony hillside where she'd cradled her newborn baby in her arms, looking out to the west and waiting for her husband. I still had her photo at home in my bedroom. I'd bring it for him next time.\n\n'Was she from Byelorussia too?'\n\n'No, she came from Denmark. But they met in Sweden. They were married in London. And I was born in Israel.' He smiled that chubby dimply smile. 'Naomi Shapiro. She was a person who knew how to dream.'\n\n'She dreamed of a promised land?'\n\n'Our homeland. Zion.' His cheeks dimpled again. 'Home sweet home.'\n\nBut something was niggling me. Why does everyone go on about homeland? Surely what really matters is the people we're attached to? Ben and Stella were my homeland \u2013 yes, and Rip. I tried to imagine what it would be like to love a country more than them. I thought about the woman in the photographs \u2013 those dark eyes blazing with conviction. She'd left her love behind to find the homeland of her dreams and someone else \u2013 another Naomi Shapiro \u2013 had stepped into her place.\n\n'But isn't it your homeland, too, Chaim? More so, because you were born there? Haven't you got a family? Friends? Colleagues? I can't understand why you want to make your life here.'\n\nAt your age, I meant to add, but didn't want to seem rude.\n\n'I was a teacher for thirty years. English language and literature.' He shuffled in his chair. 'Now I am retired. Not married. What woman wants to marry a one-eyed man?'\n\n'Oh, I don't know...' Mrs Shapiro will soon sort you out, I was thinking.\n\nShe had reappeared with a rather grubby curling-at-the-corners sticking plaster, which she applied to his cheek with a little pat.\n\n'Now your home is mit us, isn't it?'\n\nI noticed that there were a couple of cat hairs adhering underneath.\n\n'Thank you, Ella. My mother told me you were very solicitous to my father in his illness. And encouraging him to go to Israel upon his recovery. She showed me the letter you wrote.'\n\nI glanced across at Mrs Shapiro.\n\n'It was very long ago,' she said. Some inscrutable emotion flitted across her face and she gave a little shrug. 'Sometimes is better to let the past alone.'\n\n'Yes, long ago.' He sat back heavily in his chair. 'You know, Ella, this country, this Israel, it is not the same country she dreamed of. It should have been a beautiful country \u2013 prosperous, modern, democratic. Founded on justice and the rule of law. But _they_ have spoiled it with their fanaticism.'\n\nHe gestured with his head towards the kitchen where Mr Ali and the Attendents were still chatting in Arabic. There was a clink of coffee being poured.\n\n'You know, Miss Georgiana, no teacher wants to have blood of children on his hands. Not even of little stone-throwing Arab ratscallions.'\n\nBut I wasn't really listening, my mind had drifted back to what he was saying before Wonder Boy had lashed out with his claws. To do a great right, do a little wrong. That was Bassanio, in _The Merchant of Venice_. I'd done it for 'A' level. But what was it that Portia had said? Something about the quality of mercy. When mercy seasons justice. That was it.\n\n'So what do you think is the solution?' I asked.\n\n'There is no solution. I can see no possibility of peace in my lifetime.' He sank lower in his chair, resting his chin on his hands. 'So long as they continue with their attacks, we will continue our defences. We are trapped in tits for tats. It is impossible for someone so sensitive like myself to live life this way.'\n\n'But... it's never too late, is it? For peace? I mean, if only the will is there...'\n\nI was thinking even as I spoke that the words sounded good, but they were probably tosh. The will for peace \u2013 Rip and I had still not managed to work it out, had we?\n\n'Too late for me, Miss Georgiana.' He sighed. 'For at my back I always hear time's horse-drawn chariot galloping near.'\n\n'Wing\u00e8d.' I couldn't stop myself, but he was lost in his thoughts and didn't hear. Maybe I should introduce him to Mark Diabello. They would have the same taste in poetry.\n\n*\n\nI noticed, as I walked home in the early evening, that the silver buds of the pussy willow had opened out, and flaunted golden flecks of pollen in their fur. The air was soft and moist. A fine spring rain dampened my face and settled like mist on my hair; it glistened on the leaves and fell in slow heavy drops from the overhanging branches. Everything was cool and green. It was a different world to that of Chaim Shapiro and Mustafa Ali \u2013 but it was the same world. We all had to learn to live here somehow.\n\nI'd felt so full of pity when Mr Ali had told me his story, if I'd had a gun, I would have gone out myself to seek revenge for his lost home and violated family. Now I was beginning to feel sorry for this sad crumpled man, this one-eyed orphan of his mother's broken dreams. My parents had taught me always to look out for the underdog, but even underdogs can snap and snarl. How could I know who'd started it? Whose fault it really was? Maybe that was the wrong question to ask in the first place. If you could just get the human bonding right, maybe the other details \u2013 laws, boundaries, constitution \u2013 would all fall into place. It was just a case of finding the right adhesive for the adherends. Mercy. Forgiveness. If only it came in tubes.\n\nIt wasn't until I was almost at home that I remembered I'd never asked Chaim how he had lost his eye. Had he been caught up in the revenge attack at Lydda airport? I recalled my conversation with Ben a few days ago \u2013 the ancient prophecy of the battle between Jesus and the Antichrist at the gates of Lydda which was supposed to precede the end of the world. An airport _is_ a kind of a gate to a city \u2013 isn't it? But surely the terrorists wouldn't have known the words of the prophets. I felt a small quake of dread in my guts. How could the present reach back into the past? What mysterious tendrils of causation could have brought about this connection? No wonder Ben was so rattled. And Dajjal, the devil with one eye? But Chaim Shapiro was no devil; he was a casualty, too \u2013 a stray soul who had lost his mother too young. Without his shoulder pads, he was just a sweaty middle-aged man in a polyester shirt. Still, I felt a shudder as if an ancient hand had tapped my shoulder and a voice from another world had whispered, ' _Armageddon_.' \n\n# 43\n\n# Unpromising adherends\n\nAs I approached my house, the daylight was already fading and I could see through Ben's window that his computer monitor was on, the screen saver flickering white, red and black. That was strange. Ben was supposed to be with Rip. Maybe he'd forgotten to turn it off before he left. Or maybe he'd come back early.\n\n'Hi, Ben!' I shouted up the stairs as I came in through the door. There was no reply. I put the kettle on, then I went up and tapped on the door of his room. No answer. So I pushed it open.\n\nThere was that musty smell of socks and trainers, and there was the screen saver whizzing around in the dusk, hurling its dizzying pattern against the walls. White! Red! Black! White! Red! Black! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! The walls lit up, burst into flames, blackened to char. My ears were filled with a terrifying sound that I thought at first was the computer until I recognised the roar of blood beating in my own head. From across the room, a lumbering monster with hideous teeth lurched towards me \u2013 Ben's Orc poster, fleetingly illuminated by the flare of the screen. Then I saw Ben. He was lying on the floor between the bed and the desk, crumpled like a bundle of rags among his scattered clothes.\n\n'Ben!' I screamed. But as if in a nightmare the word came out of my mouth as a voiceless croak.\n\nThen I realised it wasn't just the jerky light; Ben was moving, twitching. Head thrown back, eyes open and rolled back in their sockets like Chaim Shapiro's glass eye, flecks of foam or vomit dribbling from the corners of his mouth. I stumbled towards him, and as I did so, I knocked the chair which was snagged around the cable of the mouse, and the screen he'd been viewing came up \u2013 the same fiery red on black screen with dancing flames and one flashing word: _Armageddon._\n\nI screwed up my eyes and reached across to pull the plug out of the socket. The room went dark. I switched the light on. Ben moaned and flailed with his arms and legs. A sickly sour smell was coming from him. A trickle of moisture darkened his trousers and puddled on the floor. I lay down beside him and folded him in my arms, stroking his cheeks and his forehead, whispering his name. I wasn't sure whether it was the right thing to do, but I held him tight until he lay still and his breathing slowed down. Then I phoned for an ambulance.\n\nThe next stage all happened very fast, in a whirl of panic and brisk paramedics and blue flashing lights. I tried ringing Rip from the ambulance but there was no reply so I sent him a text. After a few minutes Ben came round. He lifted his head from the stretcher, looking around him with a dazed expression.\n\n'Where am I?'\n\n'You're on your way to hospital.'\n\n'Oh.' He seemed disappointed.\n\n'I'm your mum.'\n\n'I know that.'\n\nI held his hand, whispering little mother-words as we ripped through the evening streets, siren howling.\n\n*\n\nThe ward they admitted him to was the same one Mrs Shapiro had been in that first time. The sister \u2013 I didn't recognise her \u2013 came and drew the curtain around us. It was frightening to be on the inside of that drawn curtain. I remembered the gurglings that had come from the next bed as the lady of the pink dressing gown passed away. The doctor who came round to see us seemed hardly older than Ben \u2013 in fact he had the same gelled-up hairstyle as Damian.\n\n'It seems like he's had a fit,' he said. His voice had a nasal Liverpool twang.\n\n'What \u2013 epilepsy?'\n\n'Could be. Could just be a one-off.'\n\n'But why?'\n\n'Too early to tell. We'll have a better idea when we've done the MRI scan.'\n\n'When will that be?'\n\n'Tomorrow. He'll see the neurologist. Let him sleep it off tonight. We'll keep an eye on him, don't worry. It's not that uncommon, you know, in young people his age.'\n\nHe smiled awkwardly, fiddling with the stethoscope that hung round his neck. He was trying to be kind, but he was too young to be convincing.\n\nThen the curtain parted and Rip and Stella came in. Rip ignored me, and I think I might have done a runner if Stella hadn't come straight up and hugged me.\n\n'What's up with Ben, Mum?'\n\nHow pretty she was, but so thin \u2013 too thin. She smelled of apple shampoo and neroli. I held her and stroked her hair which sheafed down her back like dark silk. I wanted to burst into tears, but I forced a cheerful grin on to my face.\n\n'Something happened \u2013 he had a fit, or something. I think he's going to be okay.'\n\nStella squeezed her brother's hand. 'Yer daft little beggar.' She was putting on a thick Leeds voice, the voice of their shared childhood banter.\n\nHe opened his eyes and looked around with a beatific smile on his face.\n\n'Hey, everybody!' Then he drifted off again.\n\nRip stood framed by the curtain, trying to hector the doctor into conversation, demanding explanations and clarifications which the young man was clearly unable to give, and all the time carefully avoiding meeting my eyes. When the doctor left Rip came and sat on the other side of the bed, still ignoring me, and took Ben's other hand, leaning over and talking in a sickly cooey-cooey voice. I got up and walked out.\n\nI went as far as the swing doors, then I stopped. I knew I was being ridiculous. I turned round and went and sat in the day room to calm down, clenching and unclenching my hands \u2013 _in \u2013 two \u2013 three \u2013 four_ ; _out \u2013 two \u2013 three \u2013 four \u2013_ breathing in the heavy medical air that was thick with all the anxiety and grief that had been exuded in this room. I remembered the drip lady, and the wild cackling. It seemed an age ago.\n\nA minute later, the door swung open and Stella came in. Her face was red and blotchy. At first I thought she was upset; then I realised she was furious.\n\n'Mum, you're mental \u2013 you and Dad \u2013 you've got to stop acting like kids. We're sick of it, me and Ben. We want you to... I dunno... like, grow up.'\n\nShe was chewing at a strand of hair that had straggled across her face, just like she'd done as a child. I stared at her. She was twenty years old, as skinny as a twig, and she was wearing a skirt that showed her knickers when she bent over; and I'd carried her in my belly and fed her at my breast, and here she was telling _me_ to grow up.\n\n'Yes, but what about _him_?' I whined.\n\n'Him, too. I've told him, too. Both of you. You've got to stop it.'\n\nShe sounded just like Mrs Rowbottom reprimanding Gavin Connolly for flicking pellets.\n\n'But he started it.'\n\n'Doesn't matter who started it. We're fed up of it. _And_ it's not doing Ben any good.'\n\nShe brushed back the hair from her face and tried to look stern.\n\n'Okay. Well, I will if he will. But I'm not...'\n\n'So just go back in there, and smile at him, and... I dunno... just be _normal_ , Mum.'\n\nSo I did. I smiled at Rip, and he smiled at me, a bit awkwardly, and he explained that he'd had to move out of Pete's place, and he'd tried to ring me to tell me that Ben was coming home earlier than expected, but I'd not rung him back. When an accusing note slid into his voice, Stella threw him a warning look.\n\n'Dad!'\n\nShe would make a great teacher, this girl.\n\nWhen I think of the turning point, the point from which it all started to get better again, I think of that Monday in March, that scene in the curtained cubicle at the hospital, Ben sitting up and trying to remember what had happened, Stella perched on the edge of the bed tickling Ben's toes through the bedclothes and making him laugh. It reminded me of the glue exhibition, with me and Rip sitting awkwardly on each side of the bed like lumpy unpromising adherends, and Ben and Stella in the middle holding us together like two blobs of glue.\n\nWe sat together like that in the neurologist's office next day, Rip, Ben and I, with Ben in the middle. The neurologist took us through a series of questions, and asked us about the circumstances of Ben's fit. When I described the whirling screen saver and the flashing flames of the Armageddon website, he told us about a cluster of 685 cases of epilepsy in 1997 in Japan that had apparently been triggered by a single Pok\u00e9mon episode on television.\n\n'It's possible for photosensitivity to trigger an epileptic seizure,' he said, peering at us through his small rimless glasses. 'What we can't tell at this stage is whether it will happen again.' He turned to Ben. He had a surprisingly mischievous smile for a neurologist. 'Try and be more selective about which sites you visit, young man. It's wild out there in cyberspace.'\n\n'Right,' Ben nodded. He was embarrassed by all the attention.\n\nBut there must be more to it than that, I thought. I remembered our liminal conversation, the haunted look in his eyes.\n\n'I can understand the computer flashing could set something off,' I said. 'But what about...?' I cast my mind back. 'Sometimes you said you were feeling strange when you got back from school, before you'd even turned the computer on. Don't you remember, Ben?'\n\nHe blinked and frowned.\n\n'Yeah. It was when I was on the bus. We passed these trees. I could see the sun through the branches.' He described a long road where low winter sunlight flickered through branches of an avenue of trees as he sat on the upper deck of the bus. 'That's when I started having, like, _feelings_.'\n\n'But when you've stayed with me in Islington you've been perfectly all right.' There was an edge of accusation in Rip's voice, as though I'd caused the problem.\n\n'I got a different bus.'\n\nThe neurologist nodded. 'If you find yourself in that situation another time, young man, just try closing one eye.'\n\nSo that's all there was to it \u2013 the generations of prophets, the reign of the Antichrist, the tribulations, the Abomination of Desolation, Armageddon, the fearsome battle of all the armies of the world, the rebuilding of the Temple at Jerusalem, the end of time with trumpet clarions and fiery chariots, the return of the Messiah, the rapture of the elect \u2013 it was all down to a frequency of flashing lights, a temporary short circuit in the wiring of the brain. All you had to do was close one eye.\n\nI felt both relief and disappointment. For there was a part of me that yearned to believe \u2013 to surrender to the irrational, to be swept away by the rapture.\n\n'So all that religious stuff is just nonsense?' Rip's voice was irritatingly smug. I wanted to kick him, to shut him up, but I saw Ben wasn't listening. He was studying a chart of the brain pinned on the wall at the side of the neurologist's desk.\n\n'It's now believed that some prophets and mystics were in fact epileptics,' the neurologist said. 'There's thought to be a physiological explanation behind much religious experience.'\n\nRip misread the look on my face, and leaned across to squeeze my hand.\n\n'Why didn't you tell me Ben was having these problems? You should have told me, Georgie.'\n\n'I...' _In \u2013 two \u2013 three \u2013 four. Out \u2013 two \u2013 three \u2013 four_. 'You're right \u2013 I should have.'\n\nI squeezed his hand back.\n\nAs we left the hospital, Rip asked me rather sheepishly whether it would be okay if he moved back in temporarily, and I replied rather grumpily that it made no difference to me but I was sure Ben would appreciate it. Yes, I was pleased, on the whole; things were going in the right direction. But I was surprised to find that my feelings were ambivalent. I'd got a life of my own now, and I wasn't ready to give it up. When Rip was around, he had a way of taking over. While he'd been away, I'd been remembering all the things I missed about him, but being with him again reminded me of all the things that irritated me. It occurred to me that maybe he felt the same way about me. So there was still a lot that needed to be resolved between us. He brought his stuff over from Islington in his Saab later that afternoon, and set himself up on a camp bed in the little mezzanine study. We tiptoed around each other, being excessively polite and considerate.\n\nHim: Would you like a cup of tea, darling?\n\nMe: That would be lovely, darling.\n\nThat kind of tosh.\n\nI had to clear out the spare room to make space for Stella, who'd be coming home soon for Easter. Buried at the bottom of one of the drawers I found an envelope of photos. Rip and me on our wedding day: Rip was wearing a top hat and tails. His hair curled down on his collar and he had curly sideburns. I was wearing a cartwheel hat and a fitted dress with big shoulders and slut-style high heels. My pregnant bulge was clearly visible. We looked ridiculous \u2013 and ridiculously happy. Then a picture of Rip and me and baby Stella in a buggy walking round Roundhay Lake. Then Rip and me and five-year-old Stella and baby Ben on the beach at Les Sables d'Olonne. Rip and me and Ben and Stella and Mum, taken one Christmas at Kippax. Rip and I were wearing Santa hats; Mum was wearing reindeer antlers; Ben was wearing his new _Lion King_ slippers and a gawky smile \u2013 what a funny little kid he'd been; Stella \u2013 she must have been thirteen \u2013 was pouting red lipstick at the camera, wearing a figure-hugging red top with a tinsel wreath draped around her shoulders. Dad wasn't in the picture \u2013 he must have been behind the camera. The Christmas tree wearing millennium-themed baubles was clearly visible in the background. I pored over the photos, then slid the envelope under my mattress. It seemed like a good omen.\n\nAt the end of term Stella came home, and from being empty, the house suddenly became full. It was Stella who told me, over a quiet cup of tea, that Ottoline had thrown Rip out. He'd spent the night before coming to the hospital in a hotel. That's why Ben had come home unexpectedly that Monday.\n\n'Ben says he overheard them having a row. Apparently she told him he had a poor attitude to commitment,' she murmured in a grave voice, lowering her head, so if I hadn't been looking I wouldn't have seen the flicker of a grin at the corners of her mouth.\n\nStella made the most of her holiday, sleeping in late and taking long showers, sometimes twice a day, clogging up the plughole with her long hair and filling the house with the smell of apple shampoo. Ben filled the house with techno music and thumped around cheerfully, no longer glued to the computer. Rip went off to work every morning, just as he had before, and in the evenings he sat at his desk and filled the house with brainwaves. We took turns to cook \u2013 we had two teams: Rip and Stella, who cooked mainly Thai curries, and Ben and I who cooked mainly Italian. Then Ben announced one day that he'd become a vegetarian, and we spent ages adapting and devising recipes for him. I once caught him sitting at the table and poring over a book with that same intense concentration that he had once read the Bible, but it turned out to be a cookery book: _One Hundred Recipes to Save the Planet_. The knobbly skull had disappeared under a growth of new brown curls, which he wore tied back with a red bandana.\n\nThe neurologist had suggested Ben change the screen saver, and warned him off websites with animation. He advised him to get a flat-screen monitor, which apparently runs at a different frequency, and not to sit too close to the television. We watched anxiously, to see whether he could handle his condition without medication or whether he would need to take anti-epileptic drugs.\n\nRip and I fell into a pattern of sharing the same space while keeping out of each other's way. We didn't actually divide the house but we learned each other's habits and avoided unnecessary contact. It wasn't positively amicable, but it wasn't hostile, either. Sometimes, on Stella's insistence, we all watched TV together.\n\n'Just try to be _normal_ , okay?' she coached us.\n\nRip and I sat on armchairs on opposite sides of the fireplace, with resolutely normal expressions on our faces, while Ben and Stella sprawled on the sofa, their arms and legs casually intertwined. From time to time one of them would try to shove the other off.\n\nAt Easter, we didn't go to Kippax or to Holtham. We stayed at home, and Rip and I made a tentative stab at collaboration, hiding a trail of miniature Easter eggs around the house for Ben and Stella. They whooped around, pretending to be surprised. The radio was on in the background, and at one point I heard a church congregation with miserable whiny voices singing that hymn. _There is a green hill far away_... _He hung and suffered there._ I switched it off quickly. Why let that morbid long-ago stuff spoil a nice family holiday? \n\n# 44\n\n# Water creases\n\nOn the Tuesday after Easter I nipped into the local Turkish supermarket and bought a large Easter egg, reduced to half price. It was a hideous-looking thing covered in mauve foil with Space Invaders figures wielding ray guns all over the packaging. Someone somewhere must have thought this was an appropriate Easter gift for a little boy \u2013 in fact maybe it _was_ surreally appropriate to the new reality of the Holy Land \u2013 but at least it had been left on the shelf by discerning parents, for it was the only egg they had. I carefully peeled off the REDUCED sticker, wrapped the egg in tissue, and set off for Canaan House.\n\nIt was a fresh, cold day, with splashes of sunlight spilling through raggy clouds. Small bright buds were bursting on the ash-tree saplings in the garden at Canaan House \u2013 it seemed as though they'd appeared overnight \u2013 and the white plastic garden furniture gleamed invitingly.\n\nNobody answered the doorbell when I rang. I crouched down and peered in through the letter box. There were no signs of human life, though a couple of felines were dozing in the pram which was parked under the stairs. I thought I caught a glimpse of movement at the end of the corridor, and then I noticed something very alarming \u2013 water seemed to be dripping down from a crack in the ceiling and collecting in a pool on the hall floor. A moment later, Chaim Shapiro appeared in his shirtsleeves. I rang the doorbell again to get his attention, but he just looked up at the leaking ceiling, shouted something into the back of the house, then vanished up the stairs. The drip of water had intensified into a trickle. Suddenly Nabeel and Mr Ali materialised, legs first, running down the stairs and shouting at each other. I rang the bell again, and Mr Ali came and opened the door. I thought he'd opened it for me, but he raced right past me, out through the door and round to the back of the house. I followed him, and watched as he started frantically pulling away at the grass and weeds near the kitchen door to reveal a small metal hatch cover, which he removed. Still shouting at Nabeel, who was behind us, he rolled up his sleeve and reached into the hole in the ground.\n\n'What's happening?' I asked Nabeel.\n\nNabeel flashed his beautiful eyes, pointed a finger upwards, and shouted back to Mr Ali. Then he raced back to the front of the house. I followed behind. The two tabbies in the pram in the hall were awake by now. They roused themselves, stretched mardily, and slunk out into the garden, their ears flat with irritation at being disturbed. Then Mrs Shapiro turned up, tottering on her high heels, waving a cigarette in her hand.\n\n'Ah! Georgine! Thenk Gott you come!' She flung her arms around me.\n\n'What's going on?'\n\n'Votter creases! I was telephoning to you!'\n\n'Water creases?'\n\n'They are trying to mek votter pipe diversion into the penthouse suite. Chaim! Chaim!' she yelled up the stairs. 'What you doing? Heffn't we got enough votter pissing down already?'\n\nThe trickle of water had become a steady stream; I noticed that the water was pleasantly warm. The hall was filling up with steam like a bathroom. Above us, the plaster ceiling was beginning to bow, while Mrs Shapiro was mopping determinedly but hopelessly at the puddle with a silk blouse she'd pulled out of the pram, kneeling down on all fours and holding her cigarette between her lips. Now Mr Ali appeared in the doorway. He shook his head with a philosophical air and sighed as he gazed at the stream of water, which was fast becoming a torrent.\n\n'It comes out of the tank. Not men's water,' he explained to Mrs Shapiro. Then he shouted something at Nabeel, who bowed his head and slouched off upstairs. Mr Ali shrugged apologetically. 'Completely useless.'\n\nI was still puzzling over the gender status of the hot water when Ishmail and Chaim Shapiro came running down the stairs, almost colliding with Nabeel on the way up. Chaim pointed at the water coming through the ceiling, and shouted, rather unnecessarily, 'Water water everywhere!'\n\n'Men's now off, but water still coming out,' Mr Ali shouted back.\n\nIshmail shouted at Nabeel. Mrs Shapiro shouted at Chaim, who shouted back at her. I shouted at him to shut up. Soon everybody was shouting at everybody else. Somewhere in the house, Wonder Boy started to yowl. Mrs Shapiro had given up trying to mop the floor with the silk blouse, and started flicking it at her stepson.\n\n'Is all your fault. You wanted to make votter separation. Jewish votter, Arab votter. So! Now we have pissing votter.'\n\n'Not my fault, Ella. Useless Arabs cut the wrong pipe.'\n\nThen the doorbell rang.\n\nWe all fell silent and looked at the door. Through the frosted glass I could see a tall dark figure looming. Nobody moved. The bell rang again. I opened the door. It was Mark Diabello.\n\n'Hello...' He stared at the scene in the hall, taking in the flushed faces peering through the clouds of steam, the wet floor and the pouring water. 'Georgina, I just wanted to...'\n\n'Come in. We're having a bit of a water crisis...'\n\n'Who is this?' asked Mrs Shapiro, pulling herself up straight and smiling at the handsome stranger. 'Are you another Attendent?'\n\n'Let me introduce Mr Wolfe's partner,' I said. 'Mark Diabello.'\n\n'My Nicky's partner? How charming!' She fluttered her eyelids.\n\nHe stepped forward, proffering his hand, his chin-dimple winking, his smile-creases crinkling, his green-gold-black eyes flickering non-stop.\n\n'Delighted, Mrs Shapiro. If I could just trouble you for a second \u2013 the house deeds...'\n\nAt that moment, there was a horrible wrenching sound above our heads. Everyone looked up. One of the ornate Doric-style plaster corbels supporting the Romanesque arch where the water had come through had started to crack away. Even as we watched, the crack widened. The corbel slipped sideways and slid. Mr Diabello seemed to stagger as he took a step back. His knees sagged. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Then he fell to the ground with a thud. He had been stunned by a stunning period feature.\n\nPoor Mr Diabello. By the time the ambulance arrived he was sitting up on the wet floor, propped against the wall beneath the grey mark where the picture of Lydda had hung \u2013 it was the cat-poo spot, though any lingering cat poo would have long since been washed away \u2013 pressing a clean white handkerchief to a gash in his head.\n\nYet after his accident, a strange exhausted peace fell on the house. The water finally stopped running when the hot-water tank that held the immersion heater had emptied out. Ishmail got a broom and started sweeping the water out of the hall through the front door \u2013 there must have been several gallons. The cats danced around the eddies of water, excited by all the action but not wanting to get their paws wet. Mrs Shapiro danced around, too, making encouraging noises. Nabeel went into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. As the door swung open, I overheard a snippet of conversation.\n\nMr Ali: Where you get your tool kit, Chaim?\n\nChaim Shapiro: B&Q. You want to see it?\n\nI sat with Mr Diabello until the ambulance arrived.\n\n'I thought you might be here. I came to see you, Georgina,' he murmured. 'I didn't realise your hubby was back.'\n\n'Yes. I should have told you. I'm sorry. You and me \u2013 it's over between us, Mark.' I squeezed his hand as they led him away to the ambulance. 'But it was fun.'\n\n'Mrs Shapiro,' I said, keeping my voice casual, 'do you happen to know where the deeds for this house are kept?'\n\nMr Ali and Chaim Shapiro had gone off to B&Q together in manly silence and we were having a companionable cup of coffee by the fire in the study, with Prokofiev's piano sonatas tinkling on the record player and the soggy _Lion King_ slippers steaming away on the fender.\n\n'What for I need deeds?' She looked at me through narrowed eyes.\n\n'Apparently the house isn't registered with the Land Registry.'\n\n'On this house I been paying rets sixty years no problem.'\n\n'Mr Diabello said it would be better to register in case you want to sell up at any time.'\n\n'I am not selling nothing.'\n\n'Of course there's no reason why you should sell.' There was no point in arguing with her. 'But it would be better for you if the house was registered in your name, Mrs Shapiro. Then no one could take it away from you.'\n\nShe reached in her bag for a cigarette and stuck it between her lips.\n\n'You think Chaim wants to take it away from me?'\n\n'Everybody wants it. Chaim. Mrs Goodney. Even Mr Wolfe and Mr Diabello. It's a desirable property.'\n\n'And what about you, Georgine?'\n\nShe said it casually, fumbling in her bag for the matches, not looking at me. I wondered whether it was an accusation.\n\n'It's a really lovely house,' I said, 'but I already have a house of my own.'\n\n'When I am dead, Georgine, darlink, you can heff it.'\n\nI laughed. 'It's kind of you, but it's too big for me. Too many problems.'\n\n'You can heff it, so long as you will liff in it and pay the rets.'\n\nShe gripped my hand and pulled me towards her. Suddenly she was intensely serious.\n\n'This house \u2013 it belongs to no one. Artem found it empty. Abandoned. Inhebitents ran away.'\n\n'But why...?'\n\n'You know, Artem was just new married. He was needing somewhere to live.'\n\n'With Naomi?'\n\nShe avoided my eyes. 'It was the wartime. German bombings. People running everywhere.'\n\nAbove our heads there was a clang of copper pipes and a tirade of words. Chaim and Mr Ali must have got back from B&Q. There was suddenly a lot of running up and down stairs and clattering and shouting going on in the background.\n\n'So they moved in?'\n\n'Such a beautiful house, isn't it? Even a piano. Bechstein. Sometimes _Mutti_ and I came to play on it. He played on the violin, we accompanied mit the piano.'\n\n'Two brown eyes.'\n\n'You know, Georgine, I was only a young girl. I didn't know anything \u2013 I knew only that I was in loff.' She pursed her lips and puffed a couple of smoke rings; they drifted towards the fire on the warm draught, and vanished in the flames. 'When you are in loff, when you heff an idea in your head, you are not always thinking about the consequence.'\n\nMy mind tripped back to my conversation with the Scarlet-mouthed Slut, her tentative apology that I'd accepted with such bad grace.\n\n'You thought being in love made it okay?'\n\n'I thought only that I could not live without him. And she was no good for him, that one. Always she was nagging him to go to Israel. A poor man like this with ruined lungs. What use he will be in Israel?'\n\n'So she went on her own?'\n\n'She was blazing like a person on fire. She could not sit still. Always talking of Zion \u2013 of making a homeland for all the Jews of the world. But he wanted only to die in peace.' A bit of wood shifted on the fire and clouds of ash drifted on to the fender. 'Already he was dust.'\n\n'Didn't you feel...?'\n\nShe shrugged and tossed her head in a vague gesture. 'I was looking after him. He could not be on his own. He was saying he will go there when he is better.'\n\nWhat I really wanted to ask was \u2013 did she feel guilty? For stealing Naomi's husband, and Chaim's father.\n\n'She wrote to him from Israel, didn't she?'\n\nShe nodded. 'Yes. Those letters. I burned them all.'\n\nHer face was turned away towards the fire, so I could not read her expression.\n\n'Not all of them.'\n\n# 45\n\n# The dance of the polymers\n\nIt wasn't until I got home that evening that I realised I still had the Space Invaders Easter egg in my bag. I unwrapped it and put it at the back of the cupboard. It was so vile that I couldn't bring myself to give it to Stella or Ben.\n\n'Who was that man?' Stella asked as we were clearing up together after a Thai curry dinner. We were alone together in the basement kitchen. Rip and Ben were watching football upstairs.\n\n'What man?'\n\n'That smooth creepy guy in the Jag who came round this afternoon while you were out?' Her lip curled with disapproval.\n\n'Oh, he must have been the estate agent. He wants to buy a house from an old lady I know who lives at Totley Place. Why?'\n\n'Daddy answered the door. They both seemed a bit surprised to see each other.' She gave me a hard look. 'He had a bunch of flowers. White roses.'\n\n'Really? They were probably for someone else.'\n\n'No, he left them. They're in my room. I told Daddy they were for me.'\n\n'Thanks, Stella. You can keep them. I don't want them.'\n\nShe grinned, a quick glimmer of a grin.\n\nNext day Rip gave me a peck on the cheek before he left for work, and maybe that's what made it difficult to write about Gina's revenge. Although I had some glue stuff to catch up on, I was determined to finish Chapter 8, so I set my laptop aside and opened up my exercise book.\n\n#\n\n# The Splattered Heart \nChapter 8 \nGINA'S REVENGE (continued)\n\n_Disguised as an_ itinerant window-cleaner rag-and-bone woman Avon lady she made her way to Holty Towers and in the dead of night, she tiptoed through to the luxurious ensuit onsite ensued (bloody Microsoft! \u2013 I was using the spellchecker on my laptop because my dictionary was still propping up a shelf in the mezzanine study) _bathroom and got the deadly tube vial phial out of her Avon box and squeezed a thin layer of extra-strong adhesive on to the seat of the toilet lavatory. Then she turned the cold tap on in the basin so that it ran in a steady stream. Tinkle tinkle tinkle. A smile suffused her rosy lips._\n\nBut something wasn't right. I was starting to feel a bit sorry for Rick. Okay, so he had his flaky moments, but there was something endearing about him, wasn't there? Those blond tumbled curls. The vulnerability of the sleeping man. And Gina \u2013 wasn't she a bit off the rails too, falling for that dodgy mandolin player? What a pair of idiots Rick and Gina were. Why couldn't they just sort their differences out and stick together? I realised that something inside me had shifted \u2013 I was no longer very interested in revenge. I was ready to move on.\n\nI closed my exercise book and clicked open the _Adhesives_ document I was meant to be working on. 'The Chemistry of Adhesive Bonding.' On New Year's Eve, when we'd joined hands, like molecules grabbing hold of each other, and sung 'Auld Lang Syne', I'd had a flash of insight into polymerisation. Now I had discovered something even better \u2013 polymerisation depends on sharing. An atom which is short of an electron looks out for another atom that's got the right sort of electron (it's called covalency, for the chemically inclined), then the atom grabs the electron it needs. But no theft or nastiness is involved. The two atoms end up sharing the electron, and that's what holds all the atoms together in one beautiful long endlessly repeating dance \u2013 the beauty of glue!\n\nCanaan House was still on my mind, and I started thinking about the two Naomis, each trying to grab Artem. Had there been sharing and dancing? Or was it a case of theft and nastiness? Would Artem have made a different choice if he'd read Naomi's letters? Would Ella's heart have been broken instead? Burning the letters seemed such a monstrously wicked thing to do; yet I couldn't think of her as a wicked woman. It's as though love gives you a special licence to do anything you like. In the end death, the ultimate fracture line, split Ella and Artem apart. And Canaan House itself had been part of the dance, too, shared by one couple, then another. But whom did it really belong to? There were still some parts of the story that weren't clear. There must be a way of finding out.\n\nAfter lunch \u2013 four radishes and half a bagel with a bit of crusty cheese was all I could muster from the fridge \u2013 I nipped up to use the loo, and that's when I realised the other thing that was wrong with 'Gina's Revenge'. Men and women \u2013 we're different. Men stand up to pee.\n\nIn the afternoon the rain stopped long enough for me to pull on my Bat Woman coat and wing off down to the library on Fielding Street, just off Holloway Road. The reference library was up on the top floor, a hushed high-ceilinged room susurrating with the nasal snifflings of damp people and the dry rustle of pages being turned. The wet weather had brought in all the homeless folk, whose moist unwashed smell mingled with the musty odour of books and the municipal aroma of wax and disinfectant. Silent hunched figures eyed each other furtively above the pages. Ms Firestorm would have a field day in here.\n\n'I'm trying to find out the history of a house near where I live. It's called Canaan House. In Totley Place.'\n\nThe woman at the counter raised her eyes from her computer.\n\n'That's an interesting name. There was quite a fashion in Victorian times, you know, to give places Biblical names. There's no end of Bethels and Zions. And there's a Jordan Close in Richmond. Different Jordan, of course,' she giggled mousily.\n\n'Are there some old maps or anything like that?'\n\n'They've moved the local history archive to the Finsbury Library. We've just got a small local history section over there on the right.'\n\nOf the twenty or so volumes, the only specifically local book was one called _Walter Sickert's Highbury_. I flicked through the chapter headings and illustrations. On page 79 was a lithograph of a large house with a tree in front of it \u2013 the more I stared, the more sure I was that it was the same house with the same monkey puzzle tree, but much smaller. The caption read: 'The Monkey Puzzle House, home of Miss Lydia Hughes, whose portrait Sickert painted in 1929 when he was living in nearby Highbury Place.' Perhaps the name of the house had been changed. I looked in the index and browsed through the chapters, but there was no more information.\n\nThen my eye fell on a slim booklet in a yellow card cover: _A History of Christian Witness in Highbury_. It was obviously self-published. I took it through to the reading room and sat down at one of the desks. The booklet was mainly a rather dull list of Anglican and Catholic churches with scratchy line drawings, but the last chapter was devoted to what the author called the 'sects': Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, Quakers, Unitarians, Presbyterians, Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Pentecostals, Sandemanians, Christadelphians, Swedenborgians, Latter Day Saints, Plymouth Brethren. So many different faiths all waiting, as Ben was, for the Day of Judgement that would bring about a new Heaven and a new Earth \u2013 not just over there in that dry, thorny, tortured land, but here in damp, leafy Highbury. Still waiting. Well, let them wait, I thought.\n\nTowards the end of the chapter was a short entry that read: 'A Teresian community was established in the late 1930s in a house in Totley Place. It was evacuated following an air raid in 1941 and the community dispersed.' I felt a rush of excitement \u2013 this could be it! But there was no more. The author was a Miss Sylvia Harvey. The book was published in 1977, thirty years ago. I scribbled the details on a piece of paper. The room was so quiet that you could hear the squeak of my pen as I wrote. There was no other sound apart from the snuffling and rustling and an occasional intermittent gurgle of the water cooler, like a dyspeptic gut. It reminded me that Dad's operation had been due today. I wondered how he'd got on.\n\nOver in the far corner by the magazines and newspapers, a tall heavily built man was wrestling with the _Financial Times_. He was sitting with his back towards me. He had curly grey hair \u2013 no, it was blond, streaked with grey. I stared. At first I thought my eyes were deceiving me, but there was no mistaking him. It was Rip. Beside him on the floor were his briefcase and our large blue Thermos flask. I wanted to rush up to him and put my hands over his eyes to surprise him, but something held me back \u2013 something about the way he was sitting \u2013 that sagging posture, staring straight ahead, his big shoulders hunched. He looked defeated. He wasn't even reading the newspaper, I realised, he was just passing the time. He was passing the time in the library because he didn't want us to know he wasn't at work.\n\nI took the booklet across to the desk.\n\n'How can I trace this author?' I asked in a low voice.\n\nThe woman smiled vaguely. 'You could try the telephone directory. Or the internet. Would you like me to have a look?'\n\n'No, it's all right. Thanks for your help.'\n\nI gathered my things together as quietly as I could and tiptoed out through the door.\n\n# 46\n\n# Smoke circles\n\nI'd already started cooking dinner when Rip came in just before six o'clock. It was something elaborate involving tofu and lemon grass. Stella was out and Ben was stretched out on the sofa with a book. Since his seizure, he'd been avoiding the computer, and only watched television occasionally.\n\n'D'you want a hand, Mum?' he'd shouted down to me. His voice sounded deeper, less croaky, than a couple of weeks ago. How quickly he'd changed.\n\n'It's okay,' I'd shouted back.\n\nI liked to see him with his nose stuck in a book, as I'd been at his age, though when he came down to eat later on, I saw that the book was _Revenge of the Busty Biker Chicks_.\n\n'Hi, Ben! Hi, Georgie!' Rip called as he came in, then he went straight up into the mezzanine study. I could hear him pottering around in there, playing music. Half an hour later, I stuck my head round the door.\n\n'Dinner's ready.'\n\n'What's all this, Georgie?'\n\nHe was standing in the middle of the room holding a B&Q carrier bag in his hand.\n\n'Where did you find that?' Then I remembered. I'd shoved it in the cupboard when Mark Diabello came round.\n\n'Are you planning a bit of DIY?' He was looking at me intently, curiously. I could feel myself turning red.\n\n'No, not DIY. Collage.'\n\n'Collage?'\n\nI smiled inwardly at the incredulity in his voice.\n\n'You know \u2013 sticking things. It's a form of art.'\n\nOur eyes met. He grinned. I grinned. We stood grinning at each other across a bridge of lies. I would never tell him that I'd seen him in the library, that I'd glimpsed his vulnerability. I reached out my arms and took a tentative step forward. There was a faint crackle and a smell of scorching, and Ben called from the kitchen, 'Come on, you two! The rice's burning!'\n\nDad always used to say, 'I like a bit of burned,' which was just as well, because Mum often obliged. Sometimes she went too far, like the first Sunday lunch Rip had with us at Kippax, when she placed a charred and shrivelled chicken in front of Dad for him to carve.\n\n'Poor little bugger looks like 'e's been cremated,' said Dad.\n\n'Nowt wrong wi' cremation,' said Mum. 'Keeps you regular.'\n\nI hadn't told Mum yet that Rip had moved back in \u2013 I didn't want to tempt fate \u2013 but I rang her after dinner to find out how Dad's operation had gone. She was in an ebullient mood.\n\n'They did a biopic. Doctor says it in't cancer.'\n\n'Oh, that's good. How's he feeling?'\n\n'Full of chips. Food were lovely in 'ospital. Got into a blazing argument with the bloke in the next bed about Iraq. Keir's coming home, by the way. Did I tell you?'\n\n'No, you didn't. That's good news, too.'\n\nIt would be good to see Keir again. Since he'd joined the army, our worlds had drifted apart; nowadays all we had in common was our shared childhood, but Mum resolutely held us together like the family glue.\n\n'She sent us some lovely flowers, by the way, your Mrs Sinclair. And a card. Best wishes for your recovery.'\n\n'I didn't know she knew about Dad.'\n\n'Oh, we keep in touch. She rings up from time to time. Or I ring her.'\n\n'Really?'\n\nThis was complete news to me. I tried to imagine what Mum and Mrs Sinclair would talk about. Then I realised they probably talked about us.\n\nI poured another glass of wine and put my feet up on the sofa while Rip and Ben put the rice pan to soak and cleared up in the kitchen. Then the phone rang.\n\n'Georgine, come quick! We heff an invitation!'\n\nMrs Shapiro's breathy voice shrilled down the telephone, but I was going nowhere.\n\n'What've we been invited to?'\n\n'Wait! Let me see \u2013 aha, here it is! We are invited to a funeral!'\n\nMy heart lurched. The last thing I needed was bad news.\n\n'Oh, dear. Who is it?'\n\n'Wait! It is here! What is this? I cannot read this name. Looks like Mrs Lily and Brown, ninety-one years old, passes peacefully in the sleep at the Nightmare House.'\n\nSo she never did break free, poor thing.\n\n'Who is this Brown Lily?'\n\n'She's the old lady you made friends with in the hospital. And at Northmere House. You know \u2013 who was always asking for cigarettes?'\n\n'This one who got the dead woman slippers? She is not my friend \u2013 she is a bonker.'\n\n'But it's nice that you've been invited to her funeral. Her family must have remembered you.'\n\n'What is so nice about a funeral?'\n\n'Don't you want to go?'\n\n'Certainly we must go!'\n\nThe crematorium was in Golders Green, miles away beyond Hampstead Heath. I mentioned this to Nathan, and suggested he might like to come along with his Tati.\n\n'He'll enjoy it,' I said. 'There's sure to be plenty of singing.'\n\nSomehow, the four of us fitted into Nathan's Morgan, even though it was really a glorified two-seater. Nathan and Mrs Shapiro sat in front. She was wearing a long black coat that smelled pleasantly of mothballs and Chanel No. 5 \u2013 better than the stinky astrakhan \u2013 and a chic little black beret with a veil and a feather. Nathan's Tati squeezed into the back with me. He was wearing a raincoat and a Bogart-style trilby. I was wearing my smart grey jacket and a black scarf. The car struggled under the weight of us all as we crawled up the Finchley Road. It was a Saturday morning in April, the air warm and sparkling in the slanting sunlight. In the residential streets the front gardens were already frothy with cherry blossom.\n\nNathan's Tati took Mrs Shapiro's hand to guide her up the step to the crematorium, and she acknowledged the gesture with a gracious nod. There were only two other people in the chapel when we arrived: a grey wispy-looking woman who introduced herself as Mrs Brown's niece, Lucille Watkins, and her father, Mrs Brown's brother. He was tall and lean, with rosy cheeks and a twinkle in his eye \u2013 one of those wiry sprightly ninety-somethings who go on for ever.\n\n'Charlie Watkins,' he introduced himself, lingering over Mrs Shapiro's chipped-varnish fingers which she extended graciously to him. 'I think we met at the 'ospital once. Did you know our Lily well?'\n\nOut of the corner of my eye, I saw Nathan's Tati watch him, bristling with annoyance.\n\n'Not well,' Mrs Shapiro replied, fluttering her eyelids. 'Only from smoking. And from slippers. She got the dead-woman slippers.'\n\n'Smokin' like a kipper!' he chuckled, nodding towards the flower-covered coffin in front of us. 'That sounds like our Lily.'\n\nI wasn't particularly surprised when Ms Baddiel turned up, too, just as the service was about to start.\n\n'It's always so-o sad when a client passes away,' she murmured, searching in her oversize bag for a packet of tissues.\n\nThere was music playing in the chapel, spooky-sounding organ music that made you feel as though you were already halfway into the next world. The coffin with its large wreath of lilies rested on an ornate catafalque to the left of the altar. A plaque on the wall solemnly reminded us _Mors janua vitae_. Death is the gateway to life. Where had I heard that before? Tall leaded windows filtered and chilled the sunshine leaking in from outside, turning it into a cool greenish fluid. It reminded me of the bivalves, clinging on under the sea.\n\nWe spread out around the pews, trying to make ourselves look like more than seven. Mrs Shapiro sat in the front row, and Nathan's Tati took up his position beside her. Nathan and Ms Baddiel sat in front on the other side. The niece and her father spread out in the middle, and I sat at the back. How sad, I was thinking, to have just seven people at your funeral, two of whom had never even met you. A thin man in a black suit droned through a short liturgy and disappeared. We all looked around, wondering whether this was all. Then suddenly there was a rustling behind us; the organ music stopped mid-note and gave way to a jolly lilting big-band number. Ba-doop-a-doop-a! Ba-doop-a-doop-a!\n\nYou could hear everybody gasp. Charlie Watkins rose to his feet and did a little hip-swing in the pew, then he squeezed out past his daughter and bopped up to the lectern. As the music faded away, he cleared his throat and began.\n\n'Ladies and gen'lemen, we're 'ere to celebrate the life of a great lady, and a great dancer, Lily Brown, my sister, who was born Lillian Ellen Watkins in 1916 in Bow. She was the youngest of three sisters and two brothers (he was reading from a sheet of paper he'd fished out of his jacket pocket, modulating his voice like an actor). Now I'm the only one what's left, and all that past life, the 'appiness and sorrow, the triumphs and disappoin'ments, is all washed away on the tides of time.' He fumbled in his pocket for a handkerchief. There was a general shuffling in the pews. This wasn't at all what we'd expected. He blew his nose and continued. 'Even when she was a young gel, our Lily danced like an angel.'\n\nThe Watkinses were a Music Hall family. Charlie described how Lily enrolled for dance classes at the City Lit, got pregnant, ran off to Southend, then came back to London a year later, without the baby and without the boyfriend. Her breakthrough came when she got a place in the chorus line at Daly's. He paused, snuffling into his hankie \u2013 it wasn't for effect, the emotion was genuine \u2013 then he leaned forward, departing from his script.\n\n'I seen 'er up there on the stage, kickin' like she could kick the bollocks off a giraffe.'\n\nIn the front pew, I could see Ms Baddiel quiver like a soft jelly, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue while Nathan slipped a solicitous arm around her shoulder. There was something about that gesture that sent a pang of longing through me \u2013 not longing for Nathan \u2013 that was in the past \u2013 but for the warmth of human comfort.\n\nLily settled in Golders Green, married and lost a soldier.\n\n'That's when she took to smokin',' said Charlie, 'puffin' away like she wanted to be up in 'eaven.'\n\nHe blew his nose again and raised his eyes. 'Ladies and gen'lemen, I ask you to pray for the soul of Lillian Brown. May she dance with the angels.'\n\nThe band music started up again, Ba-doop-a-doop-a! Ba-doop-a-doop-a! Then with a clatter of rollers, the coffin disappeared through the wooden doors. I thought of the old woman I'd known as the bonker lady, trying to keep her image in my mind's eye as the coffin rattled away, and despite the cheerful music, tears welled up in my eyes. What cruel tricks time plays on us! Before the cigarettes and the crusty toenails, before the deep-grooved wrinkles and the crumpled mind, there'd been another Mrs Brown \u2013 a young woman who danced in one of the most beautiful chorus lines in London, who lived life to the full, who could kick the bollocks off a giraffe.\n\nBa-doop-a-doop-a! Ba-doop-a-doop-a! Ms Baddiel and Nathan and Nathan's Tati were swaying in time to the music and fluttering the tissues which Ms Baddiel had handed out. The niece and Charlie Watkins were sobbing and bopping, and I found my feet, too, were pulled by the irresistible rhythm. Only Mrs Shapiro was standing stock-still \u2013 her back was to me, so I couldn't see the look on her face. Suddenly a current of air caught the folding door behind which the coffin had disappeared, making it swing forward, and, I swear I'm not making this up, as it gusted towards us a puff of grey smoke eddied out into the chapel, circling and wreathing around us before it drifted away.\n\nThe sunlight stung our eyes as we shuffled outside into the Garden of Rest and walked in a sad tight knot between the flower beds. Mrs Shapiro lit a cigarette and sat on a bench puffing away, as if in honour of her fractious former smoking companion. I wandered along looking at the names on the memorial plaques on the walls \u2013 there were so many. Some names I recognised \u2013 Enid Blyton, Peter Sellers, Anna Pavlova, Bernard Bresslaw (Mum's favourite actor), H. G. Wells (one of Dad's gurus), Marc Bolan (died so young!) and alongside them all the hundreds of anonymous dead, jostling together for a bit of memory space. Soon enough we'll all be anonymous except to the few people who knew us, I was thinking, until they in their turn become anonymous, too.\n\nThat's the thing about funerals \u2013 even if you hardly know the person who died, the closeness of death itself makes you melancholy. I recalled the people whose mysterious lives had brushed against mine \u2013 beautiful Lily Brown, before she became the bonker lady; Mustafa al-Ali, the chosen one, and his anonymous twin who died on the hillside; Artem Shapiro who had trekked across the Arctic; Naomi Shapiro of the blazing eyes; and the old lady I thought of as Naomi Shapiro, but who was really someone else. Were they exceptional people, or was it the time they lived through that made them seem exceptional? Had our safe post-war world stripped all the glamour and heroism out of life (sob) leaving us with the husks (sob) \u2013 consumer goods wrapped up in stylish packaging (sob, sob)? By now the tissue Ms Baddiel had given me was completely soggy. Blinded with tears, I stumbled on a step, stubbed my toe on a stone plinth and almost fell into the pond.\n\nCharlie Watkins was clutching his daughter's arm, his tall thin frame shaking with each breath. I wanted to ask him what had happened to the baby \u2013 had she aborted it or given it up for adoption? I wanted to know about Mr Brown \u2013 was he the one who brought her here to Golders Green? Had he loved her? Did he stay with her to the end? But Charlie'd crumpled the bit of paper back into his pocket, and his eyes were full of tears. He pointed up at the chimney, where a faint wisp of smoke curled into a perfect circle, wavered in the wind, and was gone.\n\n'There she flies! Our angel!'\n\nWheeee! A high-pitched whining sound carried on the air, like the distant whirr of angel wings. We all stopped and looked around. It was an eerie sound, as if her spirit was amongst us, trying to speak from another world.\n\nCharlie's daughter leaned over and whispered in his ear, 'Dad, you're whistling!'\n\n'Sorry. Sorry.'\n\nHe reached up and adjusted his hearing aid.\n\nThat gesture broke the tension. Everybody laughed, brushed their tears away, and started to move purposefully towards the car park. It's all very well thinking about the passing of time and the presence of death, but there's work to be done, dinners to be cooked, life to be lived. I put the soggy tissue away, and that's when my fingers touched something hard and long at the bottom of the jacket pocket. It was a key. I fished it out. Where had that come from? When was the last time I'd worn this jacket? Then I remembered. It was when I first met Mrs Goodney over at Canaan House.\n\nIt wasn't until we got to the car park that we realised Mrs Shapiro was missing. With a mutter of irritation, we split up to scour the gardens. Everybody was ready for home by now. A cool wind had sprung up, and all the emotion had made us hungry and tired. It was Nathan's Tati who found her. She'd strayed right out of the crematorium and across Hoop Lane into the Jewish cemetery. He'd come across her wandering among the graves and led her back solicitously, supporting her on his arm.\n\n'She keeps going on about some artist,' he whispered to me. 'Poor old thing.'\n\n# 47\n\n# The penthouse party\n\nIt was Mrs Shapiro's idea to hold a house-warming party for the penthouse suite. We drew up the guest list together one morning over a cup of coffee in the kitchen. The sun had come out, and a mild blossom-scented breeze wafted in through the open back door. Mrs Shapiro was in an effervescent mood. Her hair was pinned up and she was wearing a crumpled not-very-white cotton blouse with her smart brown slacks and the _Lion King_ slippers. She saw me looking at them, and gave a little shrug.\n\n'They are quite ugly, isn't it? But Wonder Boy adores them.'\n\n'Mm,' I said.\n\n'We can invite the charming old man from the crematorium. He is good at singing. Pity he is so old. And his petit son.'\n\n'Good idea. Who else?'\n\nIt seemed incredible that Mr Ali and the Uselesses had managed to install a functioning shower and toilet and three Velux windows in the attic rooms, without further mishap \u2013 but it was true. They'd moved their stuff up there, and all the junk \u2013 what was left of it \u2013 was piled up in a side room whose ceiling was too low to make a useful living space.\n\n'It will be a musical soir\u00e9e. Or maybe it will be a garden party. What you think?'\n\n'I think we should be flexible. You can never tell what the weather's going to do.'\n\n'You are very wise, Georgine,' she nodded, as though I'd offered some great insight into the human condition.\n\nUpstairs we could hear thudding and hammering as Chaim and the Uselesses put the finishing touches to the floorboards. They'd hired a sander for the day without realising the amount of preparation that was needed. Mr Ali had gone off on some mysterious errand to B&Q. I noted how tidy everything was in the kitchen, a stack of washing-up still covered in soapsuds draining at the side of the sink.\n\n'Maybe when they've finished the penthouse suite we can discuss some kitchen improvements with Chaim and Mr Ali.'\n\n'What for I need improvement?'\n\n'Remember what you said \u2013 dishwasher, microwave?'\n\nShe looked at me in astonishment. Obviously her previous plans had vanished from her head, and something else was preoccupying her.\n\n'Now, Georgine, this party will be a good opportunity for you to find a new husband.'\n\n'Oh, really?' You had to give her credit for persistence.\n\n'We will invite my Nicky and the other one also, the hendsome one. Maybe more hendsome even than Nicky, isn't it?'\n\n'Yes, very handsome, but...'\n\nI hadn't yet told her that I was not looking for a new husband, I just wanted to recondition the one I'd already got.\n\n'You must make more effort, Georgine, if you want to catch a man. You are a nice-looking woman, but you heff let yourself go. You must wear something nice. I heff a nice dress, red spotted mit white collar. Will look nice on you. And lipstick. You must wear a nice lipstick in metching colour. I heff one you can borrow. Will go good mit this dress.'\n\nI smiled non-committally, remembering the grotty decomposing make-up in her bedroom drawer.\n\nAfter a while the banging from upstairs stopped and Chaim put his head round the door. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and there were bits of sawdust in his hair and eyebrows.\n\n'What shall we do with all the junk, Ella? The belongings from the previous inhabitants?'\n\n'The ones that ran away?' I teased.\n\n'This is no laughable matter. All over Europe Jews are coming and demanding their property back.'\n\n'Like the Palestinians with their keys?' I smiled smugly. He looked cross.\n\n'You \u2013 you are not a Jew, Miss Georgiana. You cannot understand what it means.'\n\n'It's a Yorkshire thing \u2013 calling a spade a spade.'\n\n'A spade is like a spade?'\n\n'But they were not Jews living here, Chaim,' Mrs Shapiro intervened soothingly. 'Why you are always mekking problems? Leave the junk where it is. Sit down and drink a coffee mit us.'\n\nChaim pulled out a chair rather nervously. Wonder Boy had sidled in with his ears pricked back and was lurking under the table, his tail quivering.\n\n'Raus, Wonder Boy! Go and make your little wish elsewhere!' Mrs Shapiro shooed him away.\n\nSuddenly a horrible juddering whine shook the whole house. It was the sander springing into life. Wonder Boy set off a competing yowl of protest. Chaim Shapiro jumped to his feet.\n\n'You know, I better give those boys my hand. They are completely useless.' He grinned at me. 'A spade is like a spade.'\n\nWhen we were alone again, Mrs Shapiro leaned across and whispered to me, 'He is crezzy, isn't it? He was hit in the eye mit a piece of glass, you know. Some boys were throwing stones at the bus. I think also a piece went in his brain.'\n\nAfter we'd drawn up the party list, we divided the duties. Mrs Shapiro said she would ring Wolfe & Diabello, and reluctantly agreed to invite Ms Baddiel, too. I was delegated to call Nathan and his Tati. I picked up the phone as soon as I got home.\n\n'Your father's made a conquest, Nathan.'\n\n'Wonderful! I knew from the moment you met that you were made for each other. You'll be a fine stepmother, Georgia.'\n\nThe thought tickled me. 'Yeah, I'll lock you up and feed you on poisoned apples. Don't you want to know who it really is?'\n\n'I think I can guess. It's your old lady, Mrs Shapiro?'\n\n'Has he said anything?'\n\n'He says it's a pity she's so old.'\n\n'That's what _she_ says about _him_. Anyway, you're both invited to a party.'\n\nI told him the day \u2013 it was a Saturday, about four o'clock.\n\n'Put it in your diary. It might be a musical soir\u00e9e or a garden party.'\n\n'So hard to know what to wear,' he murmured cheesily.\n\n'If it's any help, I shall be wearing a red dress with white polka dots and a white collar.'\n\nI would have rung off then, but my conversation with Chaim was still on my mind and I suddenly remembered the glue exhibition.\n\n'Nathan, you know what you said about being called a self-hating Jew?'\n\n'Did I say that?'\n\n'You did. I thought it was because you were gay. Or sm...' I stopped myself. '... or something.'\n\n'Look, Georgia, some people get excited about what sets them apart. I get excited about what bonds people together. That's all.'\n\n'But... isn't it something about not believing in a Jewish homeland?'\n\n'That place you come from \u2013 Kippers \u2013 is that your homeland?'\n\nThere was an edge of irritation in his voice.\n\n'Kippax, not kippers. It should really be called Oven Chippax.' Even as I said it, I felt a pang of shame at my disloyalty. 'It's just that people go on about their homeland as if it was the biggest thing in their lives. It seems strange to me...' I could hear Nathan's prickly silence on the other end of the phone. But when he spoke, his voice was sad, not prickly.\n\n'That was Tati's generation. Zion was their big dream. It was a good dream, too. But they found you can't build dreams with guns. Just nightmares. Does that answer your question?'\n\nI paused. It did and it didn't.\n\n'I expected the Jews would be... you know, after all that suffering... more compassionate.'\n\n'Why would suffering make anyone compassionate? It doesn't work like that, Georgia. Abused children often grow up to become abusers themselves. It's what they learn.'\n\n'Mmm. But...'\n\n'And if you've convinced yourself that you're really the victim, or even just potentially the victim \u2013 well, it gives you a free rein, doesn't it? You can kill as many people as you like.'\n\nBut we didn't bully Carole Benthorpe because we'd been abused, I wanted to say. We did it because we truly believed that something \u2013 something higher than us \u2013 gave us the right.\n\n'It's like glueing a joint, Georgia. That article you edited. Surface attraction is increased by roughing up the surfaces to be bonded. Like an abusive relationship. It's the mutual damage that holds the two sides together.'\n\nI'd never heard such passion in his voice. Gay. What a shame!\n\nOur conversation stayed in my head after I'd put the phone down. But we didn't have a wall in Kippax, I was thinking. When the strike ended the community was split, and the bitterness of betrayal and defeat was on everyone's mind. People badmouthed their neighbours. Taunts and bricks were thrown, cars were scratched, drunks and kids picked fights. But still life went on. You had to go to the same schools, shop in the same shops, dig in the same allotments, sit eyeball to eyeball in the doctor's surgery \u2013 and after a while the habit of living together slowly turned into peace. Eventually a generation comes along that doesn't remember what the conflict was ever about. Maybe forgiveness isn't such a big deal, after all. Maybe it's just a matter of habit.\n\nLater that day, as I settled down with a cup of tea and a Danish pastry, I remembered the other thing I'd meant to ask Nathan: Danish. _She_ was Danish. I knew nothing at all about Denmark except the pastries. And Hamlet, of course. Why had she left Denmark? What had happened there during the war? I'd have to ask him next time.\n\nIn the end, the party was neither a musical soir\u00e9e nor a garden party \u2013 it was a barbecue. That was Ishmail and Nabeel's idea, and they got so excited about it that no one had the heart to argue with them, though personally I thought the combination of scorched half-raw meat, bugs from Mrs Shapiro's kitchen and barbecue lighter fuel was potentially lethal. Anyway, they built an improvised barbecue in front of the house out of spare bricks and some metal racks they got out of an old oven which Mrs Shapiro had spotted on a skip. They got a job lot of cheap Halal lamb chops and chicken wings from a butcher on Dalston Lane and Mrs Shapiro produced some discoloured burgers of unknown provenance from the depths of her fridge. I made a mental note to avoid those.\n\nI'd suggested that Mr Ali invite his wife, but apparently when she heard that Ishmail and Nabeel were involved she declined.\n\n'Give her headache,' Mr Ali explained.\n\nHowever, she sent along a huge bowl of hummus laced with olive oil and sprinkled with fresh coriander leaves.\n\n'What is this thing?' Mrs Shapiro poked her finger in and licked it, wrinkling her nose, then I saw a smile of pleasure spread across her face.\n\nHave you ever noticed the similarity between BBQ and B&Q? My theory is that that's why men feel the urge to take over the cooking on these occasions. It's what Rip would call synergy. At one point all four of them \u2013 Chaim, Mr Ali, Ishmail and Nabeel \u2013 were crowded round the smoking barbecue, puffing and flapping to try and get it lit. Ishmail and Nabeel took turns splashing squirts of lighter fuel on to the smouldering charcoal, then jumping back howling with laughter as the flames flared up. In fact they managed to splash a fair bit of lighter fuel on themselves, too. Probably Mrs Ali was wise to stay away. I watched them from the window of Mrs Shapiro's bedroom, where I was trying on the red-and-white spotted dress, while Mrs Shapiro fussed around for the right shade of lipstick.\n\nWe were blessed with the weather. The sun had come out after lunch, and stayed out all afternoon. The thrush was up in his tree, his chest puffed out, singing his war song, and all seven of Mrs Shapiro's cats, plus a few feline guests from the neighbourhood, were circling, attracted by the smell of the cooking meat. Mrs Shapiro and I chopped up salads and split pitta breads and set out plates and glasses on the white uPVC table. A spare table from the study and some dining chairs had been carried out on to the grass, too.\n\nNathan and his Tati were the first to arrive. Nathan had brought two bottles of Blind River Pinot Noir, and his Tati had brought a bunch of blue irises for Mrs Shapiro.\n\n'Thenk you so much!' Her bright blue eyelids fluttered ecstatically. That was a good start. 'Will you heff a drink?'\n\nShe was wearing the same brown slacks and striped jersey in which she'd first entertained Mr Wolfe, with her high-heeled slingbacks that kept sticking into the grass as she tottered about. Her hair was freshly dyed and elaborately pinned up with three tortoiseshell combs. In fact she looked quite elegant. I was wearing the little red-and-white number. Nathan looked me up and down.\n\n'Nice dress.'\n\n'Thanks. I like your trousers. We match.'\n\nHe was wearing red trousers with what looked like a white waiter's jacket.\n\nMs Baddiel, when she arrived, was wearing a flowing muslin garment which might have been a coat or a dress or a skirt and top \u2013 it was impossible to say how it all fitted together \u2013 tie-dyed in swirling shades of amber, bronze and gold. It fluttered lightly in the breeze, making her look delicate and ethereal, despite her size. I saw Mark Diabello eyeing her with interest as he came up the path, and felt a small stab of annoyance. Okay, so I'd given him the push, but he was supposed to be eyeing _me_ , not her. He was wearing the same dark suit as always, the white handkerchief winking invitingly in his jacket pocket. The Shameless Woman poked her head up briefly, and thought an utterly shameless thought: I bet they don't do the red open-gusset panties in _her_ size.\n\n'Nice dress, Georgina. Suits you.' He pecked me on the cheek and handed me a packet of Marks & Spencer's sausages and a bottle of champagne.\n\n'Oh, lovely. Mrs Shapiro'll like those.'\n\n'Is your hubby coming?'\n\n'Yes, later,' I lied. Actually I hadn't invited him. It wasn't because of Mark. It was because he'd have come out of a sense of duty and then complained that he was missing the football. Besides \u2013 I don't know \u2013 I just wanted to keep Canaan House and its eccentric inhabitants to myself.\n\n'Nick's coming later, too. He had some... er... work to catch up on.'\n\n'Mark, there's something I think you should know. Something you and Nick should know. Only... I don't know whether I should tell you.'\n\nHe raised a quizzical eyebrow.\n\n'You're being very mysterious, Georgina.'\n\nIf I hadn't already had a couple of glasses of wine I might have kept quiet, but I blurted out, 'The deeds to the house... there aren't any. Her husband just moved in. It was abandoned. After a bombing raid. Actually, I don't think he was even her husband.'\n\nA strange look came over him. His eyes flickered through many changes of colour, and the smile-creases in his cheeks twitched furiously. He looked as though he was about to explode. Then I realised he was trying to stop himself from laughing.\n\n'No title! Wait till I tell Nick!'\n\n'But can't she... I don't know... what about squatter's rights?'\n\nHe burst into a chuckle. 'No title! Ha ha! No, maybe on second thoughts I won't tell him! Where's the old lady?'\n\nMrs Shapiro and Tati had disappeared into the house. They'd opened the window in the study and moved the old gramophone up to it, so we could hear the music in the garden. Now they were poring through Mrs Shapiro's collection, trying to decide what to play. You could see them through the window, talking and laughing together. They chose an orchestral piece that sounded vaguely familiar. It might have been one of Rip's old vinyls. What will she say, I wondered with a pang of conscience, when I ask to have them back?\n\n'Penny sends her apologies.' Nathan sidled up to me. 'Her cousin Darryl's getting married.'\n\n'That's nice.' I felt a small prick of regret.\n\n'Who's the guy in the brown suit?'\n\nOver by the barbecue, Mr Ali and Chaim Shapiro were cooking and arguing. Seeing them together like that, I was struck by how alike they were. Chaim was stabbing at the chicken wings to see whether they were done. Mr Ali shoved a mouthful of lamb chop into his mouth and beamed as he caught my eye, patting his tummy.\n\n'XXL.'\n\n'Trouble with you Arabs,' Chaim was saying, 'is you always pick bad leaders.'\n\n'You Jews put all the good ones in prison.'\n\nMr Ali speared another lamb chop on a skewer and brandished it in the air. The chicken wings were beginning to smoke. Chaim flipped them over.\n\n'We put only terrorists in prison.'\n\n'You not heard of Nelson Mandela? You want peace you free Marwan Barghouti,' said Mr Ali, emphasising his point with the skewered lamb chop.\n\n'This Barghouti \u2013 is he Hamas or Fatah?' Chaim picked up a smoking chicken wing with his fingers \u2013 ouch! hot! \u2013 and bit into it with a crunch, sucking cool air into his mouth.\n\n'Hamas, Fatah \u2013 all listen to Barghouti!' The lamb chop flew off Mr Ali's skewer and whizzed over our heads. It landed on the ground and he speared it up, covered with bits of grass, and started flashing it about again. 'He only can bring peace.'\n\n'Mr Ali, Chaim, this is my colleague Nathan Stein,' I butted in. They stopped in mid-sentence, and turned towards us.\n\n'Come! Eat something!' Chaim waved a chicken wing at him.\n\n'We are discussing politics,' said Mr Ali. When he looked round at us, I could see he had a grin on his face and bits of barbecue sauce in his beard. They both looked as though they were enjoying themselves. On the barbecue, things were sizzling away.\n\n'Discussion is the better part of valour!' added Chaim.\n\nIn the middle of the grass, Mussorgsky and the Stinker were fighting over a chicken bone. The neighbourhood guest cats, the ones with proper homes to go to, were looking on askance at this display of bad behaviour.\n\n'Very tasty.' Nathan took a bite of the chicken wing.\n\n'Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp piece of glass, eh?' said Chaim, and bellowed with laughter at his own joke.\n\nDenmark, I reminded myself. Mustn't forget to ask him about Denmark.\n\nIshmail had rigged up an ingenious rotating spit, but the chops and wings were too bony to spear, and the sausages just split. Brainy but useless. It's often the way. Now he and Nabeel were racing about with plates of charred meat as it came off the barbecue, flashing their smiles as they offered it around. They were in a skittish mood, and kept on barging into each other and dropping bits on the floor. Wonder Boy was in the bushes attempting to rape one of the visiting guest cats (little did he know that it was to be his last fling!), Mrs Shapiro was sitting on one of the white chairs with her feet up on another, smoking a cigarette and discreetly feeding the uncooked M&S sausages to the cats, who were snatching and snarling. Tati was sitting at the table beside her, slugging back red wine and eating a burger \u2013 it must be one of the ones from the back of her fridge \u2013 I hoped he had a strong constitution. Mark Diabello was topping up the glasses. Ms Baddiel was keeping everyone supplied with tissues.\n\n'I work mainly with old people,' I overheard her explaining peachily to Mark Diabello. 'Sorting out their housing needs to enable them to live independently.'\n\n'Fascinating,' he murmured. 'I'm in housing myself.'\n\nThe music poured out into the garden, wheeling and soaring above it all.\n\nEverything that happened next happened very quickly, so I may have got the order of events slightly wrong, but it was something like this. The thrush started it. From his perch in the ash tree he'd spotted a piece of pitta bread that had fallen on to the ground. Wonder Boy, having satisfied his lust, was lurking in the bushes watching the bird. As the thrush swooped down Wonder Boy flattened his nose to the ground and wriggled into pouncing position, his tail twitching. The bird went for the bread. The cat went for the bird. I grabbed the first thing that came to hand \u2013 it was a lamb chop \u2013 and lobbed it at Wonder Boy. It arced through the air spinning like a boomerang. Normally I'm hopeless at throwing, but this time I scored a direct hit. Wonder Boy let out a yowl and leapt sideways right under the feet of Nabeel who was carrying a plate of chicken wings up the garden. Nabeel barged into Ishmail, who lurched and stumbled against the barbecue, which collapsed scattering hot coals everywhere, setting fire to the barbecue lighter fuel that hadn't been screwed up properly and had spilled on the ground right under the open study window, where a curtain was flapping in the breeze. The cats fell on the scattered chicken wings in a frenzy. Wonder Boy grabbed the biggest one and raced off down the path. The wind gusted; the curtain caught and blazed. Mark Diabello sprayed champagne over the flames, but it was too little too late. Outside on the lane there was a screech of brakes and a thud. The flames leapt through the window. Nick Wolfe appeared at the gate, holding up Wonder Boy's limp lifeless body gingerly by one leg. Mrs Shapiro jumped up, screamed and fainted. Tati tried to give Mrs Shapiro mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The fire spread from the curtains to some loose papers on the bookshelf under the window. The music slurred and stopped. Mr Ali phoned the fire brigade on his mobile phone but failed to make himself understood. The fire roared through the study and into the hall. Nathan phoned the fire brigade on his mobile phone, and did manage to get through. I just stood there watching, clenching my hands into fists, wishing I could recall the flying lamb chop, and feeling terribly terribly terribly guilty.\n\nHours later, after the fire brigade had been and gone, and Mrs Shapiro had been carted off into temporary accommodation accompanied by Ms Baddiel, and Ishmail and Nabeel had gone home to Mrs Ali, and Chaim had gone home with Nathan and his Tati, and Wolfe and Diabello had finished off the booze and slunk off back to their lair, I walked home through the balmy dusk. _In \u2013 two \u2013 three \u2013 four. Out \u2013 two \u2013 three \u2013 four._ I breathed deeply, noticing that the air, despite its taint of London traffic, carried the sweetness of rising sap and fresh growth. I noticed peonies in the front gardens, and the greenness of leaves newly uncurled. I noticed that my hands were clenched into fists, and that my palms carried deep imprints of my fingernails. I uncurled them and let them relax. They hung like new leaves. When I got to my front door I noticed that Violetta was there beside me.\n\nBen and Rip were home already. They'd been out to the football, and now they were drinking a beer and watching the television \u2013 a round-up of the week's news.\n\n'Good party?' asked Rip, without looking up.\n\n'Great.' I came and slumped on the sofa. Violetta jumped up on to my lap, purring.\n\n'Look at this,' said Rip, pointing at the screen. 'Who would have believed it?' Two men were being interviewed, grinning in front of a bank of cameras and microphones. One of them looked a bit like the Reverend Ian Paisley. I had no idea who the other one was. 'Those two old bastards!'\n\n'Who are they?'\n\n'Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness,' said Ben, who'd been watching the item from the beginning. 'They've done a deal.'\n\n'Really? You mean, in Northern Ireland?'\n\nI tried to think back to a time when that conflict hadn't been in the news. How had this peace thing happened? How come I hadn't noticed? I remembered something about a woman whose hair fell out. She'd died while Rip and I were still living in Leeds, hadn't she?\n\n'Who'd have thought it was possible? Peace has broken out!' Rip turned to face me. He was smiling, then the smile broadened into a lop-sided grin. 'What the fuck are you wearing, Georgie?'\n\n'Oh, I thought I'd dress up for the party.'\n\nMy jeans and jumper and Bat Woman coat had been swallowed up by the blaze \u2013 or even if they were still there, the firemen had barred access to them.\n\n'You... You've changed, Georgie. You're different.'\n\nHe was still staring at me, as though he hadn't seen me before.\n\n'Less...?'\n\n'More...'\n\n'I've been experimenting...' I hesitated. How could I explain that in the last six months I'd been Georgine, Georgina, Georgette, Mrs George and Miss Georgiana? Not to mention Ms Firestorm and the Shameless Woman. '... with different ways of being myself.'\n\n'It suits you, Mum,' said Ben. 'Sort of retro.'\n\nLater that night, after the football highlights on TV had ended, and the thud-thud of Ben's music was quiet, and Violetta had wolfed down a tin of tuna and curled up on the sofa, I lay in bed, reflecting on what had happened at Canaan House that day, and tuning in to the silence around me. And that's when I heard a faint crackling sound \u2013 so faint that if I consciously tried to listen, it disappeared \u2013 it was the crackle of brainwaves coming from the mezzanine study. I put on my slippers and dressing gown and went to investigate. There was a sliver of light under the door. I tapped softly.\n\n'Come in.'\n\nRip was sitting at the computer in his boxer shorts, a cold cup of coffee at his elbow, staring at the screen.\n\n'You're working late.'\n\n'Got a report to finish,' he said, without looking round.\n\n'Progress Project?'\n\n'No. I'm done with the Progress Project.'\n\nI glanced over his shoulder and I could see quite clearly on the monitor that he was working not on a report but on his CV. He didn't even try to close or minimise the window.\n\n'Is it... are you okay, Rip?'\n\n'What do you think?'\n\nI slipped an arm around his shoulder \u2013 it was a habit of physical affection that bypassed the picky brain and the unreliable emotions. How warm his skin was, how big his shoulders; yet there was something about the way he was leaning forward in his chair, sagging almost, that struck a sudden chime of pity in me. I stroked his hair.\n\n'You're tired. You should go to bed.'\n\n'I need to get this done. It has to be in tomorrow.'\n\n'What's it for?'\n\n'Something called the Synergy Foundation.'\n\nI can't explain why, but my heart sank. Synergy Foundation. What the hell was that? It sounded like something you put on your face. _In \u2013 two \u2013 three \u2013 four_...\n\n'That sounds interesting. Shall I make you another coffee?'\n\n'That'd be nice.'\n\nI went down to the kitchen and made two cups of coffee. Then I remembered the Space Invaders Easter egg lurking at the back of the cupboard.\n\n'D'you fancy a bit of chocolate?'\n\nI smashed up the egg inside its foil wrapper, and we polished off the sickly chocolate between us. An hour later, when he crawled into the low canvas camp bed, I crept in beside him. \n\n# 48\n\n# A lot of bargains\n\nCanaan House is now a building site. The destruction from the fire wasn't extensive, but after the fire brigade had gone the surveyors checking the damage found an unexploded bomb left over from the war, buried deep in the roots of the monkey puzzle tree. The whole street had to be evacuated while the bomb squad carried out a controlled explosion. We all stood behind red-and-white barrier tape and watched. It was a bright windy day and dust blew everywhere \u2013 that's all that was left in the end, dust. Mrs Shapiro was weeping quietly, and when I put my arm around her to comfort her I suddenly started sobbing, too. In fact I think I cried more than she did.\n\n'You know, dear Georgine, you were right,' she said, patting her eyes with the disgusting hankie from the pocket of the astrakhan coat. 'This house was too big for me. Too many problems. Too many memories. Like caught in a trap. Now is the time for moving on.'\n\nFortunately, Mark Diabello had managed to get the title registered in Mrs Shapiro's name, using the evidence of her sixty years as a ratepayer to justify her claim, so she was able to sell the site to a developer for a substantial sum. Only Mark knows how substantial, and he is sworn to secrecy.\n\nShe has bought herself a lovely apartment in a sheltered housing development in Golders Green \u2013 sadly no pets allowed \u2013 and she has set up Chaim and Mussorgsky in a flat in Islington. Violetta has stayed with me. We keep each other company, and in a quiet moment when everybody is out we sit on the sofa together and share our smelly memories. I sometimes ask myself whether she misses Wonder Boy, but somehow I don't think she does. The remainder of the money from Canaan House went, with the remaining feline residents, to the Cats Protection League. Mrs Shapiro won't tell anyone how much, but I'm sure it was more than enough to keep any number of lean and hungry moggies in pet food for the rest of their stinky little lives.\n\nI never got a chance at the party to ask Chaim about Denmark, but we meet up one Saturday in September at a caf\u00e9 on Islington Green, near where he has his flat. It's raining again \u2013 it seems to have been raining most of the year \u2013 but he's found a cosy corner near the window and is flicking through a travel brochure. I almost don't recognise him at first, he looks so completely different to the man in the brown suit. He's wearing black jeans and a blue open-necked shirt, and stylish rimless glasses. Unless you knew, you wouldn't even notice that he has a glass eye. I shake out my umbrella and we hug, my wet cheek against his bristly one, and order our coffees. He tells me about his new job at a travel agent's specialising in Holy Land tours, but I'm not in the mood for small talk. I want to put the last piece of my Canaan House puzzle into place.\n\nI pull the photo out of my bag \u2013 the one of the young woman standing in the stone archway \u2013 and push it across the table to him.\n\n'This is for you, Chaim. Tell me about her.'\n\nHe picks up the photo and studies it, and that sweet dimply baby smile creeps over his face.\n\n'Yes, this is her. Smiling like a Monalissa.'\n\n'You said she came from Denmark.'\n\n'Do you know the story of the Danish Jews? It was like no other Jews in Europe.'\n\n'Tell me.'\n\nHe has taken off his glasses and is sitting back in his chair. The photo is still in his hand, but it's as though he's gazing right through it into another time and place.\n\n'Naomi Lowentahl was her name. She was born in 1911 in Copenhagen. Wonderful wonderful Copenhagen! You been there?'\n\n'No.' I shake my head.\n\n'Nor me. Maybe I will make a trip next year. They lived in the Jewish quarter. My grandparents are buried there, in the Jewish cemetery. She was the youngest of three children. Their mother died when she was ten. Like me.' A cloud drifts over his face. 'But she still had her father and two older brothers. She was spoiled like a rotter, I think, having all those men running around after her.'\n\nNaomi's father, Chaim's grandfather, was a mathematician at the university, and Naomi herself taught maths in a high school. Her brothers were active in the Zionist movement in the 1930s, which had taken root in the Jewish communities of Europe, seeded by anti-Semitism and persecution.\n\n'And Naomi?'\n\n'Naomi was sometimes with her brothers, sometimes with her father. My grandfather was one of those who believed that Jews could be assimilated as equal citizens into the countries where they lived. He believed the storm clouds gathering over Europe would simply be blown away by winds of progress and enlightenment.' He pauses, fiddling with his glasses. 'But alas, eventualities were to prove him tragically wrong.'\n\nWhen the Germans invaded Denmark in 1940, those arguments took on a new urgency. The Danish Government had come to an agreement with the occupiers \u2013 Danish butter and bacon in exchange for self-government. Nor would they hand over their Jews. 'Jews and Christians, we are all Danes,' they said.\n\nDespite the agreement, there was little active support for the Nazis, and by 1943 the agreement with Germany started to break down. The Nazis began to make secret preparations to round up and exterminate all 7,000 of the Jews in Denmark. Chaim smiled. 'They thought their \"final solution\" would be not so final when these insolent Danish Jews are strutting around Scots free.'\n\nIn fact it was a German attach\u00e9 who foiled the Nazi deportation plan by leaking the details to a Danish politician. What was to have been a swift and secret operation was thwarted when the Danish people simply said no. Not here in Denmark. Not to _our_ Jews.\n\nSpontaneously, haphazardly, as word got around, friends, neighbours and colleagues offered help, money, transport, and places to hide. They would have no truck with the horrors that defiled the rest of Europe. It was Naomi's head of department, a Lutheran, who called at her apartment late on the night of 29th September and warned her that there were two passenger boats moored at the docks with orders to take 5,000 Danish Jews away \u2013 they were due to sail on 1st October. He advised her to go to the Bispebjerg Hospital, where a shelter had been set up.\n\nShe and her elderly father stuffed what they could into a suitcase and made their way to the hospital. They found a quiet corner in the psychiatric unit and watched with apprehension as more and more of the city's Jewish population arrived, alone or in groups, bewildered, anxious, carrying their most precious possessions in cardboard suitcases. In the end some 2,000 people were crammed into the psychiatric wards, the nurses' accommodation, and anywhere else they could be fitted in. Secrecy was impossible, and there was no need for it \u2013 everyone in the hospital from the director to the porters was involved. The staff looked after them and fed them from the hospital kitchens, and as word spread, gifts of food and money poured in from local people. Day and night, ambulances drove them to secret hiding places on the coast.\n\nOther Jews, including her brothers, were hidden in churches, schools, libraries, and many in private houses by their neighbours. In holiday villages all along the northern coast, support groups sprang up to shelter the fleeing Jews while they waited for a boat and the right weather conditions to cross to neutral Sweden. Even the coastguards were in on it.\n\nSquashed up in the stinking hull of a fishing boat with twelve others, Naomi and her father made the short crossing to Sweden on 3rd October 1943. They were stopped by a German patrol, but the fisherman sucked obtusely on his pipe and offered them a pair of herrings, while under the hatch beneath his feet the passengers held their breath. The fisherman thought it was a great adventure and posed with his beaming human cargo in the Swedish port before setting off home to pick up another load.\n\n'I have the picture,' says Chaim. 'I will show you.'\n\nSweden was teeming with refugees, and seething with talk of resistance, of freedom, of an international union of Jews, of safety, of Zion. In the refugee centre in Gothenburg she was reunited with her brothers. Although they were Zionists, they had struck up a friendship with a young socialist Bundist from Byelorussia. His name was Artem Shapiro.\n\n'Did they fall in love on sight?'\n\nChaim grins. He has a little frothy moustache on his upper lip from the cappuccino.\n\n'I haven't a foggy. Remember, I was not born yet.'\n\nOf more than 7,000 Jews in Denmark, the Nazis got fewer than 500, and even most of those survived in Theresienstadt, for the Danish authorities sent medicines and food over for them. Those Jews who returned to Denmark at the end of the war found their homes intact and looked after, their gardens watered, even their dogs and cats sleek and well fed.\n\nI don't know why it's the thought of those plump Copenhagen moggies that finally makes me choke up and reach for a tissue as Chaim gets to the end of his story. I've seen the pictures of the stick-like walking dead of Belsen, the heaps of corpses, the terrible piles of children's shoes. I know all that happened, but I want to believe that something else is possible.\n\n'Thank you, Chaim. You told me what I wanted to know.'\n\nIt's still drizzling as I make my way across Islington Green towards Sainsbury's. I've arranged for Rip to pick me up in the car park at one o'clock, so I have a couple of hours to do my shopping. He's gone off to a meeting with the team at the Finsbury Park Law Centre, where he's starting his new job next week. The Synergy Foundation turned him down.\n\nIt seems that if you hang around for long enough in Sainsbury's on a Saturday morning, the whole world passes by \u2013 or maybe my imagination has filled in the gaps. I see the same _Big Issue_ seller, lurking under the canopy by the entrance, and there goes the Robin Reliant man crossing the road with his stick. The Boycott Israeli Goods girl is there, brandishing her clipboard, though her hair has grown a bit and she's now collecting signatures on a petition to save the whales. Ben is there with her \u2013 he often comes down here on a Saturday morning \u2013 and his hair is longer, too, twisted into incipient dreadlocks and tied behind his neck with the red pirate-style scarf.\n\n'Hey, Mum!'\n\nI stop to sign their petition, though I've already signed it several times. The girl looks a bit sheepish, maybe thinking I despise her defection, but I just smile, because I understand now that everything \u2013 whales and dolphins, Palestinians and Jews, stray cats, rainforests, mansions and mining villages \u2013 they're all interconnected, held together by some mysterious force \u2013 call it glue, if you like.\n\nWhile I'm picking up some beer for Rip, I spot Mark Diabello and Cindy Baddiel lingering hand in hand in the wine department. He's wearing a check shirt and beige trousers, and I notice that a small bulge is developing above the waistband, and his hair has grey streaks at the temples, but as he turns towards me I feel that pleasant pelvic glow \u2013 yes, he's still the hero of _The Splattered Heart_.\n\n'Hello, Georgina!' He greets me with a kiss on each cheek, and Ms Baddiel hugs me in her roly-poly arms. She looks exactly the same. I check discreetly for signs of Velcro burns on her wrists \u2013 shame on you, Georgie! \u2013 but they are plump and wholesome.\n\n'Thanks for everything you did with getting the house registered,' I say to Mark. 'How's it going?'\n\nA couple of months ago, Wolfe & Diabello mysteriously disappeared from the high street to be replaced by Wolfe & Lee. Mark tells me he is now running a housing association for ex-offenders.\n\n'It's \u2013 how can I put it? \u2013 more satisfying.'\n\nThe mineral edge in his voice makes me shiver.\n\n'I'm glad it all worked out.'\n\n'Take care,' they say.\n\nHere's someone I don't want to see. It's Mrs Goodney pushing her trolley towards me. I'd duck out of her way and avoid her if I could, but the aisle is narrow, and there's nowhere else to go, so I just stand still and smile.\n\n'Hello,' she says. 'I didn't expect to see you here.'\n\n'No. Nor me.' I'm still trying to decide whether to be friendly. 'How are things up at the hospital?'\n\n'Oh, I gave all that up. Too much hassle. No one thanks you for anything.' She sighs. 'It was for her own good, you know. Do-gooders like you, you have this romantic idea that old people want to stay in their crumbly grotty houses until they die. But they don't. They want somewhere small that's easy to keep warm and clean, with all mod cons. Making the move is always a wrench. They may need a bit of help. But once they've done it, they never want to go back. Anyway, I'm running a little nail bar now, up Stoke Newington Church Street.' She glances down at my hands. 'Drop in one day.'\n\nAt the deli counter I bump into Nathan and Raoul, gravely discussing the comparative merits of olive and avocado oils. Nathan has his arm round Raoul's shoulder in that casual gesture with which he once comforted me, though Raoul is several inches taller than he is, and only half as handsome. They greet me with warm hugs, and bring me news of Mr Ali, who has just installed a new jacuzzi at their flat in Hoxton. Ishmail is still living with the al-Alis out Tottenham way, and is due to start his engineering course later in the month, but Nabeel has gone back to Palestine. His older brother was killed during an Israeli air strike on Gaza only a week after our barbecue \u2013 a bystander casualty \u2013 and now Nabeel is the head of the family. Gentle animal-loving coffee-making Arsenal-supporting Attendent Nabeel \u2013 my heart aches \u2013 it's hard to imagine him as head of anything.\n\n'Come and have dinner with us one day,' says Nathan.\n\n'I'd love to. Will you make French-style egg custard with vanilla?'\n\n'We need to get some vanilla,' says Raoul seriously. 'We used it all up on that bavarois, remember?'\n\n'Look out for Tati and Ella,' says Nathan. 'They're around here somewhere.'\n\nSure enough, there they are, pushing the high-sprung pram down one of the aisles, leaning together like a pair of newlyweds. I watch her lift her face up as he bends to give her a whiskery kiss and whisper something in her ear. She laughs, and rests her head against him. The way they're gazing into the pram, you'd think there was a baby in there, but when I peep inside, all I see is a lot of bargains. \n\n# Acknowledgements\n\nMany people have contributed to the making of this book. Thanks to Ewen Kellar for first getting me interested in adhesives, to Cathy Dean for DIY discussions, to Mikey Rosato for giving me the low-down on estate agents, and thanks to all those who have shared tales of bad lovers, bad pets, bad plumbing and other bad things \u2013 you know who you are, and I won't embarrass you by naming and shaming. Thanks to those who have helped me to appreciate the many-layered complexity of the Middle East \u2013 Raja Shehadeh, Donald Sassoon, Saleh Abdel Jawad, Naomi Ogus, Eitan Bronstein, Graham Birkin \u2013 I have learned such a lot from talking with you. Thanks to Merilyn Feickert for Biblical references, and to Val Binney and Steve Blomfield for helping me to understand epilepsy.\n\nWriting can be a lonely business, and I'm very grateful to the many people who gave me hospitality and nurture while I was writing, especially the Widgers, the Pierces, Anne MacLeod and family, Mina Hosseinipour, Janine Edge, Theo and Viv at Bushy Park and the Sisters of Compassion at Whanganui River Road. Thanks to the Tyldesleys for looking after me and to Dave and Sonia for putting up with me.\n\nFinally, a big thank you to my agent Bill Hamilton and my editor and publisher Juliet (Ms Whiplash) Annan, for being so horribly tough and for not letting me get away with anything. And thanks to the wonderful team at Penguin for everything else. \n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}} +{"text":" \nKokoro yoga\n\nMARK DIVINE\n\nCDR, U.S. Navy SEAL\n\nand CATHERINE DIVINE\n\nForeword by Gary Kraftsow\n\n ST. MARTIN'S GRIFFIN NEW YORK\nBegin Reading\n\nTable of Contents\n\nAbout the Authors\n\nCopyright Page\n\n**Thank you for buying this**\n\n**St. Martin's Press ebook.**\n\nTo receive special offers, bonus content,\n\nand info on new releases and other great reads,\n\nsign up for our newsletters.\n\nOr visit us online at\n\nus.macmillan.com\/newslettersignup\n\nFor email updates on Mark Divine, click here.\n\nFor email updates on Catherine Divine, click here.\nThe author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. **Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author's copyright, please notify the publisher at:**.\nMAXIMIZE YOUR HUMAN POTENTIAL \nAND DEVELOP \nTHE SPIRIT OF \nA WARRIOR\n\n# FOREWORD\n\nYoga is growing in popularity worldwide at an unprecedented rate. The great majority of enthusiasts and practitioners, however, primarily see yoga as a system of exercise oriented toward development of the physical body through the performance of postures known as asana.\n\nTo a lesser extent, but increasing steadily, is the emergence of the field of \"yoga therapy\" as a system of self-care. Perhaps one of the most significant roles of yoga therapy in the context of modern health care is helping with the paradigm shift from illness-based and health practitioner\u2013based care to wellness-based and self-based care.\n\nThe scope of yoga therapy extends from:\n\n **A form of adapted movement therapy to manage structural conditions to**\n\n **A method of sympathetic\/parasympathetic regulation via specialized breathing practices to help manage common symptoms of chronic illness such as stress, sleeplessness, fatigue, and pain management to**\n\n **A system of mental health care via an integrated use of breathing practices, self-inquiry, and meditation to help balance emotions, clarify thoughts, and support behavioral change.**\n\nModern scientific and medical research is demonstrating the incredible health benefits of these practices for anatomy, physiology, and the brain. Beyond these more physical benefits, the deeper work of yoga helps us surface our unconscious patterns, gain control over our desires, feelings, thoughts, and behavior. Through these practices we can deepen our self-understanding and gain mastery over our bodies and minds. With that as a foundation, we can access the higher states of awareness that lead to deep wisdom and compassion, and enable us to tap into and actualize our highest potential.\n\nMark Divine speaks from this deeper and more integrated understanding of yoga in Kokoro Yoga. While yoga therapy can function as a kind of life raft, helping those lost in the ocean of suffering, Kokoro Yoga is a kind of a launchpad for those who want to blast off into the unexplored regions of their own potential.\n\nSharing his own personal journey from would-be Wall Street professional, to martial artist, to Navy SEAL, to creator of SEALFIT, Mark clearly illustrates the power of the integrated approach to self-development passed on by the ancients.\n\nAs a starting point, Mark shares with us his self-reflections that \"his career path was incongruent with his ideals.\" This insight initiated his journey of self-discovery and self-development. From martial arts training to Navy SEAL training, he continues to listen to his inner voice. \"Though trained to kill,\" he shares, his heart led him to \"discover the path of the peaceful warrior.\"\n\nMark lays out the foundation of this path throughout his book, linking his own insight and understanding to ancient yogic teachings drawn from key texts such as the _Bhagavad Gita,_ the Yoga Sutras of _Patanjali,_ and the _Taittiriya Upanishad_. He explains the importance and necessity of building an ethical foundation as the root of self-development. He systematically walks us through the component parts of integrated self-development, including training the body, the breath, and the mind. He emphasizes key characteristics of the successful warrior, including the ability to stay \"calm, energized, in control of one's emotions, focused, ready for the mission, and able to manage the stress\" that arises in any situation.\n\nMark reflects on his own experience as he gets older, and the importance of continually rebalancing his training to avoid injuries and burnout. Through his ongoing reflective self-awareness as he trains, he realizes what the ancients said: Our practice must change and evolve to reflect our own stage in life.\n\nEarly in the book, Mark speaks of a saying among the SEALs, \"Take care of your gear, and it will take care of you.\" Similarly, the ancient yogis used to say, \"Take care of dharma, and dharma will take care of you.\" As I read through Mark's book, it became clear that he has truly realized this ideal. Mark's personal journey on the path of Kokoro Yoga, working multidimensionally to optimize his potential at every level\u2014physical, mental, emotional, intuitive, and spiritual\u2014led to his discovery of his own _svadharma_ and self-definition as a \"world-centric warrior and servant of humanity.\" A true yogi, Mark has realized through his own efforts that the purpose of human development leading to self-mastery is altruistic; that we then are able to serve others better!\n\nThis book explains clearly what self-development means at each level. It offers clear training instructions and tactics that will guide those committed to an ongoing path of self-development and personal growth. More than anything else, this book is a manual for self-empowerment, sharing in contemporary language an ancient path that enables each individual to actualize his or her potential and live life with meaning and purpose.\n\n\u2014Gary Kraftsow\n\nAuthor of _Yoga for Wellness_ and _Yoga for Transformation_\n\nDecember 2015\n\nOakland, California\n\n# CHAPTER 1\n\n# AN M4 AND A YOGA MAT\n\n# My path to a complete warrior art\n\n_In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are very few._ \n\u2013SHUNRYU SUZUKI\n\nINTO THE BREACH\n\nIN 1991 I WAS A NAVY OFFICER, RECENTLY GRADUATED FROM SEAL TRAINING (BUD\/S) AS THE HONOR MAN IN MY CLASS, EARNING THE COVETED NAVY SEAL TRIDENT. SOON I WAS ASSIGNED TO SEAL TEAM 3, TASKED TO GO TO IRAQ TO FIGHT IN OPERATION DESERT STORM. FORTUNATELY FOR MANY, THAT WAR ENDED BEFORE WE DEPLOYED, and at SEAL Team 3 I would complete 6 more years of active duty in a relatively peaceful period of our history. Although I would visit the Middle East a number of times from 1991 to 1997, I wouldn't get the call to go to another turbulent Iraq until 2004, when I was serving as a reserve officer.\n\nLike most in the reserves during that time, it wasn't a surprise for me to get mobilized for duty during what was being called the war on terror. I knew it was coming but was not sure when.\n\nAt 41, my days as a gun-slinging operator were behind me. It didn't make sense for me to go back to a shooting SEAL task unit. So it was cool that my mission would be to lead a fairly complicated study for the U.S. Navy, involving the integration of the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) into the special ops community (also known as SOCOM). I was to shadow a detachment of 100 handpicked U.S. Marines, intelligence and recon guys called SOCOM Detachment 1 who were to conduct a proof-of-concept deployment under the watchful eyes of SEAL Team 1.\n\nIt was a big deal. Twenty years earlier, the Marines had declined to be a part of the joint program to form the Special Operations Command, which included the Navy's SEAL teams, the Army's special forces and a Ranger battalion, and the Air Force's special ops teams such as Pararescue. But after 9\/11, as the Marine Corps watched particularly hot missions\u2014and the money to support them\u2014flow to SOCOM, they started to rethink their position. The secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, put the brakes on an effort to fast-track the process. He didn't want to mess around with the 20 years of intricate and complicated coordination work that had already happened between the initial units of SOCOM. A thorough study and evaluation was deemed important to make sure that they didn't screw up what had taken years to get to work well. Though the USMC was ready to throw the 100-man team into combat, validation was a good idea before sending a newly formed concept team from a conventional-minded military service into the murky SOF (Special Operations Forces) world. And as you might imagine, there were a lot of charged convictions and emotions when it came to who was taking orders from whom between the SEALs and Marines. The call I got for the job was from Commander Mike Lumpkin, who was then the Naval Special Warfare Group 1 operations officer and had just rolled out of the position as deputy commander of Special Operations Forces, overseeing the 2,000 special operators in Baghdad. (In 2013, Mike Lumpkin became the assistant secretary of defense for SOLIC.)\n\nPrior to deployment to the combat zone with SEAL Team 1, I would lead the organization of the predeployment training certification for SEAL Team 1 with the 100 U.S. Marines from SOCOM Det 1 in tow. This was a good project for me. For one thing, I was intrigued with the underlying matrix of leadership that would need to be worked out between the SEALs and the Marines. Since my years on SEAL Team 3, I had expanded my views and beliefs regarding the definition of a \"warrior,\" leaving behind most parochial and tribal viewpoints on who is the best branch of the military, or who is the best special operator. Even though I was a SEAL, through and through, I would be able to offer an impartial viewpoint in conducting the exercise and ensuing study. My job was made easy by the fact that the Marines were great guys and solid operators\n\nThe certification exercise was a big success, and the time finally came for me to deploy to Baghdad to continue part two of my job, the study of the Marine team in SOF combat. Things happened fast. I paid a visit to the supply depot in Coronado, California, to get my weapon and gear, said good-bye to my family, and before I knew it I was on a flight to Bahrain\u2014with a bunch of polished new gear and an M4 rifle that I hadn't had time to take to the range. As an active-duty SEAL, shooting \"my\" weapon seemed to be a constant. I got real intimate with my primary and secondary weapons. But in the reserves we did not get issued our own weapons, so I literally had to check one out of the armory before I left. Any military member will understand how important it is to sight in your weapon and get comfortable with its idiosyncrasies. In addition, the life of the active-duty SEAL involves around-the-clock training and sharpening skills as an individual and as part of a team. It is a day-in, day-out, year-round affair. As an officer in the SEAL reserves, however, we didn't get to shoot nearly as much, nor did we get issued our own weapon to sleep with.\n\nThat was a big concern of mine, along with the web gear I was to use. I had brand-new web gear that wasn't broken in and customized to fit my frame. I needed to \"run and gun\" with the gear to ensure I would know where the ammo pouches would be in a pinch, and to make sure they wouldn't fly off in a firefight. On active duty, I got really comfortable with my equipment and knew I could rely on it. We had a saying: \"Take care of your gear, and it will take care of you!\" But here I was, about to deploy into a war zone, and I was looking at a bunch of plastic bags encasing brand-new, untouched equipment and a weapon I hadn't even shot yet. My pucker factor\u2014military jargon for adrenalin\u2014was rising.\n\nRatcheting up the stress was the news coming out of Iraq. On March 31, 2004, a friend of mine, Stephen \"Scott\" Helvenston, was one of four Blackwater military contractors that were in a convoy ambushed by insurgents in Fallujah. Scott and the others were killed in a horrifying manner, made worse for me by the fact that I saw him the day before he deployed weeks earlier. This was to be his last deployment with Blackwater. The graphic imagery startled me, knowing that I would soon be stepping into that same area where I could easily be the next target.\n\nTo make matters even worse, in mid-May, days before my deployment, a militant group posted a video of the decapitation of Nick Berg, an American radio-tower repairman from Pennsylvania. The video, which I immediately regretted watching, made me sick to my stomach. The stark reminder that we were fighting an enemy who seemed nuts, believing they were in the right to perform such deranged and hideous acts, steeled me as I stepped onto the C-130.\n\nOn my way to Baghdad, I stopped in Bahrain for a couple of days while awaiting final transport to the war zone. There I met up with a civilian analyst, from the Center for Naval Analysis, assigned to write the USMC side of the same report I was working on. He was to go to the Green Zone (the so-called secure area in Baghdad that the American military worked) with me. We discussed the project and our approaches as we waited for our ride.\n\nThe C-130 was scheduled to depart at 0500 hours. As I waited for the analyst to share a ride to the airfield, he approached me and said, \"Mark, I won't be going. I have a bad feeling about this.\" Great, I thought,... Wonder if he knows something I don't!\n\nWell, I was going anyhow. I couldn't lose face with my teammates and I was a tough SEAL officer, right? Climbing aboard the turboprop transport workhorse, the C-130, which the U.S. military uses to transport troops and equipment, I was never more nervous in my life. Keenly aware that anything could happen I felt on high alert. As the windowless C-130 roared into the air, I considered how things were stacking up. My civilian counterpart may have been spooked by another story in the press of how an Australian soldier had caught a bullet through his ass while on an aircraft leaving Baghdad. It was just someone shooting from the ground. A bullet had ripped through the fuselage and killed him. The ominous signs were getting the best of me.\n\nSitting across from me was a one-star Marine general working feverishly on a presentation with an aide. It was a 2-hour flight. After we lifted off, I couldn't bear sitting so I looked around the plane and spotted an open space by some cargo netting in the ramp area. My thoughts were set to full speed and I needed to do something to calm down. Remembering how calm I felt after my yoga sessions back home, I went to the open space near a stack of pallets and started doing a deep-breathing exercise and a few forward folds and backbends. This led to a full-blown yoga session in the middle of the bumpy ride in the C-130. (Later in my reserve career, I made it a point to practice yoga on military transports whenever I could. Often I had other members of my SEAL team or other military passengers join me, but I am pretty sure this was a first in military history!) The one-star Marine general must have been thinking: That SEAL officer is obviously green to combat and scared shitless. I didn't care. The yoga began to calm my mind and helped me regain control of my emotions. I felt much better as we turned our nose toward the Iraqi desert.\n\nBy the time we landed in Baghdad, I wasn't in a perfect Zen state by any means\u2014we were in a combat zone after all\u2014but I was far more calm, present, and centered, and ready for what came next.\n\nThat was a good thing. I hadn't been on the ground more than 15 minutes when I heard someone shout, \"Incoming!,\" followed by the unmistakable whistle of a mortar flying toward us. I had only heard mortars while in training, not combat, and in training they are whistling away from you. Trust me when I say it sounds very different when it is coming full bore at you! It exploded about a quarter mile away. Okay, I said to myself. Welcome to combat.\n\nLater, a couple of SEAL team guys drove up to retrieve me\u2014loaded for bear for the 45-minute ride through bad-guy land\u2014they gave me a sign to lock and load my M4 (I didn't have the guts to tell them I hadn't even sighted it in yet) and off we went to the SEAL compound at one of Saddam Hussein's former palace grounds.\n\nThat yoga session on the C-130 was my first official session of what I called Warrior Yoga (I later changed the name to Kokoro Yoga to avoid a trademark infringement). I realized in that moment that yoga presented a powerful toolkit for my own warrior development.\n\nSEIDO: THE BEGINNING OF MY JOURNEY\n\nSo there I was, breathing slowly and deeply into a Sun Salutation in the cargo area of a C-130 on my way to a combat zone. I was too focused on the moment to ask the obvious question: How did I get here?\n\nAs random and seemingly out of place my initial session of Kokoro Yoga might sound, it was a significant point of arrival in a long and steady search I had been conducting both during my active-duty time with the SEALs and after.\n\nThe search was in some ways a circular one, trying to reconnect with the kind of integrated warrior training that had initially infused me with the awareness and courage to let go of a big-money CPA career I had taking shape on Wall Street for the rigorous challenge of becoming and being a Navy SEAL. It started with what had been a growing sense of inner doubt about what I was setting out to do with my life, a voice I largely ignored as I began to climb the corporate ladder. I was in it for the money, in other words. The prospects for my success were bright. One of the chief rewards came from my family who appreciated that I was conforming to an ideal they had for me. Although I wasn't acknowledging it at the time, my career was incongruent with my ideal. There was a growing weight on my shoulders as my future in high finance stretched out before me. I was walking home one night from work when my train of thought was disrupted by a series of shouts coming from a second-floor window of a seven-story building on West 23rd Street. Intrigued, I walked up a flight of stairs and into what would become a truly disruptive force in my life: the Seido Karate dojo run by Grandmaster Tadashi Nakamura.\n\nNakamura had formerly been deployed to the United States from Japan to lead a style of karate known for tournament fighting, Kyokushinkai. Nakamura had become disenchanted with the lack of dimension in the training and left despite intense pressure from Japan. Nakamura went about creating Seido Karate with the intent of focusing on human development rather than sheer fighting prowess. The word _seido_ is Japanese for \"sincere way.\" This was my first exposure to the martial arts, and I soon found that Seido was a practice that truly integrated body, mind, and spirit training. Unlike other martial arts I would become acquainted with over the years, Seido was unique in that it didn't just talk about the mental and spiritual aspects\u2014it was actually part of the training. Meditation and spiritual talks and discussions on mental development were part of the routine, along with the fighting practice. It was through this work that I was able to connect with the sincere voice within my being and understand that I was meant for something different than taking a place in the family business, as was expected.\n\nSeido not only unlatched access to an inner wisdom that led me to join the Navy and become a SEAL, it also prepared me in a foundational way for what is considered the most arduous and demanding military training program in the world.\n\nThe five guiding principles of Seido Karate training are as follows:\n\n1. ETHICAL FOUNDATION. The ethical foundation of Seido is based upon what's called \"bushido,\" also known as the Way of the Warrior, a series of moral standards embraced by samurai warriors, like honor, frugality, and loyalty. As you read the next chapter in this book, you'll note that the first two levels of yoga, or limbs, are also staked in an ethical foundation.\n\n2 INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENT. As mentioned, Seido didn't just pay lip service to the concept of integrating mental and spiritual training into the daily practice, Nakamura emphasized this fusion: \"My purpose in founding Seido Karate was to show what I feel is the true essence, the kernel of true karate: the training of body, mind, and spirit together in order to realize the fullness of human potential.\"\n\n3 SPIRITUAL AWARENESS. Zen meditation is core to the Seido practice. As esoteric as this may sound, the meditation and spiritual lectures helped me develop the awareness and humility to thrive through the ego-busting stress of BUD\/S and Hell Week.\n\n4 CRUCIBLE TRAINING. Frequent tests and challenges are part of the Seido program and work to help push students to new levels of performance and to comprehend the magnitude of the potential lying within. For example, an annual crucible session at the dojo might include thousands of kicks and punches. bAnother common crucible session was conducted over the course of days at a monastery, where we would fill our days endlessly cycling back and forth from meditation to karate work.\n\n5 FORGING MENTAL TOUGHNESS. In Seido, we were worked hard and steadily toward developing resiliency and a mentally tough attitude where we never backed down. As Nakamura explained: \"Seido seeks to develop in each student a 'non-quitting' spirit. No matter what the obstacle or difficulty\u2014emotional, physical, financial\u2014we want students to feel that, though there may be setbacks, they will never be overcome by any of these problems.\"\n\nThe unified training of Seido proved to be invaluable the day I stepped onto the path to become a Navy SEAL. Because of the relentless difficulty of BUD\/S, of having to go 100 mph for the better part of a year, from Hell Week to drownproofing to SEAL Qualification Training, I survived the staggeringly high failure rate. Actually it was because of the integrated warrior training, which I took so seriously, that I did more than just survive. I was able to thrive, finishing as honor man, # 1 graduate, of my class.\n\nSEARCH FOR A COMPLETE WARRIOR ART\n\nIn joining the Navy SEALs, I was leaving Wall Street behind\u2014a good thing for me. A sacrifice, however, was leaving behind my training at the Seido World Headquarters on West 23rd Street in Manhattan. In departing for the SEALs, I took with me a desire to find another practice that had a similar comprehensive approach to human development that Seido did. Being on a SEAL team was all that I had imagined, of course. But as an operator you get very focused, for obvious reasons, on shooting, fighting, and mission success. You won't find time dedicated to a spiritual practice on the schedule. So my search for something similar to Seido put me on a quest.\n\nSCARS (Special Combat Aggressive Reactionary System) was my first stop. SCARS was developed by a Vietnam vet named Jerry Peterson from a lethal hand-to-hand combat system called Kung Fu San Soo. Peterson had stripped away all of the cultural elements into what you might call a clear science of how to offensively fight to win. The training was brutal\u2014a 30-day, 10-hour-day program to become certified to teach SCARS. I loved the techniques and the training was fun, but whereas Seido was about developing moral character and spirit, SCARS was about fighting and surviving. In fact, SCARS training came with a warning: Do not use unless someone must die. In the end, I had more than 1,000 hours of training in SCARS when I left the active-duty SEAL teams. In a story that illuminates why I was motivated to continue my search for another Seido-like program, my wife, Sandy, had become a therapist for the Navy. One assignment sent her to a U.S. Navy vessel in Australia that would soon be returning home. Her job was to help the sailors prepare for the jarring realities of returning to civilian life after months at sea. At a dinner in the officers' cabin, the commander of the ship was asking about Sandy's background, and it came up that she was married to someone also in the Navy.\n\n\"Who are you married to?\" she was asked.\n\n\"Lieutenant Commander Mark Divine,\" Sandy answered.\n\nOne of the junior officers went off: \"Mark Divine! Mark Divine. I know him... he's a SEAL and SCARS master. He could kill us all with his pinky finger!\"\n\nAfter I finished laughing when Sandy told me this story, I began to think about it. As much as I didn't want to be known as some sort of CPA to be feared in a corporate audit, I also didn't find it appealing to be known as a master of the science of killing. I knew that humble warriors are the last to pick up a weapon. I was becoming a more peaceful warrior, even as a SEAL officer.\n\nIn transitioning from active duty to the SEAL reserve force, I started training in a Goju-Ryu karate dojo, which had similar roots to Seido. I earned my black belt quickly, in part because I already knew most of the physical moves. But there was no meditation or spiritual training, and when I was recalled in 1999 back to active duty for a stint in Egypt and the Middle East, I never returned to Goju-Ryu.\n\nAfter the 1-year tour of duty, Sandy and I adopted our son, Devon, and moved to North County, San Diego, about a 40-minute drive up the coast from the SEAL base in Coronado. My search continued. I began to study with Sensei Shane Phelps, a ninjutsu master. Sensei Phelps was trying to get his ninjutsu studio, Temple of the Full Autumn Moon, off the ground when I started training with him. I helped him write a business plan, in fact. He had one of the most sensational backgrounds you're ever going to find. He fought in the Vietnam War and then went on to serve 7 years as a Navy SEAL. He worked for the United Nations as a peacekeeper in places like Syria and Lebanon, and also as an antiterrorism agent of the CIA. He got his BA at Stanford went on to earn a masters degree in comparative religion at Harvard and a Master of Divinity at Yale. Before his Western schooling in the Ivy League, however, he spent 2 years studying Tai Chi and meditating at a Buddhist monastery in China. Shane has long been an awesome example of what I call the 20x factor.\n\nTo this day I love the art of ninjutsu. It is an incredible combination of some 40 different types of martial arts, with a variety of weapons and both internally (oriented toward the psychological and spiritual) and externally oriented arts (the more physical-leaning of the martial arts). In the negative column, I found the training frustratingly slow-going and fragmented. I was working toward my black belt when Shane's school suddenly ran out of money and closed its doors. He began working with only private clients, and so my search continued for the complete warrior workout.\n\nIt was during this phase of my journey when I discovered yoga.\n\nTHE WAY OF THE PEACEFUL WARRIOR\n\nYoga in the West is viewed through a variety of lenses... for most it is a form of exercise. Pilates, Power Yoga, Core Yoga, and Hot Yoga are good examples of this movement. Others may consider it a mystical practice bound to Hinduism, or as a place to train Cirque du Soleil athletes. Since the late 1990s there has been a boom of yoga studios around the country giving rise to millions walking to and from group classes with mats jutting out of their backpacks in a quest to stretch, bend, sweat, and look great naked. I was soon to learn that yoga offered much more.\n\nMy introduction to yoga came through reading a classic titled _Autobiography of a Yogi_ , by Paramahansa Yogananda. I figured anyone with the word \"Yoga\" in his name must know what he was talking about. Funny thing, the book had nothing to do with stretching and twisting your body into a pretzel. What Yogananda brought to life was a powerful philosophy of living and developing oneself spiritually. I was intrigued, as I had just left ninjutsu and couldn't find another program near my home that inspired me. So the thought that perhaps yoga could fill that void popped into my head after reading the book. The spiritual component was something that I was seeking, even though I was not drawn toward the Hindu mythology glued to the yoga programs I had seen to date. I consider myself a Christian and wondered if there would be a conflict. However, I recalled training at the Zen Mountain Monastery with my karate team back in 1989. The head monk, Daido, said that Buddhism as a philosophy was in complete alignment with Christianity. From what I had read, yoga was similar in that it was not a religion, but a philosophy of living as well and a science of personal development. I thought it could be in complete alignment with any religious conviction. Armed with that theory, my journey into yoga began.\n\nFive years before my deployment to Baghdad I mustered the courage to walk into a Hot Yoga studio in Encinitas, California. In Hot Yoga they crank the temperature up to 105 degrees as you twist and boil your way through 26 poses. The first thing I noticed walking out of the yoga class, dripping wet, was how good I felt. The 90 minutes of standing and seated poses in the sauna-like studio yielded some incredible detoxification and deep-stretching benefits.\n\nNot being one to shy from a gut check, I immediately signed up for their challenge of a Hot Yoga class every day for 60 days. The challenge for me was not so much the discipline, but rather that the classes were chock-full of very attractive women bending and twisting in spandex. Not only was it hard to concentrate, but also my preconditioned notion of what men do and what women do for fitness, was put to the test. I had to trust my intuition that this was a worthy pursuit and shift my attention inward to keep focused on the training effect. I found that this inward focus developed greater awareness and deepened my intuition. It was an experience quite different from my years studying martial arts. In fighting and the martial arts, the focus is mostly outward, except when meditating before and after class. In yoga, it is meant to be inward. Rather than scanning the room or my opponent for opportunities and threats, I was attending to my breathing and the nuances of moving into and staying in the pose. I began to notice that if I went into a session with a scattered mind, the practice settled my mind and connected me to a deeper part of my character.\n\nBut Hot Yoga was just a launching pad into this amazing new world. Though a fine introduction to yoga, the precise repeating of the same 26 poses each session, in the same sequence, with the instructors uttering the exact same words each class\u2014became mind-numbing to me. I felt a need for variety and silence in my practice, and I could not get it there. I soon began to wonder if I needed a studio at all. The movements were familiar enough to me after 15 years of martial arts that I thought I would be able to train on my own.\n\nI found two yoga DVDs to use at home. One was by Baron Baptiste, called _Power Yoga_ emphasizing core strength and balance, and another by Shiva Rea, emphasizing a fluid, dancelike sequence and breathing. I really enjoyed both as they expanded my repertoire and deepened my knowledge. I would rotate them and add an occasional visit to the Hot Yoga studio to get my sweat on. This went on for 2 years before I stumbled into Ashtanga Yoga, which blew my mind open. Discovering Ashtanga Yoga was a turning point in my yoga studies.\n\nI am lucky to live and work in a town that virtually screams health and fitness. Encinitas, California, brims with world-class endurance athletes, and well-known surfers and skateboarders. Guess what else may be found in Encinitas? Some of the most-qualified yoga teachers in the world. In a conversation with a friend I was asked if I trained with Ashtanga Yoga legend Tim Miller. She said the name with such reverence, she might as well have called him \"Master Tim Miller.\" Tim is the first American to be certified in Ashtanga Yoga by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. Tim had to train for many years and make several long trips to India, virtually begging Jois for the honor. It was clearly not given out lightly, especially to an American. I found Tim's studio literally across the street from my office. He was the \"real deal,\" and he became my next sensei.\n\nAshtanga Yoga was derived from the teachings of the famed yoga master Krishnamacharya. He taught Sri K. Pattabhi Jois a progressive system of increasingly challenging series of poses, six series in total, designed for young athletes and military groups. It had a rigid structure that the young men were not to deviate from. After all, good order and discipline are required in the training of new warriors. Jois named it Ashtanga, borrowing the term from Patanjali's Yoga Sutras (more on that in chapter 2). I was drawn to the Ashtanga system because it seemed to share a developmental ladder similar to a martial art belt-ranking system. Though you don't test and get promoted in Ashtanga, you do work progressively through the series of poses over the years. I first approached it with my Western goal-oriented mind, thinking I had found my new martial art and that I was going to \"get my black belt in Ashtanga.\"\n\nMy first session of Ashtanga kicked my ass and rekindled the warrior flame within me. It took me\u2014an elite athlete, martial artist, and yoga practitioner\u20141 hour and 45 minutes to get through, and the session was so demanding I almost lost all bodily functions. I've found the true yoga, I thought with elation, as I crawled off the mat. Later, I would attend two 100-hour teacher trainings in the first and second series with Tim. But as the Iraq War heated up in 2004, duty came knocking again and I replaced my yoga attire with the uniform of the Navy SEALs for the third time.\n\nWelcome to Yoga Saddam\n\nIn Baghdad, my yoga session aboard the C-130 stayed with me as I settled into life in the combat zone. My work routine mirrored the \"battle rhythm\" of the Navy SEAL task group where I set up shop. I would awake around 9:00 a.m. and work till 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. Sleep was a luxury few enjoy in combat.\n\nExercise was another challenge. SEALs will always improvise to find a way to train, even when operating on combat missions that go late into the night. In my situation it was largely impractical to go to the gym, which was located at Camp Victory and required a combat drive in an armored humvee to get to. It was not worth the risk or time. So I began running around the compound, a 3-mile loop, and doing body weight PT (physical training). Soon I felt the itch for yoga, but there were certainly no yoga classes (that I was aware of) being held anywhere in Baghdad, or Iraq. Another nonstarter. So I again decided to follow my intuition and just go it alone based upon what I had learned from Hot Yoga, Power Yoga, and Ashtanga Yoga.\n\nFinding a small patch near one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces, next to a lake, I set up shop. It wasn't as picturesque as this might sound\u2014for starters, the pool and house were blanketed with pockmarks from a firefight\u2014but it had some trees to provide shade in the desert heat and was removed enough that I wouldn't get awkward stares from the other warriors on base. I skipped breakfast every morning and found refuge at my new training spot. Equipped with a mat, my M4 (now sighted in), and a kettlebell, I started playing with different combinations of yoga poses, functional interval workouts, self-defense moves, and breathing and visualization exercises. The visualization was always of me at home with my family after leaving Baghdad (a version of the \"future me\" visualization I teach in this book). I would listen closely to my body and train from 45 to 90 minutes depending on what my intuition told me I needed. When I was finished with the practice I felt amazingly clear and calm.\n\nAs the weeks progressed this practice became my center post in the storm of combat. One day, CDR Wilson, the commanding officer of SEAL Team 1 stopped by to observe my training. Though he was intrigued, I couldn't get him to join me... the demands on his time were simply too much for him to make that leap. Or perhaps he thought what I was doing was a little bit odd, and he didn't want to risk his men thinking I had converted him! I could only explain what it felt like, but a new \"initiate\" must experience the practice for him or herself to truly understand the vast benefits of yoga. Now, years later, I realize how valuable this practice would be for warriors in the field to manage stress, win in their minds, and avoid the devastating effects of PTSD.\n\nWhile at the height of the Iraq War, I started each workday feeling calm, energized, in control of my emotions, present, and ready for the mission. My mental facilities were sharp, as were my skills in dealing with the stressful environment. These benefits were, in my opinion, a direct result of the daily yoga practice.\n\nFast-Forward\n\nMy experience in Baghdad was profound and propelled me into taking my life in an entirely new direction. When I returned home I amped up my Ashtanga Yoga practice, and launched US CrossFit and the SEALFIT integrated training program. By 2013 I had a worldwide reputation for success in training SEAL and special ops candidates and other elite athletes through SEALFIT and a mental toughness program called Unbeatable Mind. Based on the training program I wrote three books, two of which became bestsellers. A 20,000-square-foot training center in Encinitas, California, became my laboratory. I could be heard saying, \"I eat my own dog food,\" because I endeavored to train for 2 to 3 hours a day doing a combination of SEALFIT and Kokoro Yoga (and still do to this day).\n\nIn 2014, I turned 51 and my body was telling me that I needed to rebalance my training. The combination of the hard-hitting SEALFIT program, with hard-core Ashtanga Yoga, worked well\u2014until I turned 50! Now, it was leading to small injuries and burnout. I needed to find balance in my personal practice, not just for my own comfort, but also so that I could teach athletes and warriors of all ages, not just the younger set. Though I love the Ashtanga practice and community, the rigidity of the routines and difficulty of the poses made me concerned that I would get seriously injured and sidelined as I got older. The warrior's way is to train every day that you are alive, and I planned to be training until 150\u2014then drop dead on the training floor in Savasana (corpse pose!). Thus as I evolved, I wanted my yoga to work for all stages of life, for differing intentions, and for different types of people. A new approach was in order.\n\nI found my next mentor in Gary Kraftsow, founder of American Viniyoga\u2014also adapted from Krishnamacharya's teaching. (Krishnamacharya taught a third application of yoga to B. K. S. Iyengar, which is popular in the West.) These three systems (Ashtanga, Viniyoga, and Iyengar) all seem very different to the observer, but to Krishnamacharya they were just \"yoga\" taught for different applications and different phases of life. This made sense to me: In the SEALs we used what worked, discarded what didn't, and strove to adapt our training to our situation, environment, and age. I adopted some Viniyoga training methods so that Kokoro Yoga could be more flexible and balanced.\n\nWhen asked by my athletes to put my method yoga into a fixed form that could be trained at home or in the field, I was hesitant at first. I always molded it to the audience. And who was I to write a book about yoga in the shadow of such incredible teachers and mentors? But one of my students, a former Marine, asked how his Marines and other military members could train in Kokoro Yoga. He implied that they would be open to try yoga if it came from a warrior like myself, who they trusted to give them practical training to improve their survivability and ability to manage combat-related stress. I received a similar message from my CrossFit \"fire-breathing\" friend Greg Amundson. He felt that the athletic community needed a yoga that could complement their athleticism through durability, spinal health, and breathing. Finally, I got the blessing from Gary, who felt that this community of warriors desperately needed yoga. I agreed, and this book is my humble attempt to serve.\n\nWhether you are a Navy SEAL running toward the sounds of gunfire or an athlete seeking maximum performance in your sport, a dedicated daily practice of Kokoro Yoga will help you to perform at your peak. If you are suffering from combat (or any shock) related stress, it will allow you to recover your peace of body and mind.\n\nAs I found during my time in Baghdad, and have continued to discover to this day, there is incredible value to be absorbed from integrated, full-spectrum training. Do you desire to be more flexible, gain core strength, and be more durable? Yoga will absolutely bring it. Do you want to gain composure under pressure and a calm mind? Yoga will bring it. But that's just the beginning. For the athlete, the military operator, the corporate executive, the artist, the auto mechanic, the firefighter, the student, the homemaker, the parent, I believe Kokoro Yoga is a Trojan horse ready to unleash a host of unforeseen benefits, ultimately leading to the highest levels of consciousness. I know, it sounds too good to be true, but if you stay with me and begin a daily routine that meets your practical needs, body type, and goals, then you will be planting the seeds for a powerful future.\n\nUltimately, this book is about mastering yourself at all levels so that you can become all you were meant to be. Someone who is willing to say yes to the right mission, and say no to the status quo. Someone who can transcend the various strains of neuroses, which today's media would love to have you feed on, and be \"sheepdog strong,\" so you can serve and protect others. Someone who accelerates their development to the highest, integrated stages of consciousness\u2014and become a world-centric warrior and servant to all of humanity.\n\n# CHAPTER 2\n\n# THE PURSUIT OF MAXIMUM HUMAN POTENTIAL\n\n_When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds. Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties, and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be._ \n\u2013PATANJALI\n\nOLDEST PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM\n\nJust what is yoga? If you think yoga is a group stretching program, or a fitness program for the ladies, then I suggest a visit to northern India to watch how yoga is practiced by the yogi warriors. There you would see how yoga shares its beginnings with the martial traditions, and if you open your mind to fresh understanding of what yoga is, you'll begin to appreciate the depth and breadth of what is the world's oldest and most complete self-development program.\n\nThe word _yoga_ means \"to yoke, to unify, or to integrate.\" At the mental level it means to integrate your ego mind with your witnessing mind. (Maybe we can call that your soul?) It also means to integrate your body, mind, and spirit into a whole, as well as to live life in a more integrated, balanced manner with simplicity, spirituality, and nonattachment to material distractions. Ultimately I like to focus on yoga as a means to develop mastery of the self, so we can serve others better. We can do this if we integrate fully, connect to our spiritual selves and advance consciousness to the highest level available to us in our lifetime. The word \"Kokoro\" means warrior spirit, or to merge heart and mind into your actions. So Kokoro Yoga is a warrior development application of this ancient self-realization system.\n\nIt's speculated that yoga was first practiced in the fifth or sixth centuries BCE, but it is more plausible that it is thousands of years old. While yoga in the West is most often associated with fitness, or our reverence for Mahatma Gandhi for his yogic philosophy of nonviolent leadership, or Paramahansa Yogananda, founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship, it has a deep, complicated place in India's warrior history in a way that demonstrates the depth and breadth of yoga as a living philosophy of spirituality and science of the mind. As William Pinch detailed in _Warrior Ascetics and Indian Empires_ , his account of yoga history in India, he wrote: \"Crucial to the transition to wide scale military entrepreneurship in the eighteenth century was the ability of the yogi to be many things at once\u2014to be Muslim and Hindu, emperor and mendicant, ascetic and archer, soldier and spy.\" Pinch also details the age of India's military labor market and the role yogi warriors or \"armed ascetics\" had in India's history from 1500 to the present.\n\nConsider the following description of the broad, open-source code nature of yoga by Suketu Mehta, a professor at New York University, who wanted to emphasize how yoga's dimensionality goes beyond fitness or preparing for a fight:\n\nThe yoga that most Americans are aware of is Hatha Yoga, only one of the various types of yoga. Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita defines the others: Raja, Karma, Bhakti, and Jnana yoga. Yoga is diverse and profound\u2014volunteering at a soup kitchen is yoga; raising your voice in praise in a gospel choir is yoga; trying to understand how the galaxies shift and why the poor lack shoes is also yoga.\n\nThe above quote clearly points to yoga being far more than a series of physical movements designed to get you fit and looking good. Jnana Yoga is the yoga of the intellect. Through deep study of scripture, gaining knowledge and wisdom and understanding the working of one's own mind, enlightenment is attained. This is the path many intellectuals in modern religious traditions take. Bhakti Yoga is the path of utter devotion and love for God in a way meaningful to the seeker. This is the path that suits anyone who prefers an \"I-Thou\" relationship with God. Karma Yoga is the path of action. Through one's dedication to duty and service through action, karma is purified and spiritual evolution occurs. Hatha Yoga is the physical training system for personal mastery that, as Mehta points out, most modern offerings are based upon. In its purest form, Raja Yoga includes Hatha and the study of all eight levels of training described in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras (more on that soon). Where does our yoga fit in this mix?\n\nKokoro Yoga is designed for anyone who wishes to tap into his or her warrior archetype: those who are driven toward action, passionate about service, and committed to continuous personal growth. It is Raja Yoga that combines Karma Yoga (the yoga of action) with Hatha Yoga (the yoga of personal mastery). We seek to train all of the eight stages of development for self-mastery. As mentioned, these Eight Limbs were defined by Patanjali in the BCE era. Early in my training it was that work that opened my mind to yoga being more than a fitness regimen. I experienced its power as an integrated development system, similar in some ways to what I had experienced with Seido Karate.\n\nTHE EIGHT LIMBS\n\n_It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle._ \u2014SUN TZU\n\nThe Yoga Sutras are a collection of 196 aphorisms (in Sanskrit known as sutras\u2014a thread of specific principles described in terse, cogent pieces of writing). The bulk of the sutras deal with the science of mental development. Yet Patanjali also describes eight levels of the yoga path. They are like rungs on a ladder. The eight levels are to be progressed in a \"transcend and include\" manner toward a complete integration. This means that each level transcends the level preceding it, but doesn't leave the training and benefits behind. They are included in the upward spiral of development. In sum we are working toward the highest level of integration, which we will call self-mastery. Self-mastery means developing each and every level into a unified whole, so we can experience life at its fullest. Here is a brief description of the Eight Limbs:\n\nLEVEL 1: YAMA. ETHICAL DISCIPLINES. Yama is a code of morality and character to study, align with, and ultimately live by. It can be viewed as a set of ethical disciplines to guide our interactions with other humans. We will discuss some of these disciplines later in the book, and they include a code of restraint, or balance; a code of nonviolence; a code of truthfulness and honesty; a code of nonstealing; a code of noncoveting\u2014meaning the elimination of greed and developing contentment with few possessions and nonindulgence.\n\nLEVEL 2: NIYAMA. PERSONAL DISCIPLINES. These are individual disciplines taken on to set the foundation for mastery of your body and mind, leading to purity and contentment. They include: detoxifying the body and the mind; a deep introspection and healthy use of mental capacities; also, a dedication to a spiritual practice (this can be attending your church, for example). For me, my spiritual practice is yoga and meditation.\n\nLEVEL 3. ASANA. FUNCTIONAL MOVEMENT. This level is what most Westerners think of when they think of yoga. The true purpose of this rung is to prepare the student's body so that he or she can sit in concentration and meditation for long periods of time. For our purposes, this is the movement branch of Kokoro Yoga. It includes the customary poses seen in many yoga studios, and also some functional movements from my SEALFIT program, or CrossFit and even the martial arts.\n\nLEVEL 4. PRANAYAMA. BREATH CONTROL. The fourth level is dedicated to the regulation of breath and harnessing the natural energy all around us. This level is where we begin to transcend from knowing yoga as a physical and ethical practice to experiencing a profound spiritual evolution. Working with the breath is free medicine, bringing optimal health and even great power. Yoga works with prana, or \"life force,\" through the breath. It is identical in this way to practices like Tai Chi (chi meaning \"life energy\") and Qigong (\"life energy cultivation\"). Through breath control practices like our box breathing drills, the energy centers of the body are tapped into, linked, and energized through the conscious movement and control of the breath.\n\nLEVEL 5. PRATYAHARA. MASTERY OF THE SENSES. From the extrasensory capacities developed by the deaf and blind, we know that by shutting off one sense, other senses will expand in extraordinary ways to compensate. Thus through level five we seek to train and regulate our senses. By mastering the senses, we can better control those random urges\u2014think about what propels greed and overeating and stuffing our garage with crap we don't really need. By shutting off the senses we can sharpen our capacity to listen to the sixth sense, intuition.\n\nLEVEL 6. DHARANA. CONCENTRATION. This level is about developing deep powers of concentration. We sharpen our mind and develop single-point focus. In practice, this is about brushing away the noise of the unruly mind by strengthening our capacity to lock on to one thing and block out the rest. Martial artists work binding their thoughts, with laserlike focus, to movements. In Kokoro Yoga we will concentrate on the poses, the breath, and an object.\n\nLEVEL 7. DHYANA. MEDITATION. Dhyana is about developing presence. Whereas concentration is a coherent, singular focus, a state of meditation is the absence of thought\u2014settling your witnessing, perceiving mind on the object or subject of your choosing until there is a transfer of information. It is letting go of active thought and being in complete presence. It is at this level of yoga where deep levels of consciousness and awareness are obtained and further trained. In sports, this meditative state is known as flow, or the zone of peak performance, where time stands still and a flow state ensues.\n\nLEVEL 8. SAMADHI. UNION, INTEGRATION. This is considered to be the level of spiritual enlightenment, of the union of true self with the ego self. My friend Ken Wilber, creator of the Integral Theory and author of _The Theory of Everything_ , explains that when integrated (\"enlightened\" in Eastern terminology) you will tether with your \"soul self\" which then becomes the center of your consciousness versus your limited ego-thinking self. When this happens we end separation and are able to express ourselves most authentically to the world, able to take perspectives on our own perspectives as well as those of others, and can experience life as a blissful connection with all sentient beings.\n\nHISTORICAL INFLUENCES\n\nNow that you have a sense of the depth and breadth of yoga, let's get a grasp of the historical roots. However, considering the hundreds or thousands of years that yoga has existed, a definitive history of yoga is beyond the capacity of this book. What I do wish to impart is that yoga has had many expressions and can be considered an open-source project taken on by warriors, athletes, and spiritual aspirants over many eons. The project continues today with millions of Western practitioners adopting its methods and philosophy.\n\nArjuna: A Warrior at a Crossroads\n\n_The mind is restless, turbulent, strong and unyielding... as difficult to subdue as the wind. For the uncontrolled there is no wisdom. Nor for the uncontrolled is there power of concentration. And for him without concentration there is no peace. And for the un-peaceful how can there be happiness_ \u2013ADAPTED FROM THE _BHAGAVAD GITA_ (KRISHNA SPEAKING \nTO ARJUNA)\n\nA text that routinely appears in comparative religion classes throughout the Western world is the _Bhagavad Gita_. The Hindu epic, composed circa the seventh century BCE, presented the many faces of yoga and how they appeal to certain characters such as the warrior Arjuna. A central theme is the importance of performing one's simple, daily work and duties with a critical and spiritual binding with renunciation\u2014of not being attached to material rewards. The _Gita_ is a warrior's manual that encourages the reader to actively confront and take on evil in the world rather than turning the other cheek.\n\nAt the heart of the _Gita_ is a dialogue between Arjuna, a master archer warrior, and Krishna, an earthly manifestation of the Indian deity Vishnu, representing the voice of God. A major battle is about to erupt between Arjuna's tribe and his cousin's tribe. Arjuna is confronted with the fact that his mission requires fighting against members of his family\u2014the sort of inner conflict that Americans recall from their history of the Civil War. Arjuna's skill with the bow and arrow is so exceptional that he can pierce the eye of a bird in flight, but in the _Gita_ he struggles with questions of morality, ethics, and his duty as a warrior, seeking answers from Krishna. Arjuna ultimately chooses not to fight, sacrificing his life rather than betray his thoughts and feelings for his family. The dialogue with Krishna finally offers a path to spiritual freedom that is not total renunciation of the fruits of one's labor nor abstinence from performing one's work\u2014rather, spiritual perfection is pursued by performing one's duty in life without looking for rewards and with detachment to the results. Arjuna's sacrifice informs the inner struggle of warriors of all races and generations, including the modern warrior who strives to do the right thing in spite of the consequences.\n\nBodhidharma and Kalaripayattu\n\nIn surveying the expansion of yoga from the ancient East to the modern West, we should also look at the shared roots yoga has with the martial arts. The legend of Bodhidharma, a son of an Indian King in the sixth century, sheds light on both of these topics. Bodhidharma traveled by foot and boat from his homeland, where he eventually arrived at the Shaolin Monastery in the Henan Province of China, the famous Buddhist temple known for the development of Kung Fu. Martial arts history holds that after Bodhidharma arrived at the temple, he spent 9 years in seated meditation, inspiring the monks with both his fierce discipline and deep spiritual powers. Bodhidharma began to teach the monks the practice of what would be known as Zen meditation, but the monks were academics and didn't have the physical capacities to perform extended meditation.\n\nBodhidharma created what you might call a health and fitness program to complement the meditation practice, a series of 18 flowing yoga postures very similar to Hatha Yoga. The movements also shared properties of the Indian martial art known as Kalaripayattu\u2014which is considered by some to be the oldest fighting art in human history. Bodhidharma has been credited by some for the creation of Shaolin Boxing and his contribution to Zen Buddhism. There is ample evidence that the Chinese had developed martial systems far before Bodhidharma arrived, but the key point I'd like to make is that through this form of educational dissemination, the ancient practice of yoga was transmitted across borders and eventually throughout the world.\n\nYoga and Gymnastics\n\nIn sorting out the modern offerings of yoga in the West, it can be helpful to reverse engineer the influences and reinterpretations involved. One of the more interesting discussions, sparked by author Mark Singleton, suggests that there was a blending of West into East as modern yoga evolved. Singleton's book, _Yoga Body,_ pins some of his research on a fitness trend that occurred in Europe in the nineteenth century. It was then that the Scandinavian system of gymnastics became popular throughout Europe in the 1800s. Called \"primitive gymnastics\"\u2014and showing up in the YMCA network of gymnasiums\u2014it was a bodyweight exercise regimen, attractive to civilians for the health benefits and attractive to the fighting forces for the fitness edge it could provide. The poses used within the Danish system are vividly similar to the poses you'd find in an introduction to yoga class.\n\nFollowing is an interesting assessment by writer Matthew Lee Anderson on the _Yoga Body_ :\n\nMark Singleton analyzed Niels Bukh's _Primary Gymnastics_ (1925) and found that \"at least 28 of the exercises in the first edition of Bukh's manual are strikingly similar (often identical) to yoga postures occurring in Pattabhi Jois' Ashtanga sequence or in Iyengar's _Light on Yoga_. Both Jois and Iyengar were students of T. Krishnamacharya, who taught yoga in the Indian royal palace and whose classes were categorized as \"physical culture\" or \"exercise\" in the official palace records. By that point, the Danish gymnastic system had reached such a level of popularity that it had been incorporated into the British Army and into the Indian YMCA.\n\nYoga Comes to American Shores\n\nThe European explosion of yoga and gymnastics for exercise was a precursor to several key yoga voices crossing the pond to introduce Americans to the mysteries of yoga. One of the most influential was Paramahansa Yogananda, from Uttar Pradesh, India, who came to the United States in 1920. Through Yogananda's establishment of the Self-Realization Fellowship and his book, _Autobiography of a Yogi_ (incidentally this is the only book Steve Jobs kept on his personal iPad), he introduced the philosophy of yoga, and meditation to millions. Other teachers that have had a big impact on the popularity of yoga in the United States include Mr. Universe winner Walt Baptiste, followed by his son Baron. Baron has more recently popularized Power Yoga, a variant of Ashtanga Vinyasa (flowing) Yoga. With Power Yoga he weaves mind-and-body empowerment practice including meditation and \"active self-enquiry.\" Baron became a performance coach for the Philadelphia Eagles, an early pioneer in applying yoga methods for sports performance.\n\nYoga continues to evolve to this day. As Kaitlin Quistgaard, former editor-in-chief of _Yoga Journal_ , put it: \"With around 15 million Americans practicing yoga, there's room for diversity and for the practice to evolve in more than one direction at a time.\"\n\nPERFORM LIKE A MASTER\n\nOne of the chief purposes of this book is to make a cogent case for why an integrated somatic practice like Kokoro Yoga can serve up profound performance improvements for first responders, military operators, CrossFitters, endurance athletes, and, frankly, anyone committed to self-mastery in the service of others. The path of Kokoro Yoga is to blend physical, mental, emotional, intuitive, and spiritual training to positively impact performance on the playing field, peace of mind in the battle zone, presence in a boardroom, and fitness while on the road.\n\nSo what does peak performance look like in a flow state?\n\nThe quarterback sizzling first-down strikes in a championship game\u2014his eyes pierced in concentration, as if in another universe altogether\u2014relaxed and oblivious to the crowd noise and the millions watching on TV; the SEAL team silently executing the Bin Laden raid in cool, fluid precision despite the stress and chaos of the combat zone; the CrossFitter in a fury during the workout of the day (WOD) as she continues to execute pull-ups and thrusters with power and grace, despite the onslaught of pain and fatigue cooking within the muscles and through her lungs. These are just a few examples of the connection between states of mind and performance, where it's abundantly clear that mental preparation, mental toughness, and accessing flow figure into physical performance capacity.\n\nThis door swings both ways: As 2013 World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand said in an interview with _Complete Well Being,_ \"In chess, since we have to prepare for about 7\u20138 hours [of competition] a day, physical fitness is as essential as mental fitness.\" He added that emotional control also figures into the nature of the peak performance state. \"For me, as it is for everyone, feelings determine performance,\" he said. \"Only when you are happy or feel good about yourself can you play well. I try to keep my life simple, as chess itself is very complicated.\" So, according to the chess master, physical, mental, and emotional aspects all play into peak performance.\n\nIn other words, to generate and maintain top performance, we must supercharge the physical with mental and the emotional aspects of training. This is true whether you are training to be a chess master, a Navy SEAL, or an elite corporate warrior. Another compelling example from the world stage is Japan's Ichiro Suzuki, Major League Baseball's ten-time All-Star. Here are a few details about Ichiro's integrated approach to his sport:\n\n_Ichiro Suzuki painstakingly cleans every piece of his equipment, including shoes and glove, before each game. He has done this for 22 seasons, during an amazing career that has stretched across two continents. He keeps his bats in a humidor-like carrying case._\n\n_His physical preparation is just as thorough. He begins his gameday routine with weight lifting and a series of stretching exercises and yoga-like poses... After games, he records his thoughts on the day in a personal journal._ \u2013RICHARD JUSTICE, \"MODEL OF EXCELLENCE: ICHIRO REACHES 4,000 HITS HIS WAY,\" MLB.COM\n\nAnd this from another source:\n\n_When he gazed in the general direction of the crowd he was staring a hole right through us. He was totally locked in. He was in a place far away, some sort of deep font of performance excellence._ \u2013JUSTIN PANSON, \"ICHIRO, WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE?\" CONFLUENCE STUDIO\n\nWhat Ichiro has is what I call an unfettered mind, which comes from a special form of training. I call that training integrated warrior development. This program is a structured version of such a regimen, in that it integrates the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual intelligences to prepare for \"battle,\" similar to how Ichiro did in his training.\n\nTRAIN FOR LIFE\n\nMaybe it is abundantly clear by now that Kokoro Yoga is more than a workout. It is training that can meet you where you are at, and stay with you for life. You will change the methods to suit your needs over time. Which poses, functional exercises, sequences, breathing, concentration, and visualization drills you use will depend upon your age, body type, season of the year, and intentions. My hope is also that you appreciate that the training is presented from a Western warrior's point of view. The language is familiar and avoids cultural nuances found in most other yoga training\u2014such as the Sanskrit pose names, Hindu mythology, and chanting. The following core principles define the full experience of our system, each of which will be explored in greater detailed later in this book:\n\nBOTH A PRACTICE AND A LIFESTYLE: Kokoro Yoga can be both a practice, providing powerful tools to aid in your physical and mental training, as well as a set of principles for living an enriched, unbeatable life.\n\nFLEXIBLE AND VARIABLE: Variety is the spice of life and Kokoro Yoga is flexible, providing for maximum variability to meet your specific needs. Doing the same rigidly fixed form year in and year out will lead to a rut, burnout, and injury. Variety is a good thing and can be found by changing up pose sequences for a particular effect, changing the duration based on your time and intention, and also flexing your practice into the times of the day that you train. While taking a modular approach to the practice allows for maximum variety and learning, it can also lead to avoiding things that are challenging and could help you break through to a new level. You will explore this concept as your practice evolves.\n\nINTENTIONAL: Rather than just hitting a yoga class for a workout, we are clear about the intention for our training, and the desired result for each session. For instance, using the Hip Mobility Drill after a CrossFit WOD is intended to open the hips, develop flexibility and durability, calm the nervous system after ramping it up, and immediately trigger the recovery process. Doing a session in the morning when you wake up is intended to facilitate spinal health, stimulate your nervous system, clear your mind, and charge you positively to provide a foundation of excellence for your day. Kokoro Yoga can be performed to enhance athleticism, to develop strong leadership traits, and for spiritual enlightenment. In the case of a warrior, all of these goals are relevant and will be developed with the methods employed in these pages.\n\nBALANCED: Train hard, train soft. Train long, train short. We use yoga to find balance in our bodies, minds, and lives. We seek a balance between effort and surrender, between work and recovery. If you have a bone-crushing CrossFit workout, then you would do a moderate restorative yoga session to balance the effort and energy of the workout. However, if you are on vacation and yoga is your primary training, due to space and time constraints (which is often my case), then balance may mean including a bodyweight WOD module into an hour-long challenging session (see the Fit Warrior sequence in chapter 5)... similar to how I trained in Baghdad.\n\nADAPTABLE: We adapt the pose to our bodies rather than try to adapt our body to the pose. I learned this by contrasting how Ashtanga Yoga is taught versus Viniyoga. In Ashtanga the pose is the pose, and you exert extreme effort to contort your body to the pose structure. This approach, if performed unwisely or when not prepared, can lead to injury. In Viniyoga, the approach is to move into the pose with repetitions to refine the functional movement pattern, and then to stay in the full expression of the pose that is appropriate for you in that moment. We have adopted this sensible model for Kokoro Yoga, where you approach a pose with your own level of flexibility, mobility, functional fitness, and prior injuries that you need to adapt for. Even the time of day and season of the year will influence how our bodies and minds react to a pose, and how we should wisely approach it.\n\nINTEGRATED: Already discussed at length, our premise is that accelerated growth occurs when we embody training in an integrated manner. You will be developing yourself physically, mentally, morally, emotionally, intuitionally, and spiritually. These intelligences are deeply connected and when you actively integrate the training of them they will conspire to unlock your full potential as a human.\n\nFIXED AND FLOWING: We use an approach that embraces both static form and flowing movement. What I mean by this is that we will do some poses with no flow, and others we will flow with the breath between poses, but then stay in some poses for a fixed amount of time or breath cycles to allow our bodies to sink deeper into the pose. This allows for a deepening of concentration and awareness. In addition, there are some flowing poses that are mostly about the breathing technique that has a particular effect on your body or mind. These poses look more like Tai Chi than traditional yoga. Keep in mind that yoga, in its original form thousands of years ago, was a warrior and spiritual development training method that has deep connections with Tai Chi, Qigong, and other martial arts as it spread west from India into Tibet and regions now known as China, Korea, and Japan.\n\nTHE RESULTS\n\nIndeed, Kokoro Yoga is designed to do far more for you than help you work up a sweat. It is about developing a warrior spirit, merging your heart and mind into your actions so you can achieve your maximum human potential. In the next chapter, we'll take a thorough look at the strategies that allow for the integration of the training to work its magic.\n\n# CHAPTER 3\n\n# THE STRATEGIES\n\n_Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony._ \n\u2013MAHATMA GANDHI\n\nNAVY SEALS RELY ON BOTH STRATEGIES AND TACTICS TO ACCOMPLISH THEIR MISSION. STRATEGIES ARE THE OVERARCHING METHODS EMPLOYED TO DIRECT THE ENERGIES, FOCUS, AND RESOURCES OF THE TEAM. TACTICS ARE THE SPECIFIC METHODS THE TEAMS WILL EMPLOY TO GET THE ACTUAL JOB DONE. IN THIS CHAPTER I WANT TO SPEND TIME NOW ON THE CORE STRATEGIES WITHIN THE KOKORO YOGA PROGRAM\u2014WHY WE DO THINGS A CERTAIN WAY. YOU'LL NOTICE THAT the strategies are linked to the wisdom of the original Eight Limbs of yoga, informed through my personal experience training thousands of modern-day warriors since 2007. With an understanding of the strategic engines firmly established, we'll then take a look at the ground-level tactics in chapter 4: the nuts, bolts, and basic methods of how we execute these strategies.\n\nSTRATEGY 1: DEVELOP A PERSONAL ETHOS\n\nExcellence outcomes in life are built upon a personal philosophy, or code, of excellence. I call this a personal ethos. Defining this ethos requires deep introspection and skillful methods leading to a continuous pursuit of self-knowledge and growth. Training without a personal ethos can leave you directionless, not able to answer the question, _Why?,_ when faced with life's many challenges.\n\n\"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,\" wrote Henry David Thoreau, exposing a truth that holds true today. Finding stillness to eliminate the noise and distractions that obscure the voice of our soul from being heard is not easy, but crucial for us to find and fulfill our purpose. Rather than reacting like a pinball to the myriad of forces and stressors rushing at us every day, we must take time to question deeply what we are meant for, what we are passionate about, and how we can serve meaningfully through our unique gifts.\n\nWe must question what societal and family beliefs make the best fit, and begin to orient ourselves to universal laws and positive (love) energy so that we can allow our uniqueness and beauty to flow out of us like a river. We start this process by asking deep questions, working to separate from ego identification with our roles, challenges, issues, and obsessions. As we gain clarity on the Yamas and Niyamas introduced in the last chapter, we connect deeper with our witnessing self, your \"soul self.\" In deep connection with your witness you are said to act from your \"True Self\" as opposed to your \"False Self,\" which is guided by your ego.\n\nA good place to enact your code of conduct is to examine and align with the five precepts called Yamas, that lead the way to excellence and are a contemplation as well as an ethical practice. Aligning with these precepts will produce a profound grounding effect on your life. These are codes of restraint and self-regulations that have us acknowledge our interconnected relationship with all sentient beings and the environment, and to align with them in a spirit of harmony. They are:\n\n1. Nonviolence to oneself or others. This code of conduct poses a challenge for warriors. Keep in mind that duty plays a role, as Arjuna learned.\n\n2. Speaking, thinking, and acting truth.\n\n3. Not hoarding unnecessarily. Being honest with what belongs to you, what belongs to others, and what belongs to the common good.\n\n4. Balancing your energy in work, play, and relationships.\n\n5. Not grasping for or getting attached or clinging to ideas, material objects, or relationships.\n\nThese five precepts, when asked as questions, provide a powerful guide for our actions and thoughts. Establishing a code that is grounded with these five precepts will lead to a balanced and positive relationship with all stakeholders in the great web of life. The code in action is your integrity. They are to be practiced in thoughts, words, and deeds. Becoming aware of how you live the precepts is important. How do you act truthful? How do you speak truthfully? How do you think of truth? Truth is different in the domains of action, speech, and thought. To have integrity means they are aligned.\n\nWe next want to examine and refine our habits or Niyamas, which ground the journey toward personal mastery. These are:\n\n Developing purity and control of the body and mind. We accomplish this with proper fueling and a daily practice of functional fitness and asana, or some other skillfully executed method of somatic movement training.\n\n Contentment of one's circumstances in life. We are where we are for a reason, so be okay with it while working methodically to improve your own condition and the condition of the world... one relationship at a time.\n\n Taking control over your desires, the constant grasping at pleasure and striving to avoid pain. Neither pleasure nor pain is good or bad on its own, but it is the craving or avoidance that makes it so. Consider the avoidance of the pain associated with intense physical training. Choosing to avoid this kind of temporary discomfort means that we won't develop our warrior body and mind. Or being constantly drawn to the pleasure of sweets. Consistently folding to this weakness means that we sacrifice control and we slowly kill ourselves with sugar.\n\n Self study and study of sacred texts. This is one aspect of the deeply spiritual component of yoga. It's about what we choose to focus our mind upon, whether our internal states of mind and emotion, or a parable of Jesus, we come to understand deeply. Our awareness of reality and knowledge of the nature of things increases.\n\n Surrender to a higher power. This is your concept of God, whether you have a religious orientation or not. If not, Gaia, the Tao, or \"Spirit that runs through all things\" will do just fine. Let go of the mental grasping and contracting of ego self, and surrender to a \"now\" presence where you can connect to this power. This practice will lead to more energy and keep you in alignment with your True Self.\n\nThe discipline habits are meant to tame the body, mind, and senses so that we can advance our training through concentrated study and meditation. Similar to the first five precepts, they characteristically arise in thought, speech, and action as if there were three elements of practice needing to be trained together. For instance, do you think you are content? Do you talk about contentment and do you act content? Upon deep reflection you may find that there are subtle differences in each of these, and this awareness leads you to work toward their alignment.\n\nWrite down any insights that come to you as you consider your relationship to the above precepts and disciplines. Review them weekly and note what comes up in your silence practices. You will be developing a powerful personal ethos through this process. Ultimately you want to always be able to answer the following questions: Why am I doing this? Why is this happening to me? Am I aligned with my ethos?\n\nThis level of self-study naturally draws us even deeper inward, to places we previously didn't know existed. This is where we must travel to and spend time exploring the root answer of the questions about your reality. When you can answer the question, Why?, you can better answer the questions: What am I going to do about this? How and with whom? Of course at the heart of these questions lies the one question that is the very essence of what it means to be human:\n\nWho am I?\n\nTaking time to settle into these ponderous issues is the next step in the awakening process of the first strategy. These are questions stoked with power; leave them unasked, or unanswered, and you're sure to drift along as I did in the first 24 years of my life. Asking them, and reflecting on what comes up in silence, will slowly but definitely lead to the construction of a deep personal ethos. As daunting as this may seem, I want you to know how rewarding and dynamic this process is, and how it opens you up like a flower awakening to the dawn. The answers you have to these questions today will evolve over time as you continue to work the program. They will inform the choices you make, the projects you take on, and the values you establish. You will cultivate honor and integrity as you align your actions with your growing sense of ethos and purpose in life. As you become more comfortable with this insight work you will gain the traction and energy that comes from clarifying your identity and knowing what you stand for.\n\nThe development of your personal ethos counts on silence to be your guide. We plant the questions in our minds and trust the daily rituals to draw answers up from the depths, as if through a magnetic force. New insights about the questions and deeper awareness will bubble to the surface and reveal themselves as insights, new ideas, feelings, or images.\n\nThe following are the core questions to ask before your practice sessions, particularly the morning and evening rituals (discussed in chapter 8):\n\nWho am I?\n\nWhy am I here\u2014what is my purpose?\n\nWhat unique passion can I offer the world?\n\nWhat and whom do I love?\n\nAm I positive and helpful?\n\nHow can I boldly serve my family, team, country, world?\n\nWhat do I value and want to bring more of into my life?\n\nWhat do I want less of in my life?\n\nA great example of a morning ritual would be to ask these questions and follow with box breathing, a short yoga sequence, and then to meditate on aligning your personal ethos with Yamas and Niyamas. Over time you will be able to articulate the answers to the above questions clearly. You will know beyond a shadow of a doubt just who you are right now, where you're at in your life, and where you need to go. It's from this rich material that you will build your powerful and driving vision for your life. This first strategy of developing a personal ethos is critical to living the warrior's way, so don't shortcut it or think you already have all the answers. Humility is to admit that you do not know everything... and in fact, the more you learn, the less you seem to know about the mysteries of the world! Now on to the next strategy: to develop body awareness, control, and optimal physical health.\n\nSTRATEGY 2: FUNCTIONAL CONDITIONING\n\nThe second strategy is to optimize your functional movement capacity. We do this with classic \"asana\" poses intelligently sequenced, as well as with mindfully performed functional exercises. One of the paradigm shifts we've seen in the last decade has been an embrace of functional fitness. In Kokoro Yoga, we rely on traditional poses of yoga\u2014those you see in any yoga class. But we also rely on functional movements of CrossFit and SEALFIT to close gaps, or weaknesses, in physical conditioning found in other yoga systems. This does not mean you have to become a CrossFit or SEALFIT athlete to do this program. The movements are simple and scalable for all practitioners. It simply means that this yoga could be your complete integrated training system for both \"working out\" and \"working in.\" Functional movements are comprised of exercises that involve compound movements and universal motor recruitment patterns\u2014like push-ups, burpees, and squats\u2014as opposed to traditional gym equipment. The term \"universal\" refers to the natural use of full-body patterns that mimic physical movements in our daily lives, such as digging a ditch, shoveling snow, hiking in rugged terrain, and chopping wood.\n\nThe conditioning modules we present get quick results by performing functional movements with high-intensity, building cardiovascular endurance, strength, stamina, and power. This work also leads to deep awareness of the body and greater confidence in the performance of work and play outdoors.\n\nThe functional movements we depend upon for the Fit Warrior and Protective Warrior sequences are classic body-weight gymnastics and \"cardio-kickboxing\" movements. Having said that, on occasion kettlebells, dumbbells, or sand bags can be utilized to augment the impact of the training. The work is performed in the context of the yoga sequence as an embedded module. Doing the yoga then going to the gym is old school. If you do not have a functional fitness regimen at the moment, then this program will get you on your way by performing three rigorous sessions a week, using Fit Warrior and Protective Warrior sequences. This program will deliver excellent functional fitness and health, all geared toward supporting you on that journey to excellence.\n\nFIVE LAYERS OF BEING\n\nBefore moving on to the next strategy, this is a good place to insert some comments about the five dimensions of the self. These were called the \"pancamayas\" (five pervasive layers) in the ancient Vedic text Taittiriya Upanishad wherein the Rishis introduced ancient yoga philosophy to the world. These dimensions are aspects of our being to access, align, and develop in a holographic manner through the science of yoga. Modern science is making progress understanding the first three, but lacks credible means to penetrate the latter two, which are the realm of deep interior development.\n\nTHE PHYSICAL DIMENSION\n\nThe outermost of the layers is literally called the food layer by the ancient yogis. This layer is built by food and can become food if we find ourselves in the jungle alone. It is the aspect of our beings that is trained with the second strategy of Kokoro Yoga, functional movement. But it also requires effective fueling and sleeping habits for the care of and nurturing of the body to allow us to fulfill our purpose and live in happiness. When we take care of the physical being we are able to journey inward without our bodies being distracted with pain, injuries, or disease, such as when we sit in meditation. The physical body has been the focus of Western fitness, but has lacked much acknowledgment of the other layers. In Kokoro Yoga we strive to train and develop all layers simultaneously for optimal effect.\n\nENERGETIC DIMENSION\n\nThe next dimension is the vital, energetic layer. This is the vital force that turns the lights on in our human house. The energy is produced internally through metabolism, and is also brought in from the outside through the breath, thoughts, and our environment. Kokoro Yoga seeks to refine and train this level of our being for optimal energy flow through pathways in the body called Nadis. Through Pranayama, or breath control training (i.e., box breathing), we get intimate with the energy body, explore it, and roam further inward to additional layers.\n\nMENTAL DIMENSION\n\nThe next dimension is the mental. This level is for cognizing, learning, and learning how to learn. In this dimension we take in information from our senses, process it as thoughts and emotions, and then seek meaning in the world. The mental aspect of our being is the judger, feeler, and supervisor of our lives. In modern terms this would be the rational mind, centered in the neocortex. The mental being is tuned to sniff for danger and opportunities (in fact all inbound information is initially processed through the amygdala, the main purpose of which is to discriminate between things to fear and not fear).\n\nNegativity can prevail in the mental layer with obsessive, negative associations and weak thinking\u2014a disease of our modern world. Through the practice of Kokoro Yoga we strive to gain control over this crucial dimension, train it to be positive and uncovering truth, then to connect with the next dimension, the wisdom of personality. As this happens the mind is cleared of doubt and illusion and we can connect with our true self\u2014that aspect of your mind that receives clear reflection of reality from deep wisdom. A fully developed mental dimension allows us then to express our uniqueness fully, uncluttered by fear or deception.\n\nWISDOM DIMENSION\n\nThe next is the wisdom dimension, that aspect of our being that can discern an innate, felt knowingness of purpose and drives your deeper, \"true self,\" or authentic, personality. Excessive thinking in the mental dimension can get in the way of accessing this wisdom layer. The deep wisdom that lies in all of us and is found by cultivating sacred silence. This dimension is felt in our heart and belly regions and discriminates between good and bad, useful and not useful. Deep conditioning, patterns, and habits are grooved into this layer over this lifetime, and possibly even past lives.\n\nWhen accessed, the wisdom dimension brings us into deep connection to others, all of humanity and the earth. The sensations from this layer are beyond thoughts\u2014and are always positive. The wisdom dimension is \"the courage wolf\" that lies within us, that generator of love in all of its forms. Through our integrated training we can connect with our wisdom, dimensions, eradicate negative patterns, and uncover the love that lies within. Then we are empowered to go even deeper within, in search of the eternal center of bliss consciousness.\n\nBLISS DIMENSION\n\nThe bliss dimension is the most interior of the layers and it connects to the seat of consciousness itself. When connected to, this layer is experienced as radical bliss, peace, and joy beyond the mind, independent of any stimulus that may trigger a happy or blissful mental reaction. In short, it is your capacity for happiness without any extrinsic reason for being happy. The ancient yogis said that the bliss experienced as this dimension is accessed is 1,000 times more powerful than the highest form of mentally experienced joy. Wow.\n\nIn the silence of deep meditation, in service to others, and in moments of total presence in a purposeful, passionate pursuit, this bliss is released. We are experiencing a connection to the center of our soul. Hard to put into words, but it is called different names by various traditions (i.e., Atman, Christ Consciousness). It is our eternal center that was never born and never dies. Accessing the bliss dimension is the direct experience of a long-term integration practice and it will unlock our full potential as it allows our unique beauty to express itself fully.\n\nSTRATEGY 3: MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL CONTROL\n\nThe second Sutra of Patanjali is \"yogah citta vrtti nirodah.\" This means that yoga (integration) comes from the ability to concentrate the mind until all thoughts are under one's control. Then we can direct the mind exclusively toward an object or subject and sustain that without any distractions for as long as desired. This speaks to the power of yoga for forging mental and emotional control. If we consider that emotions are primal and stored thoughts experienced not as words in our heads, but as feelings in our bodies, then we can surmise that Patanjali included emotional control in this definition.\n\nOne of the defining qualities of being human is our gift to experience feelings that lead to meaning. This doesn't happen by just thinking something over: rather, it's the connection between real experiences, the thoughts that come with those experiences, and the emotions provoked by those thoughts. This is the space where we have an opportunity to cultivate deep learning and connection. It is also the most overlooked and undertrained area of development for many of us.\n\nThoughts and emotions are part of the mental dimension. Through concentration, meditation, and visualization practice we seek to manage our mental and emotional selves so we can direct thoughts and emotions positively and intentionally toward fulfilling our personal ethos. An example is how we deal with fear. When we experience fear such as with a life-threatening situation, through our training we learn to face the fear and transmute the mental and emotional energy of it into a more positive and focused energy (such as determination), which will help to survive and end the threat. Navy SEALs are modern yoga practitioners in that they are masters at this form of mental and emotional management.\n\nIn this strategy we seek a level of control over our lives that is uncommon in our busy, modern world. Your concentration, focus, and overall awareness will improve as a result of the daily practice of the integrated training. With this deeper connection you will have at your command greater control to detect and direct your thoughts and emotions in a purpose-filled direction.\n\nSTRATEGY 4: BREATH MASTERY\n\nI learned during my SEAL training just how powerful mastery of the breath could be. I am confident that this one strategy led to my big success there, and later as a Special Ops and business leader. It is now the first thing I teach to aspiring Navy SEAL candidates at SEALFIT. Breathing is a unique system in the human body; unlike, for example, digestion, breathing has both an involuntary control mechanism as well as voluntary, similar to a 747 in that it can shift between being piloted and being left on autopilot. If you are a military special operator, or have a background with martial arts or yoga, it's likely that you inherently understand the strategy of mastering the breath. If not, you will find the most immediate practical benefits in your life from this strategy. When you begin the box breathing practice you will note an immediate impact in the form of lower stress, a heightened, alert focus, and a calmer mind. Strategy 4 strives to accomplish the following three aims:\n\n1. First, air is our primary source of fuel so learning how to get the most out of each \"bite\" can lead to many health and longevity benefits (see chapter 7 for more on the benefits). Most people are unaware of this simple truth, as well as of their own breathing patterns. The average person is accustomed to panting some 25,000 shallow breaths throughout the day, or 16 to 20 breaths per minute. If this is you, then you should know that in doing so you are using just a fraction of the natural lung capacity you are born with, and you are keeping your body in a constant state of agitation in the process.\n\n2. Controlling the breath controls our stress, or fight, flight, or freeze response. Shallow, choppy, and irregular chest breathing stimulates the fight-or-flight, sympathetic nervous system, ratcheting up urgency and stress. A calm, deep, and measured belly breath, on the other hand, stimulates the rest and digest, parasympathetic system, dialing down stress, slowing the heart rate, and calming the entire body down.\n\n3. Breath control is a bridge to mental control. When I learned as a martial artist to control my breathing during intense fighting bouts it proved invaluable later during the chaos of combat. As noted above I found that it both calmed my body and mind\u2014bringing them immediately under control, allowing me to focus on my targets and make good decisions.\n\nTo help achieve these aims, you'll be performing breath control exercises in the training sessions. These exercises will link breath to the movements. You will note in the sequencing that we specify when to breathe in and out, so that you ride the breath like a surfer riding a long wave. Over time you will cultivate greater energy, the same energy that martial artists refer to as \"chi\" and yogis refer to as \"prana.\" We will get into the practical steps for mastering the breath in the next chapter on tactics.\n\nSTRATEGY 5: SENSE MASTERY\n\nWhen I trained in the martial art of ninjutsu, I spent a lot of time developing what we called sensual awareness. No\u2014it wasn't so we could be better in bed (though it didn't hurt). Rather this was about developing the sense \"doors\" by opening them to receive more information. Through this training I became more nuanced in interpreting the received information and making more sense out of it. Was that tingling sensation a signal of danger? Was the ripple in energy someone entering the room, disrupting my energy matrix? Many warriors who have seen combat have experienced enhanced sensory awareness as an adaptation to the risk.\n\nHowever, when the warriors get back to \"normal life\" they note that those sense doors seem to close again. I believe that we can train to keep these doors open so that our intuition is always clear and accessible\u2014allowing us to make better decisions and be more effective warriors and leaders.\n\nIn performing the poses and flowing between poses, you are meant to focus your mind and senses inward. For example, you'll want to tune down your sense of hearing and narrow your sight to a single-point focus. Or you will soften your gaze or close your eyes altogether and focus on the sound of your breathing. Or perhaps you will let your inner awareness rest on a point in the body, such as a joint, muscle, or energy center (cakra). Intuition, as intelligence, is not experienced verbally, but sensationally and via imagery. Therefore, within this work of mastering the senses, we will be developing the language of imagery and sensations, rather than words. This is difficult to convey in a book, of course. It is your job to constantly scan your body for sensations, insights, and images from your intuition. Turning the senses inward during practice helps us to tune and expand the senses more fully for our overall awareness of the nature of self, others, and the world.\n\nSTRATEGY 6: INTEGRATION\n\nThe above five strategies work together toward supporting the final strategy that I call integration. Kokoro Yoga drives toward achieving an integration and union of the five dimensions as well as our True Self with our clarified egoic self. But what does this integration feel like? At the external \"service\" level it is experienced as effortless success, meaning that the entire world seems to conspire to support your mission and purpose in life. At the internal \"self-mastery\" level it is experienced as a world-centric consciousness, peaceful and mastery over your mind and emotions. The Japanese concept of _shibumi,_ \"effortless perfection,\" is a nice way to express this experience. You will effortlessly perfect your trade or art, as you are meant to with your unique and innate skills and talents, and in doing so you will find great joy in your work.\n\nIntegration allows you to unlock a flow state at will. When I train this with long-term coaching clients the process is greatly accelerated due to the intensity and enmeshment of all the senses in the training. Students learn how to turn on and off flow through the big four skills of breath control, positivity, visualization, and micro-goals. Flow is the psychological term coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a psychology professor at the University of Chicago and author of _Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience._ In his book, Csikszentmihalyi defines this flow as a state of absorption with the moment and with what one is doing, and he makes an acute comparison to yoga: \"The similarities between [integration in] yoga and flow are extremely strong; in fact it makes sense to think of yoga as a very thoroughly planned flow activity. Both try to achieve a joyous, self-forgetful involvement through concentration, which in turn is made possible by a discipline of the body.\"1\n\nAs he later said to _Wired_ magazine, \"The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost.\"\n\nCsikszentmihalyi notes that the relationship between the difficulty of a task we take on, and our training or experience in performing said task, impacts our ability to remain present and access flow. The ideal is to have the challenge slightly greater than our training level\u2014so pushing the envelope with training, then pushing the envelope performing, has a positive upward spiral effect on performance, at both a personal and team level, because it creates the conditions for flow to \"present\" itself.\n\nSteven Kotler writes in his book, _The Rise of Superman,_ that there are also several environmental, psychological, social, and creative triggers for flow to occur. Deep embodiment is one of the environmental triggers. That means being able to pay attention to multiple sensory inputs simultaneously. Time becomes relative\u2014there is no concept of past or future that might otherwise be dogging us in the form of regret or worry.\n\nNow, with these six overarching strategies in mind, I'd like to run through the tactics in the next chapter\u2014the essential tools and techniques you'll be employing to effectively train with this program.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\n\n1Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, _Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience_ (New York: Harper & Row, 1990), 105.\n\n# CHAPTER 4\n\n# THE TACTICS\n\n_A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials._ \n\u2013CHINESE PROVERB\n\nWHEREAS A STRATEGY IS A HIGH-LEVEL ORIENTATION OR PLAN FOR HOW TO ACCOMPLISH A MISSION, A TACTIC IS A GROUND-LEVEL METHOD, TECHNIQUE, OR PROCEDURE FOR MOVING THE DIAL IN THE CHOSEN STRATEGIC DIRECTION. FOR INSTANCE, IN SPECIAL OPERATIONS THE STRATEGY WOULD BE TO USE SPEED TO SURPRISE THE ENEMY. A TACTIC THE SEALS USED WAS TIME-SENSITIVE PLANNING WHERE WE PLANNED LITERALLY ON THE FLY AND COULD BE ON TARGET swifter than any other SOF unity. For our purposes here, with the strategy of mastering the breath, one tactic we will employ is box breathing, and another will be connecting breath with movement. Strategies without solid tactics lack punch. Tactics without an effective strategy don't get us through to mission accomplishment. We have ten core tactics that are employed to ensure our strategies put us on target.\n\nTACTIC 1: SEQUENCING AND ADAPTATION\n\nThe sequencing in Kokoro Yoga refers to the order of poses in a given training session. By adeptly choosing and sequencing a series of poses for a purposeful session, along with variables such as how long you hold each individual pose and the breathing patterns used in the session, you can achieve different physical and mental results supporting your purposes. For example, a guiding purpose of the morning ritual is to stimulate your nervous system and enliven the spine so you are ready to move into your day alert, energized, and feeling powerful. Therefore, this practice includes poses, a sequence, and breathing patterns different from what you would perform in the evening ritual, where the intention is to move toward calmness and rest.\n\nPart of my personal education in teaching yoga has included many hours in learning effective sequencing from a master, Gary Kraftsow. It's an art that's beyond the scope of this book, so we've created programming for a number of common-use scenarios, including the morning and evening practice, pre- and post-workout practice, stress management (Peaceful Warrior), functional fitness (Fit Warrior and Protective Warrior), warriorlike focus (Zen Warrior), and warrior energy development (Jedi Warrior).\n\nLet's talk more about the principle of adaptation. I don't subscribe to the belief that the body must be contorted into some ideal pose. There's no demand being made that you have to funnel your body into the dream lotus position, or be able to execute a headstand that rewards you with a perfect 10 score. I have seen such a mind-set lead to frustration, injury, or both. Let us reverse that thinking. Rather than adapting your body to a pose, adapt the pose to what your body is ready for and capable of. I'd like you take into account who you are today and what you are dealing with as you approach your practice. Do you have old injuries that need to be considered? Most of us do. What about mobility restrictions? I'd be surprised if you don't have any. How does your age and experience impact your pose? All of these factors, and more, count. Please do not use this as an excuse to avoid riding the edge a bit, but know that it is fine not to be \"perfect\" and to leverage support tools, if necessary, like a folded blanket or a yoga block, to assist you into getting into a version of a pose that's right for you, at that moment.\n\nTACTIC 2: CULTIVATING STILLNESS\n\nThere are several ways I want you to think about the tactic of cultivating stillness. At the physical level, let's picture you in the midst of performing a sequence of poses in your morning ritual. You will transition from pose to pose with a flowing style of movement. But in the full expression of the pose, we will take a few moments, measured with the breath, to practice stillness where we focus on being mindfully present. An example is when we hold the Downward-Facing Dog (aka Downward Dog or Down Dog) position for 8 or 10 breaths.\n\nAnother way to employ this tactic is the more advanced skill of finding stillness while moving. This is a place where we refrain from any mental and emotional distractions and sink our awareness into the movement itself. We aren't wondering about our ability to do the pose, or checking out the other students. Our mind is fully merged with the action; subject and object become one, experienced as embodied presence and stillness while moving. This deep internal awareness helps to unlock that flow state described earlier. A third way that we practice this tactic is in seated box breathing, visualization, and meditation drills. Even though our bodies are seemingly in a still position, there's still a lot of motion (i.e., our breathing patterns, fidgeting, and thinking of things you don't want or need to think about). During these sessions we want to pay attention to the motion in body, mind, and emotions, and strive to move toward stillness.\n\nTACTIC 3: BREATH CONTROL\n\nBreath control training will change your body and mind in remarkably positive ways. It will tune your nervous system and allow you to activate the parasympathetic or sympathetic nervous systems at will, helping you to perform in a stressful environment or to excel in competition. It will also place in your toolbox an immediate action drill to calm and focus your mind when necessary. Breath control training creates another \"aha\" moment for all of my students. It is so powerful and impacts you so quickly that you will wonder why such an important skill was kept from us our entire lives. I have selected some simple, yet profound, breathing practices to jump-start your training.\n\n3-Part Breath\n\nThe first is to retrain the way we breathe from the ground up, or should I say the belly up. We will segment the breath into three parts to develop a new pattern of deep diaphragmatic breathing, one that utilizes our entire lung capacity. I call this the \"3-Part Breath.\" To begin, place your hand on your belly, and take a deep inhalation through the nose. Picture your belly as if it were a balloon, and as you breathe in, inflate the belly balloon. Stop when your belly is fully extended, before you activate your diaphragm to deepen the breath even further.\n\nNow when you exhale, blow all air out from the balloon through your nose while drawing the belly button back toward your spine; this will help you expunge all the remaining air. Repeat this first step 3 times. Okay, after 3 cycles, on the following inhalation, fill the belly up with air as in step one, but when the belly feels full, use your diaphragm to draw in more air, expanding the rib cage. Now when you expunge the breath, start with the air in the rib cage by allowing the ribs to compress back together, and then expel the remaining air from the belly. Repeat this second step a total of 3 times. The final stage of the 3-Part Breath is to once again fill the belly and activating the diaphragm to bring air into the rib cage, then you're going to top things off by expanding your rib cage and filling your chest all the way up to the collarbone with more air. Your upper chest will rise with expansion; the lungs will be completely full. You will note an energizing effect from the pressure. The sequence on the exhale will go from the top down: start by expelling the air from the upper chest, then the rib cage, then the belly. Notice the flow of relaxation that floods into your body on the exhale. Use this drill a couple times a day until you get the hang of breathing this way normally.\n\n1:2 Breath\n\nThis breath control pattern is super simple and has the effect of calming you down and slowing your heart rate. This breathing technique uses a long, slow exhalation that triggers the parasympathetic, rest, and digest system into action. It counteracts your fight-or-flight system, which will calm down after just a few cycles. It is also a nice drill to begin to learn to control the duration of your inhale and exhale. It helps to practice this before you start to add holds such as with the box breathing drill.\n\nThe process is simply to exhale twice as long as you inhale. For instance, as you inhale through the nose using the full belly breath to a count of 3, you exhale out to a count of 6. Over time, as your skill increases, you can take it to a 4:8 or 5:10 and so on. To yield some dramatic improvements with the 1:2 Breath, try a 30-day challenge of practicing it for 10 minutes each day. This is a great breathing pattern to use when in a stressful situation to gain control over your body and mind.\n\nBox Breathing\n\nThe third breathing tactic will add a retention of the breath after inhale and exhale. This is my favorite breathing practice due to the powerful effect it has after only a short time of practicing. I gave it the name box breathing when I started doing it back in 2002 because of the four-sided pattern of the practice. It is something you can do anywhere and anytime you are not performing a highly complex task. I practice it in my morning ritual, before a workout, while standing in line, stuck in traffic, and whenever else I can. Along with training more powerful breathing musculature, it slows down the rate that you breathe and deepens your concentration skills. When you perform box breathing, even for 5 minutes, you are left with a deeply calm body and an alert, focused state of mind.\n\nTo begin the practice, expel all of the air from your chest. With empty lungs, retain this state for a 4-count hold. Press all the air out and then perform your inhalation, through the nose, to a count of 4. With the lungs full, hold for a count of 4. When you hold the breath, do not clamp down and create back pressure. Rather, maintain an expansive, open feeling even though you are not inhaling. When ready, release the hold and allow the exhale to flow out smoothly through your nose to a count of 4. This is one circuit of the box breathing practice. I recommend you do it for a minimum of 5 minutes, and no more than 20 minutes. I have found that the best approach is to do a single, dedicated practice of 10 to 20 minutes a day, then do a few 1- or 2-minute \"spot drills\" as opportunities present themselves during the day. Box breathing with this 4-4-4-4 ratio has a neutral energetic effect: It's not going to charge you up or put you into a sleepy relaxed state. But it will, as mentioned, make you very alert and grounded, ready for action. As your breathing threshold improves you can increase the duration of the ratio, such as 5-5-5-5 and so on.\n\nThreshold Training\n\nWould you like to increase the threshold of your lung capacity? Your breathing threshold is the duration of a complete breathing cycle, including any holds. It is determined by a few factors, such as the power of your breathing musculature, your lung capacity (volume of air they can hold), and the efficiency of gas transfer dictated by the strength of your heart's cardiac output (heart rate and stroke volume). If you have a threshold of 4 seconds then you are breathing 15 breaths per minute. Up to 20 cycles per minute is common, but don't read that as healthy. After years of practice, I now average 4 to 6 breaths per minute when not paying attention, and have a threshold of 55 seconds for a single breath, meaning I don't get winded or agitated with a 55 second breath count over a minimum of 12 cycles. The yoga masters believed that the human life span was determined by the number of breaths taken. According to them, slowing your breathing down would lengthen your life span. I don't know about you, but I am in\u2014at 4 breaths per minute versus 16 I should live 4 times as long! At any rate, my experience is that slowing your breathing rate down is very healthy and I think you will find this to be true for yourself as well.\n\nLet's begin threshold training with a ratio of 1:2:2:1. So a 3-second inhale, 6-second hold, 6-second exhale, and a 3-second hold is a 18-count breath threshold, assuming you can repeat this cycle comfortably a minimum of 12 times in a row. This would be just shy of three breaths per minute, which is a good target to work toward. For those who need to really extend your threshold, such as SEAL trainees, you will want to work toward a 60-second threshold. Note that you will be able to hold your breath longer in one-off situations when you prepare with sustained deep breathing and meditation. **Warning: never practice breath-hold training in the water alone.** I know it sounds obvious, but some special ops trainees have foolishly tried this and are not alive to read this book as a result.\n\nTACTIC 4: FUNCTIONAL CONDITIONING\n\nThis tactic is one of the unique aspects of Kokoro Yoga\u2014where we combine simple functional movements from SEALFIT training into an asana (pose) practice. This combination truly does turn the yoga session into an integrated workout. We should consider traditional yoga poses to be functional movements, (when done properly) but adding a module of interval exercises to your training session, such as with the Fit Warrior sequence, will build work capacity, strength, stamina, and durability. You may recall from chapter 1 that this is exactly what I did in Baghdad\u2014adding 20-minute circuits of burpees, push-ups, jumping jacks, and Mountain Climbers in the middle of my yoga session. Another quick example: add a sequence of 20 sets of 5 push-ups, then 10 sets of 10 squats, and 5 sets of 20 sit-ups to break up your overall routine. In Appendix A, I share more sample functional workouts that you can use to employ this tactic. If this training inspires you and you have not been exposed to SEALFIT, I encourage you to check out my companion book, _8 Weeks to SEALFIT,_ to learn a more challenging functional training regimen.\n\nTACTIC 5: COMBAT CONDITIONING\n\nThis tactic brings yoga back to it's martial roots. I believe that a warrior must have a basic understanding of how to defend oneself. The foundation for self-defense is your mind, but it also requires the ability to make a weapon out of your body. Then you strike a desired target on another human being with those weapons if the need calls. Though Kokoro Yoga is not meant to be a martial art in the traditional sense, this tactic provides a fun and effective means to develop your punching and kicking weapons. You will get your heart rate up for a sustained period and break a good sweat, and you don't need a black belt to add this to your routine. If you can throw a punch and launch a kick, I hereby declare you ready to include the combat conditioning tactic to your practice.\n\nA sample session would look like this: After a sequence of standing poses, you will insert 10 snap kicks with your right leg, then 10 left, followed by 10 punches with your right fist, and then 10 punches left. Next, you move on to some more complex combinations, or go back to your asana, then do it again a few more times during the training session. The possibilities are endless while being very empowering and fun. In Appendix B you will find more details on the movements and potential combinations.\n\nTACTIC 6: AWARENESS AND RELAXATION\n\nAwareness and relaxation work comes at the end of the session. With this tactic, your whole focus will turn inward with a full-body scan and breathing exercise that will prepare you for a meditation and visualization to mark the end of a session. The relaxation will help to integrate all of the benefits of the training session. As we do this, our internal sense of awareness deepens, leading to more sensitivity, composure, and depth. Recall the first strategy of developing a personal ethos? Well, deepening awareness is one way to gain insight into our deepest yearnings, leading to important growth...when we are ready.\n\nThis particular tactic is usually performed while in the Resting Pose (aka Dead Man Pose), though it can also be done in a seated meditation pose. With your eyes closed, you'll scan your body from toes to head, searching out pockets of tension, discomfort, and lingering emotions. The idea is not to judge these items but rather tune into each with neutral awareness. I should mention that this tactic is also a great place to work on your emotional development. As you scan you may notice emotions, and can take a few moments to explore the emotion in a detached way, examining the roots of the emotion. Now shift to a seated meditation position and move your awareness up your body, take time to pause at each of the six energy \"cakra\" centers:\n\nROOT: located at the base of your spine, associated with security and groundedness.\n\nSACRAL: located about 3 inches above the root in your lower abdomen, below the navel, near the sacrum, associated with creativity.\n\nBELLY: located just behind the belly button, associated with feelings of personal power.\n\nHEART: located near the solar plexus and heart, associated with empathy and connecting to others.\n\nTHROAT: located in the throat region behind the Adam's apple, associated with sincere communication.\n\nBROW: the third eye, so to speak, in the center head above cervical spine, associated with insight and wisdom.\n\nCROWN: located at the top of the head, associated with universal connection and intelligence.\n\nAfter this, take time to be aware of the surroundings and connect with the energy all around you.\n\nTACTIC 7: CONCENTRATION AND MEDITATION\n\nConcentration and meditation form another crucial tactic, and though they may sound one and the same, from the outside, there is a distinct difference in what is going on inside. Concentration is the skill of being able to maintain deep focus on one thing for long periods of time. It is one of the skills you are working on during your pose sequences and breathing exercises, where you are absorbed in a single, specific thing, rather than letting the mind run. As mentioned, daily asana and box breathing drills are tremendous at improving your concentration. When you are concentrating, you are deeply engaged in observing the object of attention, so that you can maintain that focus for long periods of time without distraction. Concentrating with this depth is particularly useful for creative work, reading, problem-solving, or observing a target. In concentration your eyes will be focused intently, and your center of consciousness is in your critical thinking mind. Even if just practicing box breathing, you are focused intently on the breathing pattern, the quality of the breath, and the experience itself.\n\nMeditation differs in that you will observe an object, a mantra, or some concept with complete absorption and presence, not using your critical thinking mind, rather allowing for direct perception to occur. Ultimately you will sense a merging with the object of your attention. This is a good place to mention that your mind works in five distinct ways: critical thinking (judging, analyzing, deciding), direct perception (just observing and knowing things without judging), imagining things, accessing memory, and dreaming. Interestingly, the way you use your eyes and the region of your brain that is active differs with each mode. When you meditate your eyes will be closed, or if open they will be soft, wide, and not focused. When you concentrate your eyes are piercing, focused.\n\nThe practice of meditation is difficult but, ironically, practicing a form of concentration first makes it easier. That is because training your mind in concentration allows us to collapse the myriad of thoughts to just one or two and helps us to still the active mind. When we begin to meditate we are less distracted. Within a few months of consistent concentration practice, you will note that you are more present. Your mind has developed resistance to being swept away with worries and distractions. You will begin to identify with the witnessing part of you, rather than with the thoughts themselves.\n\nNot all meditation is focused on an object, mantra, or concept. In mindful meditation, an adaptation of a Buddhist meditative practice, we seek a state of non-judging awareness where sensory input, such as a car honking its horn or a thought of an important task, is noticed without judgment, attachment, and upending our equanimity. We just notice the disturbance and instantly let it go. As we get into higher and higher stages of meditation, we are able to shut down the noise of the mind entirely and rest in a deeply absorbed state. At that level of progress you will begin to experience shibumi, which was described in the last chapter. You will want to experiment with objects of concentration and forms of meditation to determine what is best for your personality and stage of development. Seeking guidance from an expert is very helpful with this tactic.\n\nTACTIC 8: VISUALIZATION\n\nI have relied on visualization practice since I used it to both get into and through the rigorous SEAL training back in 1990. With Kokoro Yoga we strive to train the brain's ability to create and hold imagery so that we can imagine, then see with clarity, something we desire to achieve in the future, or to learn from in the past. This tactic specifically works on your mental and wisdom dimensions. With visualization we can create imagery for an intended purpose, and repeatedly revisit said imagery to develop a skill, heal, gain insights on something, or to develop confidence and momentum toward completing a goal. A familiar and powerful use of visualization training is to prepare for a competition by visualizing your best performance, whether real or imagined. This practice will cut a mental, emotional, and nervous system groove upon which to follow as you perform. Research has proven that most skills can be improved through visualization. For example, imagining perfect technique in successful free throw basketball shots, we can markedly enhance the development of that skill.\n\nI'd like to emphasize some of the more important uses for visualization work. As alluded to, I first employed this tactic when I was preparing for Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL training. For 9 months I spent time daily visualizing myself as a Navy SEAL, as having successfully completed the program, and wearing the SEAL Trident. The visualization slowly rendered within me an overwhelming level of belief that I was destined to be a SEAL. By the time I arrived in Coronado to begin the training, I had already won in my mind. The training was familiar and I had a deep sense of confidence that I would succeed. Nothing could get in my way, and I credit the visualization training for reinforcing my mental toughness and resiliency. Visualization practice can sow seeds deep within to help you achieve goals, develop healthy self-esteem, and untangle psychological blocks. I have also seen its effectiveness in treating PTSD and emotional abuse. There are several visualization exercises described in chapter 6 to get you started. This tactic is typically employed at the close of a training session, but can also be done as a stand-alone drill.\n\nTACTIC 9: SPOT DRILLS\n\nKokoro Yoga is designed for busy individuals who may at first wonder how they're going to jam yet another activity into their already overwrought schedules. This ninth tactic will allow you to integrate several drills into a single ritual or workout, and to do your training \"on the spot\" in the many free spots that open up during the day. This tactic also comes from my original experience in Baghdad. Time was extremely limited\u2014I had to skip breakfast for training in the first place. But during the long days and nights, I would still get physically fatigued, mentally cluttered, or emotionally charged. So I relied on spot drills to get back into balance and maintain a link with my integrated training. Bottom line, if you can breathe, then you can train! Most of the drills take just 1 or 2 minutes, and even on the most hectic days you can be innovative and locate a few minutes here or there that might otherwise go wasted. Waiting in line, browsing the net, driving your car, visiting the restroom, on board an airplane\u2014if you aren't engaged in a conversation, you can be doing a 1-minute (or longer) movement, breathing, concentration, memory, mental agility, or visualization practice. When flying, there's no harm in going to the back of the cabin and figuring out a pose or two that you can do. At the office, set your alarm so that on the hour, you take a minute to do a Sun Salutation or box breathing. Develop the habit of choosing 2 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon. Here are a few ideas to get you started:\n\n Short breathing drill\n\n Sun Salutation A\n\n 1 minute of mindful awareness meditation\n\n 1-minute body scan\n\n What wolf are you feeding? check-in. Ask if you are in a positive frame of mind or stuck in the negative. If positive, reinforce it. If negative, interdict and redirect to positive.\n\n Recite a powerful mantra or affirmation. My favorite: \"Feeling good, looking good, oughta be in Hollywood.\"\n\n Listen to an empowering podcast.\n\n Read a poem, bible verse, or a paragraph in an inspiring book.\n\n Visualize the alphabet in large, neon letters, drawing each letter mentally.\n\n Use a brain-training app for mental speed, agility, and improving memory.\n\n Ask what you are grateful for.\n\n Chant.\n\n Express gratitude to a coworker, spouse, child, or boss.\n\n Smile for a full minute.\n\n Laugh out loud for a while\u2014laughing yoga is a powerful positive boost and a blast!\n\nSpot drilling is a habit that you can weave into your life. After all, life is just a big training ground. Over time, these spot drills will accelerate and compound your training, making a profound difference in your life.\n\nTACTIC 10: AUSTERE AND TRAVEL TRAINING\n\nI've included this tactic because I want you to realize, first of all, you don't need spandex pants, a yoga studio, or $300 of equipment to practice Kokoro Yoga. And second\u2014as indicated in the previous tactic\u2014no matter how busy you are or how much you travel, the original nature of yoga was to be versatile so that you can make any location suitable for a great training session. If you have 5 minutes to an hour, and access to any open space, you are good to go. As far as yoga studios, getting outside has myriad perks. A nature trail is a wonderful place to do your practice. I personally love to step away from the gym and go down to the beach to train among the waves and seagulls. When traveling, the airport concourse and the patch of free space in front of my hotel bed are my studios.\n\nAs far as equipment, you really don't need much\u2014even a yoga mat is a luxury sometimes. Ninety-nine percent of what you need is carried on your body and between your ears. Straps, blocks, or towels are easy to come by and a meditation bench is easy to make. For functional fitness equipment I encourage you to scrounge through your garage or basement to find things to pick up and move that will serve you well. If you want to buy the gear go ahead, but it can also be fun to employ the austerity measure of this tactic and improvise to overcome. If austere training is new, it may surprise you to learn just how fun and challenging training with a bag of sand can be!\n\nBottom line: This training allows for no excuses. Now let's learn the classic poses and get moving.\n\n# CHAPTER 5\n\n# CORE SEQUENCES\n\n_Watching [Norman]do his practice was like watching an Olympic gymnast work out._ \n\u2013BERYL BENDER BIRCH, DESCRIBING HIS FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ASHTANGA YOGA IN 1955\n\nKOKORO YOGA HAS STEADILY EVOLVED OVER THE YEARS SINCE ITS INCEPTION IN THE CARGO HOLD OF MY C-130 FLIGHT TO A WAR ZONE. THROUGH THIS DEVELOPMENT PERIOD I HAVE CONTINUED TO EDUCATE MYSELF IN THE PHILOSOPHY AND THE PRACTICE OF THE ANCIENT ARTS AND DEVELOPED PROGRAMS TO ASSIST OTHERS IN LEARNING. MY DRIVE HAS BEEN TO INSPIRE OTHERS TO LIVE BY A PERSONAL ETHOS AND DEVELOP A DISCIPLINED TRAINING IN THE FIVE MOUNTAINS\u2014Both of which are anchored in the ancient yoga traditions as well as elite modern warrior training. Personal development of this nature closes the openings of our weaknesses and leverages our strengths, ultimately balancing physical, mental, emotional, intuitional, and spiritual aspects of our lives. This chapter will delve into the actual training routines called sequences. Here you will learn the core sequences to employ in your daily lives as you develop your own training plan and personal practice.\n\nTRAINING AND PRACTICE\n\nTo experience the full benefits of a practice, one must select a training regimen with appropriate tools, and practice daily, weekly, and monthly. Often the training is just referred to as \"practice\" \u2014Ashtanga Yoga founder Sri K. Pattabhi Jois reminds us that: \"Yoga is 99% practice, 1% theory\" and \"practice, and all else is coming!\" The effective employment of yoga requires that we understand and properly employ the training methods, as well as develop a personal practice suitable to our lives. Training methods will be discussed in this chapter, and developing a personal practice will be the focus of chapter 8.\n\nTraining and practice are definitely related and are often used synonymously, but they are different concepts. As mentioned, training refers to a regimen, a method, and also an event, such as a training session or seminar. Training covers strategies, tactics, and tools available for practitioners of the system of development. It is highly unlikely that a practitioner will use all of the strategies, tactics, and tools available. Rather, he or she will select the appropriate ones for them and construct a training regimen to meet their specific objectives. This is where training begins to overlap with the concept of a personal practice. Even though two people may be using the same tools and similar training regimen, they will each approach it in an individualized manner of personal practice. Rather than just pulling a sequence or drill out of a box and doing it for a training session, you will select those most appropriate for your life situation and weave them into a daily, weekly, and monthly practice that supports and improves your lifestyle. That is why it is called a personal practice\u2014it is deeply personal to you and no two personal practices are the same.\n\nAt any rate, in deciding how to construct your training plan you will begin with your intentional needs (which will change over time), your fitness level (which will also evolve), and your work\/life situation. So rather than just showing up randomly at a yoga studio and getting your sweat on, you ask yourself: What is my intention with the practice overall and for this particular period of my life. This includes what warrior archetype you seek to develop further. For example, my stepdaughter Catherine, who leads our teacher training program and has coauthored this book, answers this question with: \"I am a warrior of peace, and it is my intention to spread love into the world through my teaching and personal practice.\" Catherine's deep experience teaching and practicing yoga and meditation brings a gentle side to her warrior archetype. She organizes her training to support that archetype and development. It includes a selection of gentle and restorative sequences, meditation, and Ashtanga and Viniyoga skills.\n\nMy training plan differs because as a retired SEAL and teacher of warriors, I strive to remain grounded in the combat warrior way as well as develop my kokoro spirit. I need to be a protector and ready for battle at all times. I strive to ride my razor's edge so I can always lead by example. I do this to stay true to my stand and align with my purpose of mastering myself so I can serve and inspire others. My principles include earning my trident of respect every day, so I endeavor for daily improvement. All of this is in search of continuous, conscious evolution that will help me authentically serve others in their own journey. To support my training I do the morning and evening rituals every day, as well as teach or perform the more rigorous Protective Warrior and Fit Warrior sequences once or twice a week. I also train with box breathing, meditation, my mantra, and visualization once or more times a day. We will look at how Catherine and I organize these training methods into our personal practice in chapter 8.\n\nSEQUENCING\n\nSequences are one of the primary tools of an effective yoga system. Sequences combine poses, breathing methods, functional fitness, combat conditioning moves, visualization and meditation into focused and intentional training regimens. Recall that sequencing the movements into an intelligent flow, that fulfills a distinct purpose, is the first strategy of Kokoro Yoga. Learning to sequence effectively takes many years of experience, so we have designed sequences for you that meet the most common applications of a personal practice. One sequence will challenge the elite warrior, another will appeal to the peaceful warrior and yet another will support the warrior in need of psychological and spiritual recovery. Applying the right sequence at the right moments in your training plan, and in life, is potent medicine.\n\nWhat follows are select sequences to get you started on your journey. Please explore them with the intuitive sense of your needs and let experience be your guide. It is a good idea to review the pose descriptions and pictures in chapter 7 before trying out these sequences.\n\n# The Core Sequences\n\nThe core sequences are practice sessions of varying length that meet specific training objectives. Your objectives will vary, but we wanted to cover a few that every healthy practitioner can benefit from.\n\nI am particularly excited to offer a sequence for warriors recovering from intense stress or career-related psychological wounds. I have no doubt about the value of this sequence in assisting wounded warriors to recover and find balance and peace again.\n\nThe sequences are included in written form at the end of this chapter, but it is awkward to describe the sequences themselves with words. Therefore we have included photos (with accompanying captions) to help visually demonstrate the pose\/sequence.\n\nIn each of the core sequences the poses are linked with the breath. Additionally some poses are held for a set number of breaths (indicated in the written version). One of the distinctions of Kokoro Yoga is the adaptable nature of the poses, so that even a beginner can do any of the sequences by modifying: Some pose modifications are shown.\n\nPeaceful Warrior\n\nThe Peaceful Warrior is approximately 45 minutes long and will take you deep into an inner state of peace and leave you feeling very grounded. It will provide a moderate level of endurance training and has a broad focus on spinal and joint health as well as energetic alignment. Bring your Peaceful Warrior attitude to this practice.\n\nSEATED MEDITATION\u2014SET INTENTION\n\nPW1\n\nALTERNATE NOSTRIL BREATHING\n\nPW2\n\nPW3\n\nPW4\n\nCAT COW ROTATION\n\nPW5\n\nPW6\n\nDOWNWARD DOG\n\nTRANSITION BACK TO DOWN DOG\n\nPW7\n\nKNEELING WARRIOR\u2014EACH SIDE\n\nPW8\n\nWIDE ANGLE FORWARD FOLD\n\nPW9\n\nROLL UP TO STANDING\n\nPW10\n\nBRINGING DOWN THE HEAVENS 3X\n\nPW11A\n\nSUN SALUTATION A\u20142X\n\nPW11b\n\nWARRIOR 1\n\nPW12\n\nWARRIOR 2\n\nPW13\n\nSIDE ANGLE POSE\n\nPW14\n\nEXALTED WARRIOR\n\nPW15\n\nPW16\n\nPW17\n\nPUSH-UP PLANK\n\nUPWARD-FACING DOG\n\nPW18\n\nDOWNWARD DOG\n\nREPEAT LEFT SIDE\n\nPW19\n\nSHARP WARRIOR\n\nPW20\n\nSUN SALUTATION A\n\nPW21\n\nMODIFICATION\n\nTREE POSE\n\nPW22\n\nDANCER POSE\n\nPW23\n\nSUN SALUTATION A TO DOWNWARD DOG\u2014THEN COME TO A SEAT\n\nPW24\n\nSEATED FORWARD FOLD\n\nPW25\n\nTABLETOP\n\nPW26\n\nCLEANSING WARRIOR (EACH SIDE)\n\nPW27\n\nPW28\n\nPW29\n\nBRIDGE OR WHEEL\u20142X\n\nRECLINED PIGEON (EACH SIDE)\n\nPW30\n\nHAPPY BABY POSE\n\nPW31\n\nHEALTHY WARRIOR\n\nPW32\n\nBUTTERFLY 1 AND 2\n\nPW33\n\nRECLINED WARRIOR POSE\n\nPW34\n\nRESTING POSE\n\nPW35\n\nSEATED MEDITATION\u2014REVISIT INTENTION AND BREATH\n\nCOMPASSION AND PEACE MEDITATION\n\nPW36\n\nZen Warrior\n\nThe Zen Warrior is a moderately challenging 30-minute long sequence. It will cultivate strength, flexibility, and enhance your ability to access a moving meditative state. It covers the standing warrior poses and breathing exercises, as well as some nice core development, backbends, and spinal twists. Most importantly, bring your serene and victorious warrior attitude into this practice. Use the time to sharpen your mental sword and find victory in your mind, like the samurai on the Zen bench prior to battle. Breath awareness is a key to maintain throughout the practice, as it will help awaken the flow state.\n\nMOUNTAIN POSE\n\n(5X 1\u20132 BREATHS)\n\nZW1\n\nSUN SALUTATION A\u20143X\n\nZW2\n\nSUN SALUTATION B\u20143X\n\nZW3\n\nBRINGING DOWN THE HEAVENS\n\nZW4\n\nKICKING WARRIOR\n\nZW5\n\nMOUNTAIN POSE\n\nZW6\n\nARCHER WARRIOR\n\nZW7\n\nSCOOPING THE MOON\n\nZW8\n\nWARRIOR MUSASHI\n\nZW9\n\nSUN SALUTATION A\n\nZ10\n\nDOWNWARD DOG\u2014COME TO KNEES\n\nMODIFIED\n\nFULL POSE\n\nCAMEL\n\nZ11\n\nRECLINED WARRIOR POSE\n\nZW12\n\nWISE WARRIOR TWIST\n\nZW13\n\nROCK BACK AND FORTH TO STANDING\n\nZW14\n\nZW15\n\nSUN SALUTATION A TO PUSH-UP\u2014LOWER ONTO BELLY\n\nZW15\n\n1-ARM LOCUST\u2014EACH SIDE\n\nZW16\n\nLOCUST\n\nZW17\n\nBOW\n\nZW18\n\nREVERSE PUSH-UP\n\nZW19\n\nPUSH-UP\u20145X\n\nZW20\n\nUP DOG OR COBRA\n\nZW21\n\nGRATEFUL WARRIOR\n\nZW22\n\nCOW\n\nZW23\n\nCAT\n\nZW24\n\nZW25\n\nRESTING POSE\n\nFOLLOW WITH STRENGTH AND GROUNDING MEDITATION\n\nZW26\n\nFit Warrior\n\nThe length of this sequence depends upon how long you do the functional fitness module. It is typically about a 45-minute dynamic flow with an intense interval-training component. It is definitely on the challenging end of the spectrum but can be scaled according to your needs. The session will take you deep inside your mental training space, while providing a kick-ass, fun workout to supplement your functional fitness training. This is a great sequence to use if you are a road warrior with limited access to weights and other tools; it is excellent for women who don't want to \"throw weights around\"; and for beginners or older trainees who are uncomfortable with weighted training. This sequence can be performed in two ways. This first is where the fitness segments are inserted into the middle as a distinct module. The second is to add the fitness movements throughout the sequence between the yoga poses, such as doing 10 push-ups after every other Up Dog, or 20 squats between the transition from one side to the other on warrior poses. Appendix B has a number of exercise combinations to choose from, or you can let your intuition guide you!\n\nFW1\n\nFW2\n\nCOW\n\nFW3\n\nCAT\n\nFW3\n\nREPEAT OTHER SIDE\n\nDOG DOWN\n\nFW4\n\nFORWARD FOLD\n\nFW5\n\nMOUNTAIN\n\nFW5\n\nSUN SALUTATION AX2\n\nFW6\n\nSUN SALUTATION AX2\n\nFW7\n\nTRIANGLE\n\nFW8\n\nTWISTED TRIANGLE\n\nFW9\n\nSHARP WARRIOR\n\nFW10\n\nFW11\n\nFW11\n\nWIDE ANGLE FORWARD FOLD\n\nFW12\n\nFW12\n\nTWISTED WIDE ANGLE FORWARD FOLD\n\nMOUNTAIN\u2014REPEAT SEQUENCE ON LEFT SIDE\n\nFW12\n\nFIT MODULE X3\n\nFW13\n\nFit Module\n\nFM1\n\nFM2\n\nFM3\n\n10 BURPEES\n\nFM4\n\nFM5\n\nFM6\n\nFM7\n\n20 JUMPING SQUATS\n\nFM8\n\nFM9\n\nFM10\n\n20 MOUNTAIN CLIMBERS\n\nFM11\n\nFM12\n\nFLUTTER KICKS\n\nFM13\n\nFM14\n\n20 SIT-UPS\n\nFM15\n\nFM16\n\n20 PUSH-UPS\n\nSCOOPING FOR THE MOON\n\nFW14\n\nFIGHTING WARRIOR\n\nFW15\n\nBRINGING DOWN THE HEAVENS\n\nFW16\n\nDOWN DOG\n\nFW17\n\nPIGEON\n\nFW18\n\nCAMEL\n\nFW19\n\nCOW\n\nFW20\n\nCAT\n\nFW20\n\nCLEANSING WARRIOR\n\nFW21\n\nHEALTHY WARRIOR\n\nFW22\n\nBACK ALIGNMENT\n\nFW22\n\nBRIDGE\n\nFW23\n\nRESTING POSE\n\nFW24\n\nSEATED MEDITATION\n\nFW25\n\nBOX BREATHING 3-6-6-3 5X\n\nFW26\n\nFighting Warrior\n\nThis sequence is about 45 minutes to an hour long and is as challenging as the Fit Warrior but differs in that it uses combat conditioning movements instead of functional exercises for the exercise part. This allows us to get a great \"cardio\" workout while practicing our strikes and kicks. (See the appendix for a description of the fight moves.) This sequence is excellent for anyone with fighting skills, or who enjoys cardio kickboxing.\n\nYou will bring a fighting-warrior attitude, as if you were in a sensitive situation and you will need to \"bring it\" to solve it. Visualizing an opponent during the sequences develops our visual acuity. As with Fit Warrior, there are two ways to perform this sequence type. The first is to sprinkle in the fight moves between the yoga poses, and the second is to do the standing poses to warm up, then do the fight sequences altogether, and finally finish with the seated poses. Both are equally effective, but the first keeps your heart rate down in an endurance training zone, while the latter ramps it up to an intensity zone. Choose whichever suits your needs and get busy! You don't need to be an experienced martial artist to have a blast with this sequence.\n\nBOX BREATHING 5X5\n\nFGW1\n\nSUN SALUTATION A\n\nFGW2\n\nWARRIOR 1 WITH BREATH\n\nFGW3\n\nCHOPPING WOOD\n\nFGW4\n\nWARRIOR BREATH\u2014100X\n\nFGW5\n\nPUNCHING WARRIOR\u201420X EACH SIDE\n\nFGW6\n\nKICKING WARRIOR\u201420X EACH SIDE\n\nFGW7\n\nCOMBINATION MODULE OF KICK AND PUNCH\u201420X EACH SIDE\n\nFGW8\n\nMOUNTAIN POSE\u20145 BREATHS\n\nFGW9\n\nSUN SALUTATION A\n\nFGW10\n\nBREATH OF FIRE\n\nFGW11\n\nVICTORIOUS WARRIOR VISUALIZATION\u2014EITHER STANDING OR SITTING\n\nFGW12\n\nJedi Warrior\n\nThis sequence is 20 minutes long utilizing breathing and movements from the Chinese \"warrior-yoga\" art of Qigong, with select poses to support joint mobility and structure, while also enhancing our energetic body's health. Like many martial arts, we will experience this work at the physical level before experiencing it at the subtle energy level. This sequence is great for internal organ health as well as muscular strength and conditioning. Over time this sequence will train deeper awareness, and the attitude is that of one seeking mastery, much like the Jedi Knight training of Luke Skywalker in the movie _Star Wars_.\n\nBOX BREATHING 5X5\u2014SET INTENTION\n\nJW1\n\nROM DRILLS\n\nJW2\n\nSUN SALUTATION A\u20142X\n\nJW3\n\nSUN SALUTATION B\u20142X\n\nJW4\n\nPLANK\u2014HOLD FOR 30 SECONDS\n\nJW5\n\nWINDMILL\n\nJW6\n\nQIGONG OR \"WATER MILL\" FORWARD FOLD\u20143 MINUTES\n\nJW7\n\nKI-UB\n\nJW8\n\nJW8\n\nWIDE ANGLE FORWARD FOLD\n\nJW9\n\nSUN SALUTATION A\n\nJW10\n\nPLANK\u2014HOLD FOR 1 TO 3 MINUTES\n\nJW11\n\nDOWNWARD DOG\n\nJW12\n\nEXALTED WARRIOR\u2014EACH SIDE\n\nJW13\n\nJW14\n\nPUSH-UP\u2014HOLD FOR 5 BREATHS\n\nJW15\n\nDOWNWARD DOG\n\nJW16\n\nFORWARD FOLD\u20145 BREATHS\u2014ROLL UP TO STANDING\n\nJW17\n\nHORSE STANCE\u2014HOLD FOR 3 TO 5 MINUTES\n\nJW18\n\n9 BREATHS\u20143 SETS\n\n1. RELAX \n2. SELF-HEALING VISUALIZATION \n3. GRATITUDE\n\nJW19\n\nMOUNTAIN POSE\u2014REVISIT INTENTION\n\nJW20\n\nSEATED OR STANDING MEDITATION\u2014JEDI WARRIOR VISUALIZATION\n\nJW21\n\nAgeless Warrior\n\nThis sequence is a comprehensive and balanced series of poses designed to optimize spinal and energetic health for longevity. _The focus is vitality, balance, and inspiration._ The universality of being ageless is to embody devotion to a greater cause than oneself, focus to execute tasks at any phase of life, and gratitude for the challenges and blessings that life brings to one as they walk the path of a warrior. Do this sequence once or twice a week and use the future me visualization to help you move toward your ageless self.\n\nBOX BREATHING \u20141:2:2:1 (5X)\n\nAW1\n\nOPENING THE BOOK OF WISDOM (WHILE IN MOUNTAIN POSE)\n\nAW2\n\nWARRIOR 1 WITH BREATH 5X\n\nAW3\n\nWARRIOR 2 WITH BREATH 5X (ARMS STRAIGHT BY EARS)\n\nAW4\n\nWARRIOR 2 (WITH BACK PALM UP)\n\nAW5\n\nEXALTED WARRIOR\n\nAW6\n\nSIDE ANGLE POSE\n\nAW7\n\nWIDE ANGLE POSE (TRANSITION TO OTHER SIDE AW1\u2013AW8)\n\nAW8\n\nTWISTED WIDE ANGLE\n\nAW9\n\nROLL UP TO STANDING\n\nAW10\n\nHORSE STANCE\u2014HOLD FOR 1 MINUTE\n\nAW11\n\nSUN SALUTATION A\n\nAW12\n\nSTANDING MEDITATION WITH FUTURE SELF IN PERFECT HEALTH VISUALIZATION\n\nAW13\n\nRecovering Warrior (PTSD)\n\nThis sequence is a 15-minute restorative practice with a heavy focus on breathing, imagery, and holding select poses for a long time. The practice is designed to restore balance to the nervous system and calm an agitated mind. The mental attitude and imagery is one of total health and healing of the body, mind, and spirit. Performing one of the meditation or visualization practices immediately after this sequence is important.\n\nRESTING POSE\u20141:2 OR 4:8 BREATH (10X)\n\nRW1\n\nCLEANSING WARRIOR\n\nRW2\n\nROCK BACK AND FORTH 3X TO ENERGIZE YOUR SPINE\n\nRW3A\n\nRECLINED PIGEON\u2014EACH SIDE\n\nRW3B\n\nBRIDGE\n\nRW4\n\nTABLETOP\n\nRW5\n\nRW6A\n\nRW6B\n\nSEATED FORWARD FOLD\n\nBUTTERFLY 1\n\nRW7\n\nBUTTERFLY 2\n\nRW8\n\nWISE WARRIOR\u2014EACH SIDE\n\nRW9\n\nRW10A\n\nRW10B\n\nSEATED FORWARD FOLD\n\nSEATED MEDITATION WITH ALTERNATE NOSTRIL BREATHING\n\nRW11\n\nSTILL WATER VISUALIZATION, \nFOLLOWED BY \"FUTURE ME\" IN PERFECT HEALTH\n\nRW12\n\nHip Mobility Drill\n\nThis sequence focuses on opening the hips, twisting the spine, and engaging the core to provide stability in the pelvic region. It is particularly useful if you have been hiking or rucking for long distances, or done any weighted squatting.\n\n**Each pose will be held for 3 to 5 breaths.**\n\nSUN SALUTATION A UNTIL DOWNWARD DOG\n\nRIGHT SIDE FIRST\n\nHMD1\n\nWARRIOR 1\n\nHMD2\n\nWARRIOR 2\n\nHMD3\n\nSIDE ANGLE POSE\n\nHMD4\n\nKNEELING WARRIOR, AKA ARCHER POSE\n\nHMD5\n\nTWISTING WARRIOR\n\nHMD6\n\nPIGEON\n\nHMD7\n\nPLANK\n\nHMD8\n\nPUSH-UP 5X\n\nHMD9\n\nUP DOG\n\nHMD10\n\nDOWNWARD DOG\n\nREPEAT ON LEFT SIDE\n\nHMD11\n\nMeditation and Visualization Practice\n\nMeditation is a key tactic in Kokoro Yoga. The overall progression of the training is meant to take you from the outer, externally focused physical level to the energetic, more internally focused breath\/prana level, and finally into the deep interior of your heart-mind through meditation and visualization. These two practices are closely related working hand in glove to develop your mind and access your heart for optimal performance and growth.\n\nLet's discuss meditation in more detail. Many in the West think meditation is just sitting quietly on a mat with eyes closed, or chanting a mantra. Another popular view is to follow a guided visualization using a CD or an app. These are valuable practices, for sure, but they represent the very beginning of your work. Ultimately meditation is a broad term for how we can use our inner mental skills to develop our heart-mind to better see truth, access wisdom, and experience love. There is a definite process to this though.\n\nAs mentioned earlier, the first step in the process is to deepen your concentration skills. Concentration is developed through the sequence practice, through breath control training, and through a practice whereby you deeply concentrate on one thing, such as an object or symbol. The object of focus can be external, such as a candle, a symbol like a cross, or an image like a yantra or mandala or a sunset. The object of focus can also be internally generated, such as focusing on the movement of breath, a count, sound, mantra, prayer, koan (thought question), scriptural verse, poem, or image. The best idea is to just choose something that is easy for you to focus on and deeply meaningful. The point of concentration practice is to train your thinking mind to be still. Over time you will be able to focus for long periods. This pays big dividends when it comes to achieving your goals in life. Concentration practice requires a deliberate effort and is typically done after a movement practice or as a stand-alone event.\n\nAs your concentration deepens, so does your awareness of what is going on around you and inside of you. You are now connecting to your perceiving mind, which knows without being taught something. Truth about nature is experienced through this part of your mind. The practice of mindfulness meditation is a nice tool to expand this growing awareness even more and to train your mind to click into a place of action instead of reaction. This technique can be used walking on the beach, washing dishes, or while shopping. It is a great way to extend your training throughout the day. The excuse of not having time to train falls apart when you consider that box breathing and mindfulness meditation can be performed almost anywhere and anytime.\n\nVisualization is meditation with imagery that you create and direct. Visualizing Jesus Christ while you meditate is an example. With Kokoro Yoga we want to develop our visual acuity and create powerful visions of our desired future states and accomplishments. We also use visualization to practice skills or to heal a wound. The power of visualization is awesome when the mind has been trained to concentrate and be still.\n\nPatanjali told us that the purpose of yoga is to develop control over your mind, so you can get control over your life. So after we can concentrate deeply and maintain presence, then what? Well, the mind will continue to grasp after material objects, concepts, beliefs, and desires. The grasper (us) gets confused with the thing being grasped and leads us continually to false identification with things we accomplish or things we think we control outside of ourselves, or those cherished beliefs we cling to. Identification with a career, spouse, role, fancy car, etc., are examples, and when they change, which is inevitable, we fall apart because we have identified with them as \"us.\" But none of the external things are us, and none of the beliefs or internal patterns are us, either. This always leads to suffering of some form or another, because none of these things last forever, and none of them has anything to do with who we really are.\n\nThe mind truly is a wily trickster, though. This instrument of perception of ours tricks us into thinking it is the boss, when in fact it works for your deeper self, your witnessing soul-centered self (recall the bliss layer from chapter 3). Insight, or self-reflection meditation is our method to disentangle the grasper from that which is grasped, and to clarify the mind so that it reflects reality clearly while serving you without complaint. This method is to have you meditate on your patterns and behavior and to work relentlessly to align with your spirit. You will reflect daily in meditation on alignment with your ethical stand and disciplines (recall the Yamas and Niyamas). Slowly you will be firmly seated in the driver's seat, steering your mind relentlessly toward your eternal witness's vision for your life's purpose. Your ego will be in its rightful place, retaining its healthy, positive qualities, dropping the negative and needy grasping for control. This final stage of meditation is how we develop into higher stages of healthy, integrated consciousness.\n\nThrough meditation practice we move from distraction to attention and then attention to understanding completely that which we concentrate on. You become a scientist studying the inner workings of your own human nature, and as your mind penetrates the inner workings of your own nature you begin to understand all of human nature. Information is exchanged between you and your object of focus, whether that is an image of Christ or your own disruptive patterns and you crack open your innate, intuitive intelligence. This stage of your development will bring great clarity and peace.\n\nBeginning Meditation Technique\n\nTo begin a meditation or visualization practice you can start with a simple breath awareness exercise. This can be done anywhere, at your desk or in bed when you wake up for instance. Simply close your eyes and pay attention to your breath for a few moments.\n\nIt is advisable to create a \"sacred space\" in your home where you can do your yoga training, especially the meditation part. Having this space and using it every day will help you to focus as you implement your personal practice. It will also help keep others in your family or tribe from distracting you (more on how to develop a personal practice in the last chapter).\n\nWhen you \"sit\" for meditation it is important that your spine is erect and not compressed in any way. The easiest way to accomplish this is to sit on the edge of a chair. Many think that there is some magic to sitting cross-legged on the floor. Not so\u2014the reason this was done was because there weren't many chairs around back in the day! If you do sit on the floor, then you can use a small zazen bench (which is what I use) or stack some pillows to sit on. To create the sacred feeling, it helps to create an \"altar\" of sorts with a meaningful picture and candle. Plenty of information is available on how to begin a meditation practice, so I won't belabor the point. Let's now take a glance at a few of the insight meditation practices.\n\nFull-Body Scan Stress Reduction\n\nSit comfortably, with your spine erect in such a way that it's as if a balloon is attached to the dome of your skull with a string, gently lengthening your spine upward. Your eyes can either be open or softly closed. Take a series of slow, deep breaths, and perform a light scan from the top of the skull downward, imagining a tingling flow of energy that relaxes you. Starting with the forehead, relax each section of your head and body with light attention, breathing into the awareness and exhaling tension. In this way, relax the muscles of the face, the neck, and the shoulders, observing the tension melt and drip away. Move through your chest, your abdomen, your lower back, and pelvic girdle, through to your upper legs, knees, and then lower legs. Finish with a scan of your feet, both the tops and the arches, and finally, the toes. Pay attention to the state of peace, relaxation, and energy that is now moving through you and in tune with your slow, deep breathing. Your body is completely relaxed; your mind is completely relaxed. Note that this relaxation sequence can be used for each of the visualization and meditation practices.\n\nNow picture yourself on a footpath that you've taken before, on a pristine, beautiful day, where you can feel the warmth of the sun on your face and the rustle of a breeze moving through your hair. Walk on the path and soak in the stunning beauty of the moment. Pause to pick up a rock from the path, bring it up to your nose, and smell the grounded earthiness of your path. Place it back down and continue walking around a bend where you see and hear a freshwater stream. Breathe in as you let your mind sink into the beauty and power of the pure blue water. Allow the stream to calm your mind, your spirit, your body. This will take you to a place (over a long consistent practice) of neutral, nonjudgmental observation. If a thought stirs, you greet it with, \"Not here, not now,\" and allow it to float away. It's in this place that you feel the witness expand with bliss and gratitude, an immense connection to everything and everyone. You allow a moment to soak in this deep, all-powerful silence.\n\nFuture Me\n\nWith the future me exercise, you are going to project a vision of your ideal self, at a point in the future, to build upon the connection with the internal witness and also carve a track for the subconscious to follow. The subconscious domain of your being cannot tell the difference between a real or an actual experience, so the more acute detail and emotional intensity you can pack this visualization with, the more effective it will be. The task here it to cultivate a powerful image of who you intend to become\u2014the warrior on the path of mastery, a year or several years down the road. The time really depends on where you are in your life. As an aspiring SEAL my future me visualization was 1 year out, when I earned the coveted SEAL Trident. Today my future me is 10 to 20 years out when I have fulfilled my current vision.\n\nWhen your mind is focused, after a short box breathing or body scan practice, conjure up a vision of a future version of yourself in the process of fulfilling your life purpose, or a momentous goal. You know that you have made it, having achieved a dream that required massive and dedicated action. You see it in full color with as much detail as possible, with real emotion. In this inner space you feel a humble acceptance, knowing you have aligned with your spirit and served a greater good. You're living in a highly tuned state of health and energy, and the goodness of the moment circulates with your blood. You feel fantastic and alive. This is the new you, now. Remain here for at least 5 minutes living the vision of your future self.\n\nReturning your attention to the breath, experience the grace of the moment with humble gratitude. You return to the present moment, opening your eyes, highly energized, confident, at peace, with all your senses firing, and with the imbedded sense of having accomplished something worthwhile and important.\n\nGrounding\n\nStarting out in a comfortable seat with your eyes closed, gaze softly within. The spine is in alignment and the core is engaged. There is a softness and relaxation in the jaw and shoulders, as you sit upright and engaged. Begin to tune your awareness to the breath. Notice how it feels to breathe in and out through the nose. Notice if there is more ease when you inhale or exhale. You are just noticing, not judging or trying to change anything. Now begin to intentionally smooth out the edges of the breath, match the length of inhale and exhale to a count of 5 on each side so that 1 round of breath takes 10 seconds. Focus on this until it feels natural and you are in a state of relaxation and expanded awareness. Now connect to the area in the pelvic floor and the base of the spine. Take a few conscious breaths into your pelvic bowl and begin to visualize a bright red ball of energy that is glowing and radiating healing. Visually create roots growing from this ball the width of your torso down into the earth. Allow the roots with each breath to grow deeper and deeper into the earth until you have reached the core center of this planet and hook into it. Breathe gently into your roots. Then like you would drink through a straw to sip liquid, start to sip in the earth energy through the roots you have created. Allow the earth's energy to be drawn up into your body filling you with strength and vitality. See the origin of your roots as this glowing red orb get brighter and brighter as you recharge your body.\n\nThis is a meditation exercise you can also do standing barefoot in the park or on a beach or a mountain. It may also be used for curing issues like fatigue, depression, lethargy, and for times when you feel out of sorts or not yourself.\n\nWillpower\n\nFind a quiet place where you can settle into a comfortable seat. Your eyes can be open or closed. If the eyes are open, then keep a very soft gaze; maybe light a candle and gaze at the flame. If the eyes are closed, gaze inward and down toward the tip of the nose to assist in concentration. Place both hands over your belly and breathe into the belly expanding it out like a balloon and then exhale out through the mouth releasing tension. Inhale into the belly expanding it out and then exhale through the mouth expunging negative attitudes and thoughts. Inhale one more time into the belly expanding it out and then exhale out through the mouth with an ahhh sound, releasing unconscious thoughts that are not serving you well. You do not need to know what the tension or the thoughts are; the intention of letting go is enough. Relax your hands and place them palms down on your knees. Begin to breathe in and out through the nose at a natural pace. Now focus on your own internal energetic fire that is constantly burning off toxins as well as driving your will to be present and put forth effort in the world. Ask yourself: What is my purpose? As the answer arises, connect with your willpower energy in the belly and begin to fuel your purpose from this place of focus and passion. Anchor your purpose into the fire within and remain seated for a few more minutes in silence. Breathe with an awareness on your belly and the power that resides within.\n\nCompassion\n\nLying flat on your back, place your right hand on your belly and your left hand on your heart center. Close your eyes softly and begin to tune into the frequency of your energetic heart center. This center traditionally is the place of universal love and compassion. Feel the physical heart beat in the belly and the heart regions. Turn your focus to the energy of your heart, in the center of your chest, and connect the energy of your breath with the vibration of your heart and feel as if your physical body is beginning to melt like snow in a warming sun. As the physical body softens and begins to let go of attachments relax the arms beside the body. Now ask the heart center: _What am I holding onto that no longer serves me?_ As the question is answered let go of the story around the event, the person, or yourself and how any pain came to be. Just sit in the knowledge that holding on to negative emotions only restricts us from thriving at optimal levels.\n\nWith this attitude say to yourself 3 times in silence: _I now release_ ________ _with love and acceptance. I acknowledge that_ __________ _served its purpose for my growth and evolution._ Once you are finished with this affirmation begin to envision a ball of light glowing in your heart center. Breathe with the new awareness of compassion and love that you and everything is perfect right now in this moment. Feel your heart energy expand as you breathe compassion into your heart. Envision this glowing ball of light energy begin to spread through your entire body as you breathe naturally and with ease. If any resistance arises during the process and you notice any negative thoughts creeping in, interdict them with the statement: _This is a thought, it is not who I am._ Then move back into the visualization and continue to breathe for 5 more minutes with an open heart and a calm body and mind. When you are finished, sit up gently and bring your hands to your heart thanking it for its wisdom.\n\nSequence Appendix for Reference\n\n1. PEACEFUL WARRIOR\u2014MOST POSTURES HELD OR SEQUENCED THROUGH 5\u201310 BREATHS\n\n**PW1:** Seated Meditation\u2014Nostril Breathing\n\n**PW2:** Alternate Nostril Breathing\u2014Start inhale on left side, equal part count on inhale and exhale, retain breath at equal part count after inhale. Example: inhale through left nostril, close both nostrils retain, exhale right, inhale right nostril, close both nostrils retain, exhale left. Repeat for 7\u201314 rounds ending on exhale through the left nostril.\n\n**PW3:** Cow Pose\u2014Inhale\n\n**PW4:** Cat Pose\u2014Exhale\n\n**PW5:** Child's Pose\u2014Move into on exhale\n\n**PW6:** Transition through to Cow\u2014Move through on inhale\n\n**PW7:** Down Dog\u2014Move into on exhale\n\n**PW8:** Kneeling Warrior Each Side\u2014Move into on inhale, transition back to Down Dog on exhale\n\n**PW9:** Wide Angle Forward Fold\u2014Move into on exhale\n\n**PW10:** Roll up to standing while exhaling\n\n**PW11A:** 3 Part Movement Bringing Down the Heavens: 1. Inhale arms out and up, 2. continue to inhale as you lift heels and interlace fingers, 3. Exhale lower arms back alongside.\n\n**PW11B:** Sun Salute A 2X\n\n**PW12:** Warrior 1: Move into on Inhale\n\n**PW13:** Warrior 2: Move into on Inhale\n\n**PW14:** Side Angle Pose: Move into on Exhale\n\n**PW15:** Exalted Warrior: Move into on Exhale\n\n**PW16:** Plank: Move into on Inhale\n\n**PW17:** Push-up: Move into on Exhale\n\n**PW 18:** Upward Facing Dog: Move into on Inhale\n\n**PW19:** Downward Facing Dog: Move into on Exhale; Repeat on Left Side\n\n**PW 20:** Sharp Warrior: Move into on Exhale\n\n**PW 21:** Sun Salute A\n\n**PW 22:** Tree Pose: Move into on Inhale\n\n**PW 23:** Dancer: Move into on Inhale\n\n**PW 24:** Sun Salute A as a transition to seated position\n\n**PW 25:** Seated Forward Fold: Move into on Exhale\n\n**PW 26:** Table Top: Move into on Inhale\n\n**PW 27:** Cleansing Warrior: Bring knees into chest on exhale inhale straighten arms and bring knees away from chest\n\n**PW 28:** Bridge: Move into on Inhale\n\n**PW 29:** Bridge or Wheel: Move into on Inhale\n\n**PW 30:** Reclined Pigeon: Move into on Exhale\n\n**PW 31:** Happy Baby Pose: Move into on Inhale\n\n**PW 32:** Healthy Warrior: Move into on Exhale\n\n**PW 33:** Butterfly 1&2: Move into on Exhale\n\n**PW 34:** Reclined Warrior Pose: Move into on Exhale\n\n**PW 35:** Resting Pose: Breathe at natural pace, let go of victorious breath or any counted breathing pattern.\n\n**PW 36:** Seated Meditation\u2014Focus on revisit intention\/breath followed by compassion and peace meditation: Breathe at natural pace, let go of victorious breath or any counted breathing pattern.\n\n2. ZEN WARRIOR\u2014MOST POSTURES HELD OR SEQUENCED THROUGH 5\u201310 BREATHS\n\n**ZW1:** Mountain Pose: Breathe with Focus\n\n**ZW 2:** Sun Salute A 3x\n\n**ZW 3:** Sun Salute B 3x\n\n**ZW 4:** Brining Down the Heavens: 1. Inhale arms out and up, 2. continue to inhale as you lift heels and interlace fingers, 3. Exhale lower arms back alongside.\n\n**ZW 5:** Kicking Warrior: Inhale in Warrior 1 then Move into kick on Exhale\n\n**ZW 6:** Mountain Pose: Breathe with Focus\n\n**ZW 7:** Archer Warrior: 1. Inhale in Warrior 2 bring back hand so palms face each other 2. Through a pinhole shape of the mouth exhale in spurts and as you pull back the metaphoric bow\n\n**ZW 8:** Scooping the Moon: Move into on Inhale, Exhale as back of the hand returns to in front of forehead\n\n**ZW 9:** Warrior Musashi: Move into on Inhale and Exhale Strike\n\n**ZW 10:** Sun Salute A\u2014Finish in Down Dog and come to knees\n\n**ZW 11:** Camel: Move into on Inhale\n\n**ZW 12:** Reclined Warrior Pose: Move into on Exhale\n\n**ZW 13:** Wise Warrior Twist: Move into on Exhale and find length of spine on the Inhale\n\n**ZW 14:** Rock back and forth to standing in mountain: Rock back on inhale and forward on exhale\n\n**ZW 15:** Sun Salute A to push up lower on the belly\n\n**ZW 16:** 1 Arm Locust: Move into on Inhale\n\n**ZW 17:** Locust: Move into on Inhale\n\n**ZW 18:** Bow: Move into on Inhale\n\n**ZW 19:** Reverse Push-up: Move into on Inhale\n\n**ZW 20:** 5x Push-up: Exhale as you lower\n\n**ZW 21:** Up Dog or Cobra: Move into on Inhale\n\n**ZW 22:** Grateful Warrior-Child's pose with palms up: Move into on Exhale\n\n**ZW 23:** Cow: Move into on Inhale\n\n**ZW 24:** Cat: Move into on Exhale\n\n**ZW 25:** Seated Meditation position for Box breathing: Nostril breathing\n\n**ZW 26:** Stay in Seated or come to Resting Pose for Grounding and strength meditation: Breathe at natural pace, let go of victorious breath or any counted breathing pattern.\n\n3. FIT WARRIOR\u2014MOST POSTURES HELD OR SEQUENCED THROUGH 5\u201310 BREATHS, WHEN IN FIT MODULE THEN EACH MOVEMENT IS DONE ON AN INDIVIDUAL BREATH\n\n**FW 1:** Box Breathing: Nostril breathing\n\n**FW 2:** Seated Meditation: Breathe at natural pace, let go of victorious breath or any counted breathing pattern.\n\n**FW 3:** Cat\/Cow: Cow on Inhale and Move into on Exhale\n\n**FW 4:** Downward Facing Dog: Move into on Exhale after 5 breaths step feet forward\n\n**FW 5:** Forward Fold come to standing\n\n**FW 6:** Sun A 2x\n\n**FW 7:** Sun B 2x\n\n**FW 8:** Triangle: Move into on Exhale\n\n**FW 9:** Twisted Triangle: Move into on Exhale\n\n**FW 10:** Sharp Warrior: Move into on Exhale\n\n**FW 11:** Wide Angle Forward Fold: Move into on Exhale\n\n**FW 12:** Wide Angle Twist: Move into on Exhale, when complete on both sides come to mountain\n\n**FW13:** Fit Module x3\n\n**FM1:** Burpees, bring hands to floor\n\n**FM2:** Jump back to plank position\n\n**FM3 AND 4:** Push up\n\n**FM5:** Jump Forward\n\n**FM6:** Jump up and clap hands overhead\n\n**FM7:** Jumping squats, go into squat position, knees track over toes and the weight in heels\n\n**FM8:** Jump up and land back in squat to repeat\n\n**FM9:** Mountain Climbers, plank position and jump on foot forward to outside of hand\n\n**FM10:** Engaging core jump leading foot back as the back foot comes forward, count of 4 for 1 count of mountain climbers\n\n**FM11:** Flutter kicks, laying on back with palms on ground while hands are supporting back, chest is lifted, legs hovering a few inches above the ground, lift one leg higher to start\n\n**FM12:** as the leading leg lifts the other leg lowers slightly, count of 4 for 1 count of flutter kicks\n\n**FM13:** Sit-Ups, start on your back with feet together hands overhead\n\n**FM14:** With engaged abdominal muscles come up and touch your toes\n\n**FM15:** Push-Ups, plank position inhale\n\n**FM16:** Lower chest to ground on exhale, return to plank\n\n**FW14:** Scooping the Moon: Move into on Inhale, Exhale as back of the hand returns to in front of forehead\n\n**FW15:** Fighting Warrior-Punching: Inhale in Warrior and Exhale to punch\n\n**FW16:** Bringing Down the Heavens: 1. Inhale arms out and up, 2. continue to inhale as you lift heels and interlace fingers, 3. Exhale lower arms back alongside.\n\n**FW17:** Downward Facing Dog: Move into on Exhale\n\n**FW18:** Pigeon: Move into on Exhale\n\n**FW19:** Camel: Move into on Inhale\n\n**FW20:** Cat\/Cow: Cow on Inhale and Move into on Exhale\n\n**FW21:** Cleansing Warrior: Move into on Exhale and start with right side\n\n**FW22:** Healthy Warrior with movement: Move into on Exhale\n\n**FW23:** Bridge: Move into on Inhale\n\n**FW24:** Resting Pose: Breathe at natural pace, let go of victorious breath or any counted breathing pattern.\n\n**FW25:** Seated Meditation: Breathe at natural pace, let go of victorious breath or any counted breathing pattern.\n\n**FW26:** Box Breathing: Nostril Breathing\n\n4. FIGHTING WARRIOR\u2014MOST POSTURES HELD OR SEQUENCED THROUGH 5\u201310 BREATHS\n\n**FGW1:** Box Breathing: Nostril Breathing\n\n**FGW2:** Sun Salute A\n\n**FGW3:** Warrior 1 with Breath: Start with arms alongside the body and Move into Warrior 1 with arms out to side and elbows bent on Inhale\n\n**FGW4:** Chopping Wood: Move into on Inhale and Chop on Exhale\n\n**FGW5:** Warrior Breath 100x: Inhale arms up, exhale Pull arms down quickly, Inhale arms out in front, exhale arms in quickly. This is designed to build focus and heat.\n\n**FGW6:** Punching Warrior 20x each side: Move into on Inhale, exhale punch\n\n**FGW7:** Kicking Warrior 20x each side: Prep on inhale, Exhale kick\n\n**FGW8:** Combination Module of kick on punch 20x each side: Prep on inhale, Exhale kick and punch\n\n**FGW9:** Mountain Pose 5 breaths: Nostril Breathing\n\n**FGW10:** Sun Salute A\n\n**FGW11:** Seated Position with Breath of Fire: Inhale, Quick rapid Exhale as you pulse belly in and out\n\n**FGW12:** Victorious Warrior Visualization seated or standing meditation\n\n5. JEDI WARRIOR\u2014MOST POSTURES HELD OR SEQUENCED THROUGH 5\u201310 BREATHS\n\n**JW1:** Box Breathing and set intention: Nostril breathing\n\n**JW2:** ROM Drills: Nostril breathing\n\n**JW3:** Sun Salute A 2x\n\n**JW4:** Sun Salute B 2x\n\n**JW5:** Plank hold 30 seconds: Nostril breathing\n\n**JW6:** Windmill: Start on Inhale the twist is on an Exhale\n\n**JW7:** Qigong Forward Fold\u2014Hold 3 minutes: Nostril Breathing\n\n**JW8:** Ki Ub: Inhale as you Breathe into belly, Exhale as you bring hands to low back and then Inhale as you look up and Exhale as you bring hands down back of legs to the feet, Inhale as you bring hands up the calves and thighs and Exhale as the hands return back to the belly.\n\n**JW9:** Wide Angle Forward Fold: Move into on Exhale\n\n**JW10:** Sun Salute A to plank position\n\n**JW11:** Plank hold for 1\u20133 minutes: Nostril breathing\n\n**JW12:** Down Dog: Move into on Exhale\n\n**JW13:** Exalted Warrior each side: Move into on Inhale\n\n**JW14:** Plank: Move into on Inhale\n\n**JW15:** Push-up: Move into on Exhale\n\n**JW16:** Down Dog-walk feet forward: Move into on Exhale\n\n**JW17:** Forward Fold-roll up to standing: Exhale as you roll up\n\n**JW18:** Horse Stance: Move into on Exhale\n\n**JW19:** 9 Breath\u20143 sets: Inhale as you lean back, Exhale as you fold torso forward\n\n**JW20:** Mountain-Revisit intention: Nostril Breathing\n\n**JW21:** Seated or Standing Meditation\u2014Jedi Warrior Visualization: Breathe at natural pace, let go of victorious breath or any counted breathing pattern.\n\n6. AGELESS WARRIOR\u2014ALL POSTURES HELD OR SEQUENCED THROUGH 5\u201310 BREATHS\n\n**AW1:** Box Breathing: Nostril breathing\n\n**AW2:** Mountain Pose; Repeat 5x\n\n**AW3:** Warrior 1 w\/Breath Repeat 5x\n\n**AW4:** Warrior 2: Arms straight by the ears: Move into on Inhale, Exhale round upper back and wrap arms around the body\n\n**AW5:** Warrior 2: Back Palm Up: Move into on Exhale\n\n**AW6:** Exalted Warrior: Move into on Exhale\n\n**AW7:** Side Angle Pose: Move into on Exhale\n\n**AW8:** Wide Angle Forward Fold: Move into on Exhale\n\n**AW9:** Twisted Wide Angle Pose: Twist on Exhale\n\n**AW10:** Roll up to Standing: Roll up on Exhale\n\n**AW11:** Horse Stance: Move into on Exhale\n\n**AW12:** Sun Salute A\n\n**AW13:** Standing Meditation of Future Self in Perfect Health (option to do seated or in lying meditation form): Breathe at natural pace, let go of victorious breath or any counted breathing pattern.\n\n7. RECOVERING WARRIOR (PTSD SUPPORT AND HEALING)\u2014MOST POSTURES HELD OR SEQUENCED THROUGH 5\u201310 BREATHS\n\n**RW1:** Resting Pose: Breathe at natural pace, let go of victorious breath or any counted breathing pattern.\n\n**RW2:** Cleansing Warrior: Both knees come in on Exhale, Inhale straighten arms, Repeat 5x\n\n**RW3A:** Rock Back and Forth 3x finish lying on back\n\n**RW3B:** Reclined Pigeon Each Side: Move into on Exhale\n\n**RW4:** Bridge: Move into on Inhale\n\n**RW5:** Table Top: Move into on Inhale\n\n**RW6:** Seated Forward Fold A and B: Move into on Exhale\n\n**RW7:** Butterfly 1: Move into on Exhale\n\n**RW8:** Butterfly 2: Move into on Exhale\n\n**RW9:** Wise Warrior: Move into on Exhale\n\n**RW10:** Seated Forward Fold A and B: Move into on Exhale\n\n**RW11:** Seated Meditation with Alternate Nostril Breathing: Alternate Nostril Breathing\u2014Start inhale on left side, equal part count on inhale and exhale, retain breath at equal part count after inhale. Example: inhale through left nostril, close both nostrils retain, exhale right, inhale right nostril, close both nostrils retain, exhale left. Repeat for 7\u201314 rounds ending on exhale through the left nostril.\n\n**RW12:** Still Water Visualization\n\n8. HIP MOBILITY DRILL\u2014MOST POSTURES HELD OR SEQUENCED THROUGH 5\u201310 BREATHS\n\n**HMD1:** Sun A until Down Dog\n\n**HMD2:** Warrior 1: Move into on Inhale\n\n**HMD3:** Warrior 2: Move into on Inhale\n\n**HMD4:** Side Angle Pose: Move into on Exhale\n\n**HMD5:** Kneeling Warrior: Move into on Inhale\n\n**HMD6:** Twisting Warrior: Move into on Exhale\n\n**HMD7:** Pigeon: Move into on Exhale\n\n**HMD8:** from Down Dog Plank: Move into on inhale\n\n**HMD9:** Push-up: Move into on Exhale\n\n**HMD10:** Up Dog: Move into on Inhale\n\n**HMD11:** Down Dog\u2014Repeat on Left side and once finished with Left Side complete Sun A and return to standing\n\n*For all sequences except the PTSD we encourage you to add inversions at the end before meditation if you have learned them from an instructor and feel safe at home to do them on your own. Poses encouraged if suitable are headstand, handstand, shoulder stand, forearm balance, and plow pose.\n\n# CHAPTER 6\n\n# POSES AND MOVEMENTS\n\n_Yoga, an ancient but perfect science, deals with the evolution of humanity. This evolution includes all aspects of one's being, from bodily health to self-realization. Yoga means union\u2014the union of body with consciousness and consciousness with the soul. Yoga cultivates the ways of maintaining a balanced attitude in day-to-day life and endows skill in the performance of one's actions._ \n\u2013B. K. S. IYENGAR, _ASTADALA YOGAMALA_\n\nCONSIDER THIS CHAPTER YOUR MASTER REFERENCE SOURCE FOR DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS AND PHOTOS FOR ALL KOKORO YOGA POSES AND MOVEMENTS PRESENTED IN THIS BOOK.\n\n1. MOUNTAIN POSE\u2014TADASANA\n\nStanding with feet together or hip-width apart, the spine is in alignment and abdominals engaged. Shoulders are back and the chest is uplifted, the body is strong, and you are balanced on all four corners of your feet. This is the foundation for all standing poses.\n\n2. STANDING FORWARD FOLD\u2014UTTANASANA\n\nStand with feet together or hip-width apart. Draw the belly button into the spine and engage quadriceps and abdominal muscles while folding forward. If you have lower-back issues, keep the knees slightly bent; otherwise maintain strong, straight legs with weight evenly distributed throughout the feet.\n\n3. TRIANGLE POSE\u2014TRIKONASANA\n\nFeet are a minimum of 3 feet apart, with heels in alignment. Leading foot is open at a 90-degree angle, and the back foot at a 45-degree angle. Hips are open and all muscles of the body are engaged. Leading hand is on the floor, shin, or calf. The opposite arm is long and straight. Gaze is set at the fingertips.\n\n4. TWISTED TRIANGLE POSE\u2014PARIVRTTA TRIKONASANA\n\nFeet are at a minimum 3 feet apart with heels aligned. The leading foot is at 90 degrees and the back foot is at 65 degrees. Hips are aligned and the twist happens from the base of the spine through the top of the head. Leading arm is extended and straight in the air with eyes focused on fingertips. The opposite hand is on the outside of the leading foot or on the shin or thigh.\n\n5. WIDE-ANGLE FORWARD FOLD\u2014PRASARITA PADOTTANASANA\n\nFeet are at 3 to 4 feet apart, heels slightly out, hands are on the floor between the feet, press into the outer edges of the feet, bring top of the head to the ground or a block, lift the sit bones toward the ceiling as you lift the kneecaps engaging the thighs.\n\n6. TWISTED FORWARD FOLD\u2014PARIVRTTA PADOTTANASANA\n\nStart with the Wide-Angle Forward Fold. Begin with left hand in the middle of the feet, twist torso bringing the right hand up toward the ceiling or on the sacrum, switch to other side.\n\n7. SHARP WARRIOR\u2014PARSVAKONASANA\n\nFeet are at a minimum 2.5 feet apart, leading foot is at a 90-degree angle, back foot is at a 65-degree angle, torso folds forward with an active or rounded spine, hips are aligned, hands are in prayer position between the shoulder blades with palms pressing together (or palms placed on the hips or floor for more balance). Bring the forehead to the knee or chin to shin, and gaze is at the tip of the nose.\n\n8. WARRIOR 1\u2014VIRABHADRASANA A\n\nFeet are at a minimum 3 feet apart with the leading foot at a 90-degree angle and the back foot at a 65-degree angle, hips are aligned and the leading leg is bent so that the thigh is parallel to the ground, the back leg is straight, torso is in a slight upper backbend, arms are lifted alongside the head, actively extended by the ears with the hands together or apart; the gaze is forward or up to the fingertips.\n\n9. WARRIOR 1 WITH BREATH MOVEMENT\u2014VIRABHADRASANA A WITH MOVEMENT\n\nSee here for visual cues from the Fighting Warrior sequence.\n\nStart in Warrior 1, bring arms to relax alongside the body, lift arms up over the head, exhale, bend at the elbows drawing the shoulder blades down the back, inhale moving into a gentle upper backbend, exhale, return to starting position, and repeat 5 to 10 times.\n\n10. WARRIOR 2\u2014VIRABHADRASANA B\n\nFeet are at a minimum 3 feet apart with the leading foot at 90 degrees and the back foot at a 45-degree angle, hips are open and the leading leg is bent so that the thigh is parallel to the ground and the ankle and knee are in alignment, back leg is straight, torso is upright with an active spine, arms are extended out strong parallel to the ground and in alignment with the shoulders, the gaze is over the leading shoulder to the fingertips.\n\n11. EXALTED WARRIOR\u2014VIRABHADRASANA WITH BACKBEND\n\nStart in Warrior 1. Leading hand reaches up and back as you move deep into the lunge and take an upper backbend. Opposite hand wraps around the waist and the hand is placed on the lower back or on the opposite hip.\n\n12. DILIGENT WARRIOR\u2014PARIVRTTA VIRABHADRASANA\n\nSee here for visual cues from the Hip Mobility Drill supporting sequence.\n\nFeet are at a minimum 3 feet apart with the leading foot at 90 degrees and the back foot at a 65-degree angle. Hips are aligned and the leading leg is bent so that the thigh is parallel to the ground, knee and ankle are in alignment, and the back leg is straight, hands are in prayer position at the heart center and the opposite elbow to the leading leg is assisting in a deep twist that starts at the base of the spine spiraling up to the top of the head, the gaze is at the tip of the nose, and the abdominals are engaged.\n\n13. KNEELING WARRIOR 1, 2, 3\u2014ANJANEYASANA\n\nSee here for visual cues from the Hip Mobility Drill supporting sequence.\n\nStart in high lunge, bring back leg, knee and top of foot onto the ground; arms straight by the ears leading leg knee to track past the ankle and over the toes; interlace fingers behind the back and squeeze shoulder blades, elbows, and palms toward one another, continue to lift chest and take a deeper backbend; release the hands coming out of the backbend as you bend the back leg, take the same hand as back leg and grab the outside of the ankle or foot bringing the heel to the hip (this stretches the quadriceps), opposite hand rests lightly on leading thigh.\n\n14. RESTING WARRIOR\u2014SUPTA BADDHA KONASANA\n\nStart in Butterfly 1. With a bolster or rolled-up blankets parallel to the spine, gently lean back so that you are supported by the props and can completely relax, palms face up, eyes closed.\n\n15. STANDING SIDE ANGLE POSE\u2014UTTHITA PARSVAKONASANA\n\nStarting in Warrior 2 reach out with your leading hand and either rest your elbow on the bent thigh or place your hand on the outside of your foot, extend your other arm at an angle in alignment with your back leg with your palm facing the floor and the fingers together. Gaze up toward your palm or elbow.\n\n16. SUN SALUTATION A\u2014SURYA NAMASKARA A\n\nStart in Mountain Pose. Inhale, arms over the head, and look up. Exhale, Forward Fold, inhale, extend the back and look forward. Exhale, plant your hands on the floor, and step or jump back into plank and continue into a push-up. Inhale, Up Dog, exhale, Downward Dog (take 5 breaths in Downward Dog). After your last exhale, look forward and walk or jump to the top of your mat, inhale, extend back, and look forward. Exhale, Forward Fold, inhale, strong legs arms out and around as you come back to standing bringing arms over the head. Exhale, back to Mountain Pose.\n\nREPEAT ON LEFT SIDE AFTER VINYASA\n\n17. SUN SALUTATION B\u2014SURYA NAMASKARA B\n\nStanding in Mountain Pose, inhale, arms over the head, and look up as you sit into Chair Pose. Exhale, Forward Fold, inhale, extend the back, and look forward. Exhale, plant your hands, and step or jump back into plank and continue into a push-up. Inhale, Up Dog, exhale, Downward Dog, inhale, step your right foot forward, and land in Warrior 1 and hold the pose for 3 breaths. On exhale bring hands to the ground, step back, and go through a push-up. Inhale to Up Dog, exhale, Downward Dog, inhale, step the left foot forward into Warrior 1 and hold the pose 3 breaths. On exhale bring hands to the ground, step back, and go through a push-up. Inhale to Up Dog, exhale, Downward Dog, and hold the pose for 5 breaths. After your last exhale, look forward and walk or jump to the top of your mat, inhale, extend back, and look forward. Exhale, Forward Fold, inhale, strong legs arms out and around as you come back to Chair. Exhale, back to Mountain Pose.\n\n18. UPWARD-FACING DOG\u2014URDHVA MUKHA SVANASANA\n\nHands are under the shoulders or slightly back and the hips and thighs are lifted as you press the tops of your feet into the ground. Your gaze is upward with a long neck as you take an upper backbend.\n\n19. COBRA POSE\u2014BHUJANGASANA\n\nSee here for visual cues from the Zen Warrior sequence.\n\nHands are alongside the upper rib cage or under the shoulders and the thighs are on the ground. You are still pressing into the tops of the feet as you lift only the chest off the ground in a gentle backbend.\n\n20. CHAIR POSE\u2014UTKATASANA\n\nSee here for visual cues from the Sun Salutation B sequence.\n\nFeet are either together or hip-width apart. Hips, knees, and ankles are all in alignment, active spine, and the weight is slightly in the heels of the feet so that you can see all 10 toes, the arms are straight by the ears, and the gaze is upward.\n\n21. GRATEFUL WARRIOR\u2014BALASANA\n\nBring your knees wide apart, rest your forehead on the floor or a block, arms are stretched out in front of you or alongside the body. This pose is a posture of relaxation and surrender.\n\n22. BRIDGE POSE\u2014SETU BANDHA SARVANGASANA\n\nLying flat on the back with knees bent, feet hip-width apart, arms alongside the body, palms are facing the ground, feet firmly planted, and the knees in alignment with the heels, press into the ground with palms, shoulders, and feet. Lift hips to the sky while engaging the inner-thigh muscles. Arms and hands can remain in their initial position or if you need more support, bring hands to the lower back and elbows onto the floor.\n\n23. WHEEL POSE\u2014CHAKRASANA OR URDHVA DHANURASANA\n\nLying flat on the back with knees bent and hands under the shoulders with fingertips facing the heels, elbows are pointed to the ceiling, at the same time press palms and feet into the ground to lift the body into a backbend as the shoulder blades draw toward one another and away from the ears, and the inner thighs and hamstrings engage.\n\n24. CAMEL POSE\u2014USTRASANA\n\nStanding on your knees with the toes tucked under, hips, knees, and ankles are all aligned, and hamstrings are engaged. Hands are as if you were putting your fingertips in your back pockets, rotating the inner thighs toward one another. Imagine your body creating the shape of a rainbow and begin and maintain the arch from the upper back as you move into the backbend.\n\n25. BOW\u2014DHANURASANA\n\nLying on your belly, bend your knees, and hold on to the outside of your ankles with the thumbs pointing down. Bring feet together or at hip-width apart, keep knees at hip-width apart, press belly and hips into the ground, and lift feet toward the ceiling. Inner thighs and hamstrings are engaged as well as the back muscles, reach the chest forward, and gaze softly up.\n\n26. LOCUST\u2014SALABHASANA\n\nThis backbend starts lying on your belly, legs straight, and big toes together. Back of the hands are on the ground alongside the hips, press into the ground with belly, hands, and hips, as you use the posterior chain to lift the body.\n\n27. BACK ALIGNMENT\u2014APANASANA (WITH OR WITHOUT MOVEMENT)\n\nLying on the back with the knees drawn into the chest, hands are on the knees and the arms are straight, inhale, exhale, use abdominals to press your sacrum into the ground as you bend the elbows and hug the knees close to the chest, inhale, return to start position, repeat 5 to 10 times, without movement; bend elbows and hug knees into chest.\n\n28. CLEANSING WARRIOR\u2014EKA PADA APANASANA\n\nSee here for visual cues from the Peaceful Warrior sequence.\n\nLying on the back with the knees drawn into the chest, straighten the left leg to the ground so that the heel is on the ground and both feet are still flexed, take both hands below the right knee on the shin and bend elbows engaging the biceps and triceps, switch to the other side.\n\n29. HEALTHY WARRIOR\u2014SUPTA MATSYENDRASANA\n\nLying on the back with both knees drawn into the chest, take the hands to the knees, and draw the knees into the body. Engage abdominals as you twist extending arms out like the letter T.\n\n30. BUTTERFLY 1\u2014BADDHA KONASANA 1\n\nSitting with feet together and knees bent, take your hands to the outside of the feet and open them up so that the pinky toes are touching and the big toes are moving outward toward the ground, knees are actively moving toward the floor, abdominals engaged, chin to chest.\n\n31. SHOULDER OPENER\u2014BADDHA KONASANA WITH GOMUKHASANA ARMS\n\nSit in Butterfly 1, inhale, bring arms out to the side, stretch up 1 arm alongside the head, lower the other arm as it externally rotates, and you bring that hand between the shoulder blades, bend the lifted arm and meet the hands interlacing the fingers. If this pose is unachievable, grab a strap as a prop for assistance.\n\n32. HEADSTAND\u2014SIRSASANA\n\nBegin with knees on the ground and create a base by bringing the hands, interlaced wrists, and elbows on the ground in a triangle shape. Palms create a cup for the back of your head as you place the top of your head on the ground, shift legs into a Downward Dog position, walk the legs in toward the body, lift legs into the air using core strength. No weight on the head, action is in the arms and core.\n\n33. SHOULDER STAND\u2014SARVANGASANA\n\nStart lying flat on your back with arms over your head, inhale, exhale, bring your legs behind you as you bring the arms along the side of the body, toes meet the floor behind you, the legs are very active, the neck still has its natural curve, and the weight is in the shoulders. Place palms on lower back, inhale, bring the legs over the head in alignment with the hips, feet are pointed.\n\n34. RECLINED PIGEON\u2014VARIATION ON BACK OF SUPTA RAJAKAPOTASANA\n\nLying on the back with knees bent and feet on the ground at hip width, take the right ankle to the opposite knee, feet are flexed, thread right arm through the thighs, and interlace the fingers at the back of the left thigh, draw the left knee into chest (leg can remain bent or straightened), continue to draw the right knee away from the body and left knee toward the body.\n\n35. HAPPY BABY POSE\u2014BALASANA\n\nLying on your back, bring knees into the chest and then straighten the legs up so that the feet are facing ceiling, separate legs a bit wider than hip-width apart, bend the knees taking hands to the back of the thighs, calves, ankles, or feet. Bring knees to the outside of the rib cage as you actively press feet toward the sky while pulling down with your hands.\n\n36. SEATED MEDITATION\u2014SUKHASANA\n\nSitting on a chair, bench, pillow, block, blanket, or the ground, make sure you are comfortable, and your abdominals and spine are active. Top of the head is like an antenna open and receptive, abdominals are engaged, and the palms rest on the thighs or knees facing up or down.\n\n37. RESTING \"DEAD MAN\" POSE\u2014SAVASANA\n\nThis pose is where you let go completely and allow yourself to be present and still. You are lying flat on your back with your arms relaxed by your sides, palms facing up, and feet relaxed. This pose is a practice of nonattachment and release. Practice breathing without effort; surrender yourself into your breathing.\n\n38. ALTERNATE NOSTRIL BREATHING\u2014NADI SHODHANA\n\nSit in a comfortable position with the spine active and abdominals engaged. Left palm is resting on the left knee; right hand has the middle and pointer finger tucked in so that the ring, pinky, and thumb are all extended. To start, exhale the air out completely, close the right nostril lightly with the thumb, and inhale through the left. Close both nostrils using the thumb and the ring finger and hold the breath. Keeping the left nostril closed, exhale through the right. You can do this sequence with or without retentions.\n\n39. TWISTING WARRIOR\u2014PARIVRTTA PARSVAKONASANA VARIATION\n\nStart in Warrior 1. Shift back foot so that you are on the ball of the foot and pressing out through the heel in a lunge. Inhale, exhale, move hands to prayer position at the heart center, engage the abdominals as you hook opposite elbow to leading leg, twist from the base of the spine through the top of the head, eyes gazing gently over the shoulder, engage the legs, stay strong in your lines of energy.\n\n40. HUMBLE WARRIOR\n\nFeet are about 2.5 to 3 feet apart with the leading foot at a 90 degree angle and the back foot at a 65 degree angle. Hips are squared and the leading leg is bent so that the thigh is parallel to the ground and the back leg is straight. Arms are behind with the fingers interlocked while squeezing the shoulders together. The warrior is bowing forward so that the leading shoulder is on the inside of the leading leg and the chin is sealed to the chest. The gaze is at the nose.\n\n41. SEATED FORWARD FOLD\u2014PASCHIMOTTANASANA\n\nSitting strong with legs out in front, feet are active, inhale, reach arms above the head, exhale, Forward Fold placing hands or a strap around the feet, keep drawing the belly button toward the spine as you press out through the balls and heels of your feet.\n\n42. WISE WARRIOR 1\u2014MARICHYASANA\n\nSitting upright, start with folding left leg so that the heel is alongside the right hip. Bring the right foot to the outside of the left thigh, right knee facing the ceiling, place your right hand behind you. Inhale, left arm up, exhale. Engaged in the abdominal twist, bring your left elbow or hand to the outside of your right knee, top of the head parallel to the ceiling, and both sit bones on the ground. Wise Warrior 1 variation\u2014with the bottom leg straight.\n\n43. TREE POSE\u2014VRKSASANA\n\nStart in Mountain Pose. Shift weight onto left leg and lift the right leg up. Take the lifted leg's foot to the inside of the standing leg's calf or thigh. Do not put the foot on the knee joint, press the leg into the foot and the foot into the leg. Hands are in prayer position at the front of the chest.\n\n44. VICTORIOUS WARRIOR\u2014VIRASANA\n\nStart on your knees, bring the knees together or at hip-width apart, and sit on the inside of your feet so that the heels touch your hips. Press the tops of your feet into the ground and rotate your inner thighs toward one another, knees are touching the ground (if they are not, sit on a block), hands are on the knees, and the chin is on the chest. Gaze is at the tip of the nose.\n\n45. TABLETOP\u2014PURVOTTANASANA VARIATION\n\nStart lying on your back, bring feet to the ground, knees and ankles in alignment, bring hands under the shoulders with palms on the floor, press into the hands and the feet as you lift your body up, engage the posterior chain, gaze at the tip of the nose.\n\n46. QIGONG, OR WATER MILL WITH FORWARD FOLD\n\nUse blocks if necessary. Looks like Forward Fold, but it so much more.\n\nMain components:\n\nWeight on balls of feet\n\nLegs pressing together, ankles, calves, knees, thighs\n\nFingers clasped, hands pressing into blocks\n\nBreathing deep to lower Dantian\n\nActive through pose\n\nInhale, remember to press legs, exhale, press down with hands\n\nExit roll spine up\n\nPress down with hands, keep pressing legs\n\n47. BRINGING DOWN THE HEAVENS\n\nSee here for visual cues from the Peaceful Warrior sequence.\n\nBend the knees. Inhale and with very soft muscles arc the hands out to each side, out and then up to the face with palms slightly turned toward the body, exhale and lower hands down the midline. The intention is to be completely relaxed and balance the energies of Sky\/Heaven and Earth\/Yin Yang. On the inhale, imagine collecting earth energy and when the hands reach the level of the shoulders, imagine taking in the energy of the sky. On the exhale intend to balance those energies in the your body. Pose is also done to help wipe the slate clean exercise.\n\nSTANDING QIGONG MEDITATION\n\nKnees are bent slightly, weight on the front 1\/3 of your feet. Hips are tucked gently. Lengthen spine up from the base to the top of your head. Soften all the muscles and pay attention to the space that your body occupies. Breath is slow and deep to the lower abdomen.\n\n48. NARROW HORSE STANCE\n\nFeet are shoulders width and toes are very slightly pointing in. Knees bent to 90 degrees or as close as you can get. Arms are actively pressing out in front, right hand over left. Shoulders are actively pressing down. Eyes are focused straight ahead looking at the back of your hands. Knees should be active pressing in like you are trying to hold a medicine ball between them. Keep your spine as straight as possible. This is a survival exercise, so do your best to maintain form for 3 minutes: It will be challenging. To finish, turn palms into fists, rise up on your toes while bringing your fists into you ben elbows; pulling your hands in and drawing the energy. Then step your feet together, turn palms down, and press down with both hands holding them with fingertips facing forward, wrists extended. Press the legs together as in the Water Mill\u2014extended forward bend. Take 3 deep breaths while continuing to press the legs together.\n\n49. DANCING WARRIOR\u2014NATARAJASANA\n\nStanding with feet together, shift weight to the left foot and lift right foot toward your buttocks. Take your right hand and grab the inside or outside of your right foot. Bring the left arm straight by your head and begin to kick your right foot into your right hand as you reach your chest forward and create an arch with the back: 50 percent back, 50 percent forward.\n\n50. DOWNWARD-FACING DOG\u2014ADHO MUKHA SVANASANA\n\nWith your hands and feet on the ground your body is creating an inverted-V position. Quadriceps are engaged and your heels are on the ground or moving in that direction. All knuckles of your hands are pressing into the ground as you engage your abdominals and lift your sit bones toward the ceiling.\n\n51. PLANK\n\nStrong, stafflike position with the whole body. Hands are pressing firmly into the ground. It is like the beginning of a push-up. Press the heels toward the wall behind you as you balance on your toes. Whole body is engaged.\n\n52. WARRIOR BREATH\n\nWarrior Breath is a strong inhale and exhale through the nose to the upper chest. The focus is on the inhale. Slightly rock your upper body back as you inhale. Slightly rock forward with the exhale. The most important component to remember is that it is a warrior's breath, so it is strong. Take 9 (or more breaths for each set). On the last breath hold for 3 seconds, swallow down, and round out your abdomen. Keep abdomen gently pressing out as you exhale slowly through your lips. The exhale is called the Eternal Exhale. Some people take 2 to 3 minutes to exhale completely. During this exhale relax and visualize.\n\n# CHAPTER 7\n\n# PHYSIOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL BENEFITS OF YOGA\n\nYoga is not a religion. It is science, science of well-being, science of youthfulness, science of integrating body, mind and soul. \n\u2013AMIT RAY\n\nIN THIS CHAPTER WE WILL TAKE A LOOK AT CURRENT RESEARCH ON THE MANY BENEFITS OF YOGA, AND KOKORO YOGA IN PARTICULAR. BUT BEFORE WE DIG THROUGH SOME OF THE MODERN RESEARCH THAT HAS EMERGED IN RECENT YEARS THAT HAS HELPED SCIENTISTS UNDERSTAND WHAT A YOGA PRACTICE CAN DELIVER, I FIRST WANT TO ENCOURAGE YOU TO BE YOUR OWN SCIENTIST: TO HONOR ANY SKEPTICISM YOU MAY HAVE AND FIND A BALANCED APPROACH to being analytical in your appraisal of yoga, but to also be rigorous and dedicated to testing it out for yourself.\n\nI'm a big believer in trusting through verification. By giving this training a concentrated, objective, personal trial, you'll be able to verify the benefits I'm discussing. What I don't want to see you do is to slide into the trap of prejudging yoga as an excuse to not give it a valid try.\n\nLack of time also should not be a barrier. Kokoro Yoga is designed for a busy individual going 100 mph, and I wouldn't have it any other way. So even if it's 5 or 10 minutes a day for 3 months, I encourage you to conduct your own science by testing out the program and noting how it works for you.\n\nYoga has thousands of years of subjective science within its foundation, but for the Western audience seeking validation from a peer-reviewed research study, it's only in recent years that we have plowed deeper into the subject. Scientists and medical professionals\u2014in pursuit of effective, low-cost health-care solutions, are using high-tech tools to uncover the most detailed and objective data in history. For example, they are now able to chart changes in brain growth and function (neoplasticity), hormonal and electrical patterns associated with thoughts and emotions, and changes in gene expressions from exercise that lead to physiological improvements (epigenetics). There's much about yoga that I believe is still out of the current range of modern science to test, but I'm confident that if you integrate Kokoro Yoga rituals and disciplines into your life, you won't care about what the scientists say, you will just love the benefits and growth you are experiencing.\n\nBENEFITS ACROSS THE SPECTRUM\n\nThe following is a holistic review of the benefits, both physiological and psychological, of what you can expect to get from a disciplined, daily practice:\n\nBody Control\n\nYoga develops body control through an acute awareness of body position and movement. This control extends to awareness of how you move safely and effectively throughout each day: from standing to walking, running, lifting, or even the inherently unhealthy act of sitting. It will allow you to maintain connection with and move from your center (the Hara in Japanese and Dantian in Chinese), and extend to control over your physiological adaptation to stress.\n\nCore Strength\n\nAs mentioned earlier, yoga shares a common history with the martial arts, and engaging the core of your body while moving is a focus of the movement practice. If you have some training in martial arts, then you know what I mean by this. Others will have to experience it. You will learn to sink into a stable position of deep balance and engage all the muscles of your core as your primary source of physical strength and stability. Too often we focus on the extremities (arms and legs) in training, ignoring the critical source of power of the core, which is more than one's abs. It is the entire body minus the limbs and head. Building a strong core starts with deep connection to the muscles protecting the spine, engaging the root near your tailbone, and extending to all of the supporting muscles of your glutes, lower back, abs, chest, and obliques.\n\nConcentration\n\nIn yoga practice, you sharpen your ability to concentrate on one thing, and for long periods of time, by focusing your mind on a single point, such as your breathing or the structure of a pose. Research clearly supports how this brand of exercise elevates the ability to concentrate. In one study, 60 subjects were involved in a 3-month retreat where they practiced focusing on the breath. The group was split into those who participated in the practice and those who were on a wait-list group that weren't. The test they were given involved watching lines flash on a computer screen. Each time they saw a line that they believed was shorter than the others, their job was to click the mouse, an exceptionally boring task where the mind was apt to wander. Those performing concentration practice consistently demonstrated significantly greater capacity to focus than those who weren't. As reported when the study was published in 2010, the researchers at University of California, Davis, wrote, \"Training produced improvements in visual discrimination that were linked to increases in perceptual sensitivity and improved vigilance during sustained visual attention.\"\n\nFlexibility and Durability\n\nFor many, this is the sum total of what yoga is expected to deliver. Through the work of the sequences, you develop flexibility of your muscles and durability of your spine, joints, and connective tissues.\n\nEnergy Integrity\n\nControlling and enhancing energy, which can be conceptualized as life force, through breath control and visualization drills. Learning to draw energy into the body, to move it, and enliven the body at a cellular level, comes from a long-term practice of yoga.\n\nDetoxification\n\nOne of the first benefits I registered in my initial exposure to Hot Yoga was the detoxification of the muscles, the blood, and the organs. We accomplish this in Kokoro Yoga without the need for a superheated room by using breathing techniques and, of course, vigorous movement. These detox benefits can be keen for desk warriors in the world. Prolonged sitting not only degrades the tissues of the hip capsule, but also weakens and shortens all of the machinery of the trunk that protects the spine. As you can feel after unhinging yourself from the window seat after a long flight, prolonged periods of sitting shut off the lymphatic system and retard the removal of waste products from the muscles, connective tissues, and nervous system.\n\nImproved Immune Function\n\nHard-charging athletes typically have some experience in what is often referred to as \"overtraining syndrome.\" Overtraining means, obviously, the athlete has been overdoing it: relentless training without adequate recovery. Symptoms include chronic fatigue, iron deficiency, states of depression, upper-respiratory infections, and a sharp decline in performance. This syndrome is not limited to the sports arena: special operators, first responders, and those in high-stress business pursuits can also get caught in this psychophysical quicksand. When decline in performance begins to show up in the training journal, the highly motivated individual can react by training even harder, making things worse.\n\nIn specific regard to overtraining and the prevention of overtraining, first consider the vast complexity of the immune system, with multilayers of protection throughout the body that works tirelessly to screen out or kill viruses, microbes, pathogens, and cancers.\n\nAs you'll note from the chart, the quality of your immune function is affected not just by training but by just about every part of your life that you can imagine. Stress is stress, and if on top of your training stress, you are absorbing vast amounts of stress, incurred from either bad diet, lack of sleep, poor relationships, and the like, then your immune system will ultimately fall into what is known as immunosuppression.\n\nAlong with the basic habits of good health, like a smart diet, drinking plenty of water, and getting adequate sleep, consistent yoga practice will help boost your immune function. A 2013 Bloomberg article reported that, \"Scientists are getting close to proving what yogis have held to be true for centuries\u2014yoga and meditation can ward off stress and disease.\" The story centered on a 5-year study being conducted at the Harvard Medical School that was examining the effects of yoga and meditation on brain activity and gene function.\n\nJohn Denninger, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, is leading the study on how the practices affect genes and brain activity in the chronically stressed. His latest work follows a study he and others published earlier this year showing how so-called mind-body techniques can switch on and off some genes linked to stress and immune function. Using neuroimaging and genomics technologies, Denninger and his colleagues are finding that yoga can switch specific genes, related to immune function, on and off, and how yoga can play a powerful role in reducing hypertension and preventing depression. \"There is a true biological effect,\" he told Bloomberg. \"The kinds of things that happen when you meditate do have effects throughout the body, not just in the brain.\"\n\nIn another key study conducted at Ohio State, surgical nurses, who experienced high levels of stress through their work and proximity to death, were shown to have a 40 percent decrease in salivary alpha amylase, a stress marker, after practicing yoga on a consistent basis.\n\nLongevity\n\nNeuroscientists have come to believe that the toll of aging on the human body and brain is an outcome of disuse rather than use. In fact, in pioneering research conducted in the 1970s at the University of California (Berkeley and San Francisco), it was discovered that the brain responds favorably, at the microscopic level, to movement and stimulating experience. It was when usage came to a stop that the part of the brain associated with the usage weakened.\n\nIn this study, the scientists determined that the brain was \"neuroplastic,\" a term meant to describe how connections between brain cells are circuitlike\u2014strengthening, changing, or weakening in response to how and how much the circuits are being used.\n\nThe implications of the neuroplasticity model are huge. In a long-term study performed at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom, researchers took a detailed look at the effects of exercise and lifestyle choices on 2,235 men, ages 45 to 49, over the course of 30 years. The results were powerful: consistent exercise was the most cogent factor in reducing the risk of dementia by 60 percent. In reporting on the magnitude of this study, _The Wall Street Journal_ said, \"Imagine if there were a drug that could reduce the risk of dementia by 60%. It would be the most talked-about drug in history.\"\n\nBrain exercise has been shown to improve cognitive computing power against the grain of decline normally associated with aging. After completing 10 1-hour brain exercise sessions, 2 per week over the course of a month and a half, the subjects demonstrated remarkable effects on their ability to think, reason, and function even 10 years after the brain exercise workouts.\n\nThat's just the beginning when it comes to what a mental training exercise, like meditation, can do. Studies at the University of California, Davis, have looked at the effect that meditation has on telomerase activity in the brain\u2014telomerase is known as the \"immortality enzyme.\"\n\nThe key action can be found in the infinitesimal corners of genes in what are called \"telomeres.\" Telomeres are found at the ends of chromosomes in sequences of DNA. Typically, they shorten every time the cell divides, and when they get too short, the cell dies. Telomerase actively rebuilds and lengthens the telomeres, consequently promoting a longer cell life, and studies have suggested that by higher amounts of telomerase equates to improved states of mental and physical health, and that it can have a direct role in preventing stress-related aging rates.\n\nResearchers at UCLA found that a mere 12 minutes of yoga per day, increased telomerase by 43 percent.\n\nIncreased Stamina and Endurance\n\nIn a study published in 2013, researchers in Boston took a high-tech look at what they termed the \"relaxation response\" that occurs from yoga and meditation. Using blood samples taken before and after a meditation session, the blood was analyzed to extract gene transcription profiles. The results were powerful and all-encompassing: \"Practice enhanced expression of genes associated with energy metabolism, mitochondrial function, insulin secretion and telomere maintenance, and reduced expression of genes linked to inflammatory response and stress-related pathways.\" The researchers found that the greatest benefits were harvested after a long-term practice, with improved energy metabolism and mitochondrial function some of the especially appealing benefits that an endurance athlete might be interested in.\n\nCognitive Performance\n\nA New York Academy of Sciences review showcased the value of yoga in regards to cognition and mental performance, with researchers emphasizing that yoga may be an effective intervention for the elderly dealing with a decline in memory and other aspects of brain performance. The research team concluded: \"Studies involved a wide variety of meditation techniques and reported preliminary positive effects on attention, memory, executive function, processing speed, and general cognition.\"\n\nDecrease in Cellular Inflammation\n\nDecreasing cellular inflammation is important for overall health, but also for peak performance. There have been some breakthrough studies being performed using blood testing that are answering the question of why yoga has a positive effect on cellular inflammation. Since cellular inflammation is one of the root causes of type 2 diabetes and chronic diseases like cancer (as well as Alzheimer's, which is predicted to join the diabetes epidemic), this finding is particularly forceful. In the athletic training world, a lot of attention is paid to the effect diet has on cellular inflammation. Basically, a crappy, high-carb diet (rich in processed foods and sugars) sends the body into a state of hyperglycemia, or chronic state of high-blood sugar, because of the fatigue associated with overtapping the insulin response that occurs when we eat a high-carb meal. Hyperglycemia is the precursor to diabetes and a host of related chronic diseases that you want to prevent at all costs. In addition to actively getting a handle on your diet, research shows that yoga and meditation can be a powerful anti-inflammatory. In a study published in _The Clinical Journal of Oncology,_ Ohio State scientists looked at three different cytokine levels in the blood in breast cancer survivors. The cytokines analyzed were distinct proteins commonly used as markers for cellular inflammation levels. After 12 weeks of yoga practice, the subjects of the study showed a 10 to 15 percent lowering in all three cytokine markers.\n\nDepression and PTSD\n\nA 2008 RAND Corporation study indicated that one out of five combat troops that had returned from the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan met the criteria for PTSD. Incorporating an assortment of studies supporting that yoga is an effective management tool in regards to chronic depression and PTSD, psychiatric researchers at the Boston University School of Medicine took an in-depth look at the mechanisms involved with PTSD and has proposed that there are \"far-reaching implications for the integration of yoga-based practices in the treatment of a broad array of disorders exacerbated by stress.\"\n\nLower Back Pain\n\nIn 2008, the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey collected a data set that suggested that 100 million American adults were affected by chronic pain, back pain, and arthritis. The study estimated that the health-care costs due to these maladies, when you add up the productivity costs and health-care costs, is in the range of $560 to $635 billion\u2014 _annually._ In 2011, the largest study ever conducted on the subject, published by the _Archives of Internal Medicine,_ found that 12 weeks of yoga diminished symptoms and improved overall back function. As far as research goes, yoga has been highlighted as an answer to lower back pain, a problem that costs the United States billions in terms of lost productivity from the workforce.\n\nPresence\n\nPower is found by focusing on the right thing, right now. A quality of the peak performance flow state is to be fully in the moment. Not distracted by emotionally charged memories or the fear of what may happen in the future, but being comprehensively engaged with the present moment. Kokoro Yoga training will guide you on how to use your mind powerfully in the future and past, so that you don't need to dwell there, but can release those time-based mental constructs and stay in the here and now\u2014and perform.\n\nFitness and Wellness\n\nAs discussed in this chapter, research has found that yoga is helpful in treating high-blood pressure, diabetes, back pain, sleep problems, depression, anxiety, stress, and more. But the benefits can be enhanced with more rigorous interval training. Before I began my practice of yoga, I tried to use yoga programs for my fitness needs. I soon learned that they were a poor substitute for real functional fitness, the type required of warriors and athletes. Though it has some cardio benefit, traditional yoga focuses mostly on balance, flexibility, and core strength. Because it is lacking in strength, stamina, work capacity, and durability, we introduced more intense functional fitness routines to Kokoro Yoga.\n\nA POWERFUL FUTURE\n\nMy intent throughout this chapter was to explore the benefits and take a short dive into the science behind the principles in this book. I believe Kokoro Yoga is a Trojan horse ready to unleash a host of benefits, ultimately leading to the highest levels of performance and even consciousness itself. I know, it may sounds too good to be true, but if you stay with me and begin a daily routine that meets your practical needs, body type, and goals, then you will be planting the seeds for a powerful future.\n\nREFERENCES\n\nA quick note: I included this chapter as review of the more recent research that is currently being conducted in regards to yoga, and as such have included references so you can validate what's being learned.\n\nBhasin, M. K., J. A. Dusek, B-H Chang, M. G. Joseph, J. W. Denninger, et al. \"Relaxation Response Induces Temporal Transcriptome Changes in Energy Metabolism, Insulin Secretion and Inflammatory Pathways.\" _PLoS ONE_ vol. 8, no. 5 (2013): e62817. doi:10.1371\/journal.pone.0062817.\n\n\"Does Yoga Really Do the Body Good?\" American Council on Exercise, September\/October 2005. www.acefitness.org\/getfit\/studies\/YogaStudy2005.pdf.\n\nElwood, P., J. Galante, J. Pickering, S. Palmer, A. Bayer, et al. \"Healthy Lifestyles Reduce the Incidence of Chronic Diseases and Dementia: Evidence from the Caerphilly Cohort Study.\" _PLoS ONE_ vol. 8, no. 12 (2013): e81877. doi:10.1371\/journal.pone.0081877.\n\nGaskin, D. J., Richard, P. \"The Economic Costs of Pain in the United States.\" _Journal of Pain_ vol. 13, no. 8 (2012): 715\u201324.\n\n\"Harvard Yoga Scientists Find Proof of Meditation Benefit.\" Bloomberg News, November 21, 2013. www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2013-11-22\/harvard-yoga-scientists-find-proof-of-meditation-benefit.\n\n\"Invisible Wounds of War. Psychological and Cognitive Injuries, Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery.\" RAND Corporation, January 15, 2008. www.rand.org\/content\/dam\/rand\/pubs\/monographs\/2008\/RAND_MG720.pdf.\n\nJacobs, T. L., Epel, E. S., Lin, J., Blackburn, E. H., Wolkowtiz, O. M., et al. \"Intensive meditation training, immune cell telomerase activity, and psychological mediators.\" _Psychoneuroendocrinology_ vol. 36, issue 5 (2011): 664\u201381.\n\nGlaser, J., Bennett, J. M., Andridge, R., Peng, J., et al. \"Yoga's Impact on Inflammation, Mood, and Fatigue in Breast Cancer Survivors: A Randomized Controlled Trial,\" _Journal of Clinical Oncology_ vol. 32, (January 2014): 1040\u20131049.\n\nLavretsky, H., P. Siddarth, N. Nazarian, N. St. Cyr, D. S. Khalsa, et al. \"A pilot study of yogic meditation for family dementia caregivers with depressive symptoms: Effects on mental health, cognition, and telomerase activity.\" _International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry_ vol. 28, no. 1 (2013): 57\u201365.\n\nMacLean, K. A., Ferrer, E., Aichele, S. R. Bridwell, D. A., Zanesco, A. P., et al. \"Intensive Meditation Training Improves Perceptual Discrimination and Sustained Attention.\" _Psychological Science_ vol. 21, no. 6 (2010): 829\u201339.\n\nGothe, Neva P. \"The effects of an 8-week Hatha yoga intervention on executive function in older adults.\" _Journals of Gerontology_ 69 (2014): 1109\u201316.\n\nRosenzweig, M. R. \"Aspects of the Search for Neural Mechanisms of Memory.\" _Annual Review of Psychology_ 47 (1996): 1\u201332.\n\n# CHAPTER 8\n\n# DEVELOPING A PERSONAL PRACTICE\n\n_Today I will do what others won't, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can't._ \n\u2013NFL GREAT JERRY RICE\n\n\"TODAY I WILL DO WHAT OTHERS WON'T, SO TOMORROW I CAN ACCOMPLISH WHAT OTHERS CAN'T.\" THIS QUOTE IS WORTH REPEATING. IT'S WORTH TAPING TO YOUR MIRROR DURING YOUR FIRST MONTHS OF TRAINING. WHY? ONCE YOU'VE APPLIED THE DRUMBEAT OF CONSISTENCY WITH A SET OF KOKORO YOGA SEQUENCES AND RITUALS, AND HAVE MAINTAINED THE PROGRAM LONG ENOUGH FOR THE BENEFITS TO CATCH HOLD\u2014AS IT BECOMES MESHED WITH YOUR daily routine in a way that you can't imagine missing out on\u2014there will be no want or need to burn time trying to assess the next shiny thing or obsess about the latest double-blind, peer-reviewed research study on the subject on whether this works or not. The thing is: You'll see it, feel it, and know it.\n\nUnfortunately, what typically happens when someone gets all revved up to start a personal development program is this: After drifting through a period with too much work, stress, and poor eating habits, self-loathing sets in. You feel like you hit a threshold where you just can't take it any longer so you begin to search. A provocative Facebook ad promises immediate transformation so you jump into a new program. The opening stage of any such undertaking is fraught with peril, as a move toward deep-rooted change in habits or our being is often met with a tidal wave of internal resistance. After 1 or 2 months, your initial high motivation meets with the ultimate truth that this takes work\u2014the daily, routine type of work. You tell yourself that maybe this wasn't \"it\" and that you just don't have time for this stuff... you lose faith and once again begin to be push-pulled in a myriad of directions. The slow, steady erosion of physical, mental, and spiritual well-being continues anew. Sad story, but it doesn't have to be that way. It is time to truly upgrade yourself not just through faith, but with massive commitment.\n\n_\"Do. Or do not. There is no try,\"_ says Jedi Master Yoda of _Star Wars_ fame, imploring Luke Skywalker, his disciple, to build personal power through daily disciplined practice. Trying is not committing. Commitment leads to courage, which gets us moving toward developing the skills and competencies for the task of fulfilling your mission and purpose. Fear is met head-on then tossed aside as confidence and momentum build.\n\nTrying, on the other hand, immediately gives you an out\u2014a back door to run through when things don't go as planned (which is always). Many languages have no word for \"try,\" and now is a good time to erase it from yours. Language can be a prison for the rational mind, limiting your range of thought and action. Better to avoid words like \"try,\" \"could,\" \"should,\" and \"would,\" and adopt the attitude that once a decision is made, a redline is crossed\u2014a line that can't be retraced. We simply must proceed with a \"fire-in-the-belly\" commitment and an \"all-in\" mind-set. _Do. Or do not._\n\nThe SEALs say that you must \"earn your Trident every day.\" The Trident is their symbol of commitment to excellence and they proudly wear it on their chest. Everyone in the sphere that they work recognizes and honors that symbol for the individual behind it and the ethos that they represent. \"Self-mastery in service to humanity\" sums it up. That is the same type of ethos you will be developing with this program, and you will need to sharpen your sword daily on the path.\n\nThe simplest way to look at sharpening the sword is through daily disciplined physical training and practice, a foundational principle of Kokoro Yoga. In opening up your mobility and spinal health, by increasing energy through powerful breathing techniques and recharging your physical capacity through functional movements, you are renewed with energy and growing confidence that becomes a self-perpetuating force. This leads to a clear mind, an open heart, and a connection to your true self, allowing a vision of the passion, purpose, and principles of your unique personal ethos to arise. Further integration accelerates you toward your goals, with positive energy radiating outward that attracts a team of warriors ready to support you in a mutually symbiotic, interconnected web destined to co-create a better world.\n\nYoga is the multilayered warrior development discipline I had been searching for ever since the day I left my NYC dojo to become a Navy SEAL. But as it turns out, I had to create it to find it. For thousands of years, yoga has been an open source project to develop a complete personal development program, but it has been largely hidden from view in modern times. Practicing Kokoro Yoga on a daily basis for weeks, months, and years offers you a single approach in which you sharpen the array of inner resources we're all born with across the spectrum of mind-body-spirit. When we sharpen our sword daily, everyone and every moment becomes our teacher. We open ourselves to the reality that we know little about the true nature of the universe and meaning of life, so we lower our heads, soften our gaze, and become lifelong learners.\n\nThe Japanese concept of \"kokoro,\" denotes the spiritual aspect of our training. Kokoro represents our warrior's spirit and translates as \"merge heart and mind in action.\" Kokoro training begins as a solitary journey without a true summit, and at every peak you successfully climb you will experience an unforeseen plateau, followed by a fresh climb. But on the mountain path you will taste previously untouchable realms of power and connect with fellow travelers. It is a journey of the soul, and one that you must make alone.\n\nA CUSTOM PRACTICE\n\nYour practice will be personal and change over time. Every individual coming to yoga has different needs, inspiration, mental and emotional development, moral bearing, body type, injury matrix, and level of fitness and spiritual beliefs. A personal practice is optimized when it can be customized. In fact, that is one of the unique and pleasant ways that Kokoro Yoga is different from most other forms or systems of yoga.\n\nA huge challenge for us is that our lives are frenetic; racing to the yoga studio to catch a class 5 times a week can exacerbate the problem into a rolling boil. So why not train in your own bedroom, or on the beach, or in the woods? Let's customize our training so we can build \"stick-to-it habits\" that discipline ourselves to train daily. Let me share how Catherine and I customize our personal practices so you can get a sense of where to go with yours.\n\nRecall that Catherine is training the Peaceful Warrior within her\u2014so she can spread love through her teaching and personal practice. Catherine organizes her personal practice to support that archetype, and it includes a weekly dose of 2 to 3 Ashtanga group classes in the primary and secondary series and teaching 3 restorative Peaceful Warrior classes. It is supplemented with daily meditation and spot drills. She supports it with a functional fitness routine of 3 CrossFit classes and 1 to 2 moderate walks or runs. All of this is woven into her weekly schedule as it ebbs and flows. She allows for flexibility to add or subtract based on her work and travel schedule.\n\nMy personal practice is based on my warrior ethos. I practice a short morning and evening ritual and do spot drills daily (box breathing and visualization drills) to ensure that I cover all Five Mountains in my practice. I teach Kokoro Yoga at SEALFIT HQ once a week, focusing on the Fighting or Fit Warrior sequences. The meat and potatoes of my training are 2-3 moderate to long sessions and 3\u20134 SEALFIT WODS and 1 self-defense class where I integrate mental, emotional, and awareness skills into the training. I train for roughly 3 hours a day all told, and allow for flexibility to be spontaneous, jump into training with my team, or take a rest day. I also strive to challenge myself with something new and different every month that will test my limits.\n\nOf course you will design your personal practice based on your intuitive sense of where you need to develop skills and close weakness gaps. Your personal practice must sync both with your warrior spirit and your lifestyle. That is the beauty of this practice\u2014it is uniquely designed to mold to your personality and intuitively felt needs.\n\nRITUALS, SPOT DRILLS, AND RETREATS\n\nAs I have made abundantly clear, committing to, and sticking to, a personal practice requires the development of new habits. Habits must become ritualistic for them to sink in. It may seem overwhelming to add one more thing to your schedule now... but don't despair! Kokoro Yoga has three key training methods that ensure your personal practice will become a discipline and then a habit. They are: 1) rituals, 2) spot drills, and 3) retreats.\n\nThe ritual is a practice session that you do every day at the same time to provide a foundation for excellence during the day. We have the morning ritual and the evening ritual. Both are integrated training sessions, seeping with power, providing important bookends to your day. If you do no other training besides these two rituals, you are good to go. I will describe the morning ritual first, followed by the evening ritual.\n\nThe Morning Ritual\n\nIt is common to wake up, grab your smartphone to check e-mails while preparing your coffee, and allow your mind and emotions to spin up. The more uncommon, Kokoro Yoga approach, is to commit to win in your mind before you step foot onto the day's battlefield. The morning ritual is an integrated session that includes refining your ethos while training positivity, breath control, visualization, and functional movement. Here is the process:\n\n When you awake, begin to connect with your breathing and body by performing a quick body scan while breathing deeply. Recite silently to yourself words to this effect: I like myself, I like myself, I've got this, another great day, I am grateful for this day, etc. This immediately grounds you in presence and positivity.\n\n Your next act when you get out of bed is to get a glass of fresh water, and with gratitude for the water and earth, drink it.\n\n Now sit in your training space and check in with your ethos: Your ethos (refer back to chapter 3) should be written in a place you can refer to daily\u2014mine is on my iPhone. Simply read the purpose statement and scan your principles. Reflect upon your vision and mission. Consider how you will align with your ethos on this day so that you reinforce it and move the dial toward fulfilling it. This is a good opportunity to deepen your commitment to the important things in your life, or reorient your mind away from things that are distracting you, moving you away from your purpose.\n\n Perform box breathing for 5 to 20 minutes. Select a ratio that will balance you (1:1:1:1) or charge you up (1:2:2:1). If you are working on a specific breathing pattern, you can do that here instead.\n\n After the box breathing, it is time to perform your functional movement. This will be one of the pose sequences or spot drill. You can select any other movement practice you would prefer here\u2014like body weight interval or combat conditioning sequences, a jog, or a walk. The key with this part of the ritual is to move the blood and energy in your body. Also it will stimulate and strengthen your spine and nervous system. You will start the day with an integrated body, mind, and spirit.\n\n After the movement component, sit back down and perform a short visualization session. My preferred method is to visualize my ideal future having accomplished my major life purpose and vision, and then to \"dirt dive\" my day. In the dirt dive I see myself accomplishing every project, task, and interaction with effortless perfection. You should endeavor to see yourself accomplishing all tasks and projects beyond expectations. All interactions leave you and others elevated. You are positive and in a flow state throughout the day. You have won in your mind.\n\n You are now ready for your coffee or tea and healthy breakfast. The ritual will help you maintain positive energy and focus as you start your workday.\n\nThe Evening Ritual\n\nWhereas the morning ritual is designed to charge you up and ground you for optimal performance in the day, the evening ritual is meant to integrate the positive results of the day, distill the lessons learned, and wind your mind and nervous system down for a great night of sleep. Here is the process:\n\n Prepare your time and space for the ritual\u2014that means take care of the day's business, put the kids to bed (if applicable), and ensure an uninterrupted time to practice. Have your journal handy.\n\n Get comfortable and perform 5 to 10 minutes of box breathing. Choose a calming ratio such as 1:0:2:0 or 1:1:2:1.\n\n Perform a calming sequence such as Peaceful Warrior, Recovering Warrior or Hip Mobility Drill, or if you want just go into Happy Baby or Pidgeon Pose for 5 minutes with a deep awareness of your breath.\n\n In your mind perform a \"recapitulation visualization\" where you will visualize yourself back at the start of your day, just after the morning ritual. Moving forward, review all events of the day and mentally note positive interactions and accomplishments. Jot at least three victories down in your journal. Then note the things that didn't go so well. Ponder the lesson, or silver lining, of each event. Write down what you learned, then mentally \"let it go\" by forgiving yourself and committing to doing better next time. Bottom line: You never want to go to bed with unfinished business or regrets!\n\n Perform the evening meditation described below, as time allows.\n\n Drink a nice, cool glass of water with gratitude for your health, for the day, for life, and for anyone or anything else you can think of.\n\n Go to bed and sleep like a baby!\n\nEvening Meditation: Begin with 5 rounds of alternate nostril breathing. This breathing drill will balance and align the left and right hemispheres of the brain. When finished with that, come back to deep breathing without controlling the breath and notice the shifts in your mind and body. Now reflect on impermanence and the cycle of change that a day represents. One day, one lifetime is what Grandmaster Tadashi Nakamura would tell me, nodding to the cycle of life and how each day is a precious opportunity to be enlightened and aligned in purpose.\n\nBegin to visualize a bright red ball of energy glowing and radiating health near your pelvic floor. Visually create roots that grow from this ball down into the earth. Allow the roots to grow deeper and deeper into the earth, until you have reached the center of the planet and connect to the core. Allow the earth's energy to be drawn up into your body filling you with strength and vitality. Close your practice with gratitude.\n\nThe morning and evening rituals will bookend your day in a way that is so powerful that not only will you notice the difference almost immediately, so will everyone else in your life, who will also benefit. I cannot emphasize enough how these rituals are the crux of building your personal practice. Going to a yoga studio a few times a week is great, but doing the morning and evening ritual will have a far more profound and positive impact on your development, and your life!\n\nSPOT DRILLS\n\nBREATHING DRILLS\n\nBox Breathing\n\nWarrior Breath\n\nEnergy Breath\n\nAlternate Nostril Breathing\n\nMENTAL CHECKUP DRILLS\n\nFeed the Courage Wolf\n\nEnergizing Visualization\n\nVictorious Warrior Visualization\n\nFuture Me Visualization\n\nMOVEMENT DRILLS\n\nEnergizing Drill\n\nHip Mobility Drill\n\nCalming Drill\n\nBody Blast (choose 1 round of a functional drill, or do 50 to 100 of 1 of the following: squats, push-ups, pull-ups, or burpees)\n\nBring Down the Heavens\n\nBouncy Breath\n\nChopping Wood or Musashi Strikes\n\nSpot Drills\n\nWhereas the morning and evening ritual bookend your day and ensure excellence in your personal practice, the spot drills are another way to supercharge your training on a daily basis. The spot drills are designed to do training \"on the spot\" based upon the time and space you have, and what you feel you need.\n\nFor instance, if you are feeling fatigued in midafternoon, you can step away from your desk and perform the spot drill of 1-2-2-1 Breathing or Sun Salutation. If you need to calm yourself and prepare for an important speech, then 5 minutes of box breathing is a nice spot drill. The spot drill is like a Swiss Army knife, a multitool always handy to be certain your integrated training is covering all Five Mountains as you evolve your personal practice. You could schedule these drills, or set reminders to do them throughout the day, or just do them whenever you intuitively feel the need. Above are some of my favorites.\n\nRetreats\n\nBack in my active-duty Navy SEAL days, we did daily ritualistic training unique to preparing for the specialized missions of a SEAL team. But we all looked forward to the next \"away time\" where we would immerse ourselves 100 percent into learning away from the daily clutter of our lives. On these immersive training adventures we would retrace the basics of whatever skill we were learning, and then take it to a new level, or learn a new skill altogether. We always came home refreshed and energized, even though the training was often grueling for weeks on end.\n\nWe achieve this same \"away time\" immersion in Kokoro Yoga through what we call a retreat. It is important to retreat from busy daily life to immerse yourself in refining a skill or learning something new. The retreat doesn't have to be for yoga; it can come from any of the 5 mountains. For example, some of retreats that I have enjoyed include martial arts, silent meditation, self-defense, emotional therapy, mindfulness, survival, tracking, intuition, memory, and breathing retreats. You can also retreat to charge ahead after a challenge such as a SEALFIT 20X challenge, or a Spartan Race. In any case, the possibilities with the retreat method, as a tool in the integrated training model, are endless. This method of training is incredibly rejuvenating and rewarding...I encourage you to commit to your next one immediately.\n\nSTARTING A PERSONAL PRACTICE\n\nIf you are new to yoga, as I know many of you are, it can be daunting to figure out how and where to start. Let's just say that you start at the beginning\u2014the beginning that is right for you. For me it was to attend a 60-day Hot Yoga challenge to jump-start my training. Catherine started by leaping right into a 500-hour teacher training! For you it will be different. The key is to fully commit, make it what I call a \"burn-your-boats\" behind you commitment, the sort where you commit to your significant other, your kids, your inner-sanctum teammates, that you won't let them down.\n\nCommitment gives you the courage to dive in and explore. I would recommend you start by clarifying your personal ethos and begin the morning ritual. In my book _Unbeatable_ _Mind_ and the online training program by that name, I have a series of questions and exercises that help you uncover your ethos. I recommend using that process\u2014because it works. At any rate, you need a place to dig your heels into a stand that strengthens your commitment to mastery and resolve to maintain a personal practice day in and day out.\n\nCRAWL, WALK, RUN\n\nIn SEAL tactical training we learned to crawl first with a new skill. We were careful not to try to go from zero to hero and risk injury or mission failure. Honing the basics proved to be the most valuable when we actually entered combat. Being able to perform the basics without thinking was crucial to survival and mission success. This is metaphorically true for your yoga practice. Be patient enough to train the basics for far longer than others.\n\nWhen the basics are mastered, then you will move on to the crawl phase to layer in new skills and knowledge. This is where you will work in greater sync with your teammates. You can eventually run fast with the skill, employing them with precision. But then we would always come back to train the basics again! The brilliance in this method is that it evolves you step-by-step from a place of unconscious incompetence, to conscious incompetence, to conscious competence, and, finally, to unconscious competence where the skills flow with effortlessness. Of course this type of training requires patience and perseverance, two qualities you will need to develop in your practice. It is important to find deep intrinsic motivation, which is why it needs to be grounded in your personal ethos. Relating your training to your ethos is a great intrinsic motivator (i.e., get 1 percent better every day, master yourself so you can serve others, etc.). When you can do this, your personal practice will take on a new level of meaning. Missing it will interfere with your growth as a human, risk your mission and let your team down. We don't do that!\n\nWHERE TO TRAIN\n\nKokoro Yoga can occur in many places. The most common will be in your home or at work in a spot you have designated or created for your personal practice. I think the home is best because you get to control access and noise (Unless your spouse or kids don't respect your space very well, which is a different issue!). Creating a special place to train and using it every day is powerful. You can include items for you eyes to focus on, such as a candle or an iconic picture. You will have your mat, chair, or bench ready for action. Over time this place will become special to you and have an energy that helps you focus. Try to avoid changing spots or randomly practicing in a different place every time.\n\nTraining at work can be a good option if you are lucky enough to work at a conscious company that has dedicated personal development space. Regardless, if you can get access to an empty room, or a park nearby, you can practice. Of course finding a local yoga studio near you is also an excellent option, especially if you resonate with their community. Ideally you will find a combination of these three to provide you ample opportunity to get your practice in every day.\n\nTHE THREE MOMENTS\n\nEvery practice session has three distinct moments: the beginning, the middle, and the end. The beginning is the preparation and entering into the practice. This will be different for each location. At home the beginning moment will be designed to protect your time and to set up the space. Make sure the phone is on silent and your family or roommate is aware that it is \"practice time.\" It is not a good idea to eat within 30 minutes before a practice. Ensure the room is warm so you won't be distracted by the cold, but not so warm it puts you to sleep. Make sure you have the right tools so you don't have to stop to retrieve them. You get the picture.\n\nThe middle moment is the actual practice itself. This is the moment you have been waiting for\u2014so make the most of it\u2014and really practice. A session with a distracted mind, interruptions, chatting with someone, or being crawled on by the kids is not ideal. However don't beat yourself up if you are taken off track by your monkey mind or monkey kids, but use those opportunities to practice a different aspect of your ethos, such as forgiveness, patience, and playfulness.\n\nThe end moment is when you wind down and integrate the practice, leaving it with an expression of gratitude and grace. This is where many shortchange themselves. They perform an amazing yoga practice, then as soon as the last pose is done they get up, grab their mat, and check their e-mail. Please don't do that! Take time in the Resting Pose to integrate all that occurred in your practice. The ancient yogis felt that this moment was the most important part of the practice because it allows the benefits to literally sink in at all levels\u2014physical, energetic, mental, wisdom, and bliss\u2014the five dimensional bodies come together as one.\n\nThe end moment is also the perfect time to perform visualization work. Generally speaking, we want to start practice with the \"hard\" work of movement, and then move toward the softer, inner work. Movement precedes breath control, followed by visualization and meditation, in that order. But you may note that I put box breathing before the movement in the sequences. The reason is that I have found it useful to settle and sync the body, mind, and emotions before the movement because it deepens our practice. We are so agitated from the myriad of stressors coming at us day in and out that we can't get enough box breathing in to soothe our nerves and calm our body and our mind. So we kick off our practice with box breathing to ensure that the movement, and entire practice, is stronger.\n\nWhen you are completely finished, you are still not done. The transition back to the \"real\" world is also part of your practice. Avoid getting spun up into a conversation right away or checking your e-mail or engaging in some mental drama after your practice. Use the transition time to refine your awareness and grace. Keep quiet, smile, and walk slowly, with awareness. Don't be weird about it, just enjoy the heightened sense of connection and integration, and notice how good it feels. If you do get spun up into another story, notice the difference! Keep in mind that the objective is to develop mental, emotional, and spiritual depth for your personal mastery... so that you may fulfill your purpose, live with passion, remain in alignment with your principles, and be of service to others. It makes sense to continue the deep awareness that the practice brought you for as long as possible, doesn't it? Why not make your entire day a practice session? Why not make every action (even every breath) a practice and leave the world better off for it? Why not indeed!\n\nSTAYING THE COURSE\n\nThough getting started is a challenge for many, staying the course is often the bigger challenge. We expect immediate results without much effort these days. The good news is that you will see immediate results if by \"immediate\" you mean 1 to 3 months. Trust me, Kokoro Yoga requires effort, and you will also see results quickly. But after the excitement of the initial positive changes\u2014such as a sense of calm, more control, and more energy\u2014goes away, don't be surprised to find that deeper change seems to evade you. The reason for this is that deeper levels of growth lay dormant until the necessary integration moment occurs\u2014that magical crossroad when the right lessons are learned, and the training penetrates to the right depth, to provide the key that unlocks the new insights or next stage of consciousness.\n\nPositive growth is then suddenly experienced as an \"aha\" moment, or a sense of knowingness you did not have prior. It just shows up at the right time, often when we are challenged and dig deep. Sometimes we experience it through others by the new way they treat us\u2014with a level of respect we previously didn't experience. They say we have a \"look in the eye\" that wasn't there before, but of course you can't see it yourself, but you feel it. These are moments to savor and humbly acknowledge that the training is performing its magic. If you are deeply religious, give credit where it is really due, to your Creator.\n\nBottom line: Transformation is a holistic and nonlinear process that occurs when things line up, when the timing is right.\n\nAnother important point I would like to bring up is that we must \"translate\" our past negative energy into neutral or positive energy in order to transcend to higher stages of consciousness. This means we must overcome shadow self-regrets, shame, and guilt to gain understanding and acceptance of our negative, shadow selves. We do this so that we can end the negative contraction and \"graduate\" to transcend to higher stages of development. If we try hard to transcend without doing the translation work, we will get pulled back down into negative territory sooner or later. Progress is thwarted by our shadow self, leaving us feeling frustrated and stuck. Translation (shadow work), the gift of Western psychotherapy, and transformation (enlightenment work), the gift of warrior and spiritual practices, conspire together to facilitate our growth to maximum potential as a human. If you just focus on the transcendent practices of meditation, without diving into your shadow self to translate, then transmute mental and emotional negativity, then you will set yourself up for disappointment.\n\nDISCIPLINE, COMPETENCE, CONFIDENCE\n\nCommitment to a daily practice unlocks courage. Courage expresses itself in yoga not as a roar of \"I CAN!\" but the quiet discipline of just showing up and putting out with a heartfelt effort, every day. Over time that act of discipline leads to a competence in the skills, knowledge, and nuances of the training. Ultimately we gain a concrete confidence in ourselves, a confidence that favorably impacts all that we do. We become more successful, and that success reinforces the confidence. We have unlocked the upward spiral of growth, which has no upper limit.\n\nWHO IS ON YOUR TEAM?\n\nIn spite of what you may believe from the movies, a Navy SEAL, or other elite military operator, seeks to master the skills of the warrior not so that they can be a lone operator, but so they can be an effective teammate. Great teams are great because they are filled with individuals working toward greatness. They are willing to align personal needs and desires to the team's mission.\n\nSimilarly, in your training, it will help you to find a swim buddy or team to train with. The team-training effect is a critical aspect of the lifestyle I am espousing here. A great team will hold you to a higher standard, call you out on your bull, and offer opportunities to face your fears and develop emotional power. On the contrary, you may find yourself unsupported in your efforts by your supposed team. If that is the case, then I propose you find new teammates. No question, this is an awkward situation if those individuals live under the same roof. Let your newfound confidence and awareness guide the development of a supportive team.\n\nAVOIDING RUTS AND INJURIES\n\nKokoro Yoga is designed to maximize longevity and to avoid injuries or burnout. The customizable nature of the training and adaptation of the poses and integrated nature will help you maintain a balance throughout your training ups and downs. Having said that, it is possible, if not likely, that eventually injuries may occur. These come from accidents or from dysfunctional movement patterns that grease the groove of an injury. These dysfunctional movement patterns are subtle and hidden from view from us, but can be \"outed\" by a skilled teacher.\n\nThis points to the need to have a teacher to check our work. Attending a yoga studio once a week (or even once a month) to have alignment adjustments and a watchful eye is a good idea. As mentioned above, periodically attending a yoga seminar or retreat is another good idea. Moving into a pose with several repetitions to align your structure, before holding your position, is a tip that Gary Kraftsow taught me. This method will help ferret out dysfunctional movement patterns.\n\nIn spite of all the above, what do you do if an injury occurs? First, it helps to assess the magnitude. Maybe it is the Navy SEAL in me, but I have generally noted that many people overestimate the extent of an injury and take unnecessary precautions, sidelining themselves for weeks or months. It is hard to reengage with your personal practice after 3 months on the bench. My Ashtanga teacher, Tim Miller, says that you need to learn the difference between \"integrating pain\" and \"disintegrating pain.\" Having said that, this is not a recommendation to do anything stupid. Please get injuries examined and follow the advice of your doctor, after checking your intuition and agreeing with it. Remember, the medical docs will always err way on the side of caution to ensure liability coverage. Most of the time you are able to continue training with modifications. An additional professional to consult might be the most experienced yoga professional, chiropractor, or naturopathic doctor in your hood. Don't let injury take you away from your practice\u2014it is part of staying in the game over the long haul.\n\nWhat if you experience burnout? Burnout is dangerous because it can lead to injury and quitting altogether. Ideally, you will organize your practice with enough variety and regenerative sessions so that you don't experience burnout. But if you do, then what?\n\nRetreat, retreat! Yes, take time to retreat to recharge your batteries. When you begin to feel burnout, instead of taking time off altogether, consider changing things up in your training schedule, and plan an extended period of integrative practice. This can be a day alone, a weekend seminar, or a multiday training. There are an enormous number of excellent seminars and retreats to choose from. Recently I did a 6-day silent Yin Yoga retreat in Hawaii. It completely fired me up to deepen my practice and got me out of a minor rut from the holidays. Finally, to hammer this point home, it helps to check in with your ethos every day to remind yourself why you practice. Maintaining that connection with your \"Why\" is deeply motivating, providing you the drive and determination to stay the course.\n\nTRUTH, WISDOM, LOVE\n\nSo where are we going with all this? What is the destination? There is none. The way of yoga is a journey, not some elusive destination. When we unlock growth, we set ourselves on a path toward an ever-expanding sense of self. The uncanny nature of the growth is that the higher we go up the Five Mountains, the more we can see. The more we see, the more we understand just how little we truly know about the world. Great humility settles in, and we find more grace and joy in the small things in life. Details we didn't even notice as youths, or scoffed at as important business executives, suddenly seem important. And they are.\n\nMy directive to you is to you stay focused on the path and not the destination. Put your attention and intention into the daily sharpening of the sword. This is where the good stuff is. You will get glimpses of new plateaus and gain enlightening insights to guide future steps. Day by day, step-by-step, that divine heart of your inner warrior, your spirit, and the witness to your life, will begin to merge with your physical heart. You will be consumed with the courage wolf and positivity will be your constant companion as you experience ever-expanding waves of truth, wisdom, and love. Your thoughts and actions will be filled with passion, directed toward purpose, guided by worthy principles, and backed by your stand. You will move as fast as the wind, be as quiet as the forest, as daring as fire, and as immovable as a mountain itself.\n\nLife will become about finding perfection in the moment, about discovering truth, unlocking the capacity to love, and to live with wisdom in deep connection to all of life. This is our journey, our way. It is time that we all step into our uniqueness, gain mastery over our body and minds, and allow our spirits to speak to the world. It is time to fulfill our purpose with passion, and live with honor, courage, and commitment.\n\nWe are deeply humbled that you have chosen to join this journey.\n\n# APPENDIX A\n\n# FUNCTIONAL CONDITIONING\n\nThe following functional conditioning movements are for the Fit Warrior sequences. You will choose a handful of these to add to your practice. Appendix B has combat conditioning movements, and Appendix C has some combinations of both fitness and combat conditioning movements to get you started. Change it up and have fun with these!\n\nFor more guidance on proper technique and methodology for functional fitness, see www.sealfit.com\/videos and my book _8 Weeks to SEALFIT._\n\nRemember the golden rule of virtuosity when it comes to maximizing your conditioning modules: good form is the first priority and intensity comes second. In other words, don't make the mistake of compromising good technique to bang out a few more reps.\n\nPUSH-UPS\n\nStandard Push-up\n\n Elbows close to body, core engaged.\n\n Chest touches ground, elbows locked out at top.\n\nScaled Push-up\n\n Hand position elevated on a box or wall.\n\n Chest touches box or wall.\n\nPlyometric Push-up\n\n Explosive UP, hands and feet leave the ground.\n\n In place or moving across the floor forward or backward.\n\nDive Bomber Push-ups\n\n Top of push-up, send hips up, moving in a V.\n\n Scoop the chest down and forward low, with hips following. Lock arms, then reverse to the start.\n\nClapping Push-ups\n\n Explosive UP, hands leave the ground, and clap in front of or behind the body.\n\nAlligator Push-ups\n\n Offset grip (fore and aft), do a push-up, crawl forward, and repeat on the other side.\n\nHand-Placement Variations\n\n Diamond (formed with thumbs and index fingers touching).\n\n Wide.\n\n On fists.\n\n Offset (fore and aft).\n\nWave-offs (Arm Haulers)\n\n On belly, arms, and legs lifted. Hands touch in front, sweep back, and touch behind back.\n\nStatic Plank Hold\n\n Either top of push-up position or on elbows with straight body or in pike as lean and rest.\n\nSingle Arm\n\n Center-weighted arm under body, other behind back.\n\n Can scale on a box or well-secured chair.\n\nHandstand Push-up\n\n Upside down against wall, arms locked out.\n\n Lower with control to touch head to ground or elevated pad. Lift back up to straight arms.\n\n Can scale with feet on a box and the body in pike position.\n\n Handstand hold is also an option.\n\nSQUATS AND JUMPS\n\nStandard Squat\n\n Feet shoulder width, initiate by driving hips back. Weight on heels.\n\n Proud chest, eyes forward, knees out, tracking over toes.\n\n Bottom is reached when the hip crease is below the top of the knee.\n\nJump Squat\n\n Accelerate through the top, hips open, feet leave the ground.\n\n Soft landing, core engaged.\n\nSquat Hold\n\n Hold at the bottom to work mobility or slightly above parallel to work strength.\n\nSingle Leg Squat (Pistol)\n\n Drive hips back, unweighted leg in front.\n\n Send weight back.\n\nTuck Jumps\n\n Jump straight up, pulling knees up high.\n\n Quiet, springy landing.\n\nStar Jump\n\n Squat down, touch hands to floor.\n\n Spring up with the feet leaving the floor and arms out, body forms an X.\n\nJumping Jacks\n\n Stand up straight, with arms at the side.\n\n Jump feet and arms wide, with elbows bending at the top.\n\nFroggies\n\n Squat and touch fingertips to the ground.\n\n Jump into the top of a wide-stance jumping jack.\n\nLUNGES\n\nStandard Lunge\n\n Big step forward, knee tracks over foot.\n\n Back leg lightly touches the ground.\n\n Eyes forward, upright torso.\n\n Return to standing.\n\nJump Lunges\n\n Jump from one lunge to another with core engagement and control.\n\nWalking Lunges\n\n Connect lunges to move forward or backward.\n\nCORE\n\nSit-ups\n\n On back, soles of feet together.\n\n Engage core and lift to sitting.\n\nFlutter Kicks\n\n On back, fists under glutes, legs straight.\n\n Lift and lower legs, keeping them straight (scissor).\n\nPlank Toe Taps\n\n On elbows, body straight.\n\n Lift one leg and tap toes to heel\n\n Lower and repeat with the other.\n\nSide Hip Raises\n\n On one elbow or locked out arm, body straight, side torso facing down.\n\n Lower hip to tap the ground and raise to return to a straight body.\n\nBicycle Crunches\n\n Sit in a V, touch right elbow to left knee while extending left leg.\n\n Repeat.\n\nLeg Levers and Holds\n\n On back, fists under glutes, legs straight.\n\n Lift and lower straight legs or hold at various heights.\n\nSupermans\n\n On belly, arms outreached, palms face each other or down.\n\n Lift arms and legs together, engaging core and reaching legs back.\n\nJump Throughs\n\n Pike Position\/Downward-Facing Dog.\n\n Bend knees, lift heels, look forward.\n\n Jump feet through to sitting, crossing the ankles when the feet are passing between the arms.\n\nMULTIJOINT MOVEMENTS\n\nDown-Ups\n\n Drop to your back or belly (spontaneous choice).\n\n Jump back up to a choice combat stance.\n\n Repeat ad infinitum.\n\nBurpees\n\n1. Hands to ground.\n\n2. Feet jump out to top of push-up position.\n\n3. Chest to ground.\n\n4. Lift chest, jump feet to the bottom of a squat.\n\n5. Jump up, open hips, claps hands over head.\n\n8-Count Body Builders\n\n1. Hands to ground.\n\n2. Feet jump out to top of push-up position.\n\n3. Chest to ground.\n\n4. Top of push-up.\n\n5. Jump feet wide.\n\n6. Jump feet back to normal push-up position.\n\n7. Jump feet to the bottom of a squat.\n\n8. Jump up, open hips, claps hands over head.\n\nMountain Climbers\n\n Top of push-up position.\n\n Right foot jumps to outside of right hand.\n\n Left foot jumps to outside of left hand as right foot jumps back to starting position.\n\n Repeat.\n\n# APPENDIX B\n\n# COMBAT CONDITIONING\n\nWe talked about \"combat conditioning\" in chapter 4: It's a fantastic way to insert a fun and highly charged aerobic element using offensive and protective movements into your Kokoro Yoga routine. I'll say this again because it's so important: You don't need to have a martial arts background to throw a few punches and kicks. Throwing some punches and kicks (the essence of combat conditioning) can be done as a stand-alone workout or inserted as a conditioning module in your routine.\n\nThe combat conditioning module is not a requirement, of course. Rather, it's offered as a method to include a specific brand of heart-pounding cardio into the 1 hour (or 30 minutes) of time that you have to train on a jam-packed day. Combat conditioning moves can also be intermixed with functional fitness moves. As long as you're consistent in changing things up, you'll avoid the rut of stagnation that can occur from doing the exact same routine every time you train. Constantly varying your functional conditioning is a way to shock the body into delivering the highest return on your investment when it comes to physiological response to your training.\n\nKicks\n\n Front: lift knee, kick quickly straight ahead through the ball of the foot (vary the height), quick recoil.\n\n Side: lift knee, kick to side through the heel (quick out-in).\n\nPunches\n\n Straight punch: fists, arms up to protect head, offset stance, drive rear side arm forward, rotate hips.\n\n Jab: fists, arms up to protect head, offset stance, drive front side arm forward.\n\n Hook: bent elbow punch from the side, use hips and upper-back muscles.\n\nDucks and Feints\n\n Side-to-side moves, squat, head moves.\n\nSprawl\n\n Jump the legs back.\n\n Arch the back, hands to ground, control the descent with the chest striking first and contact rolling down the front of the body (like the rockers on a rocking horse).\n\n# APPENDIX C\n\n# CONDITIONING MODULES\n\nPicking and choosing from the movements listed in Appendix A and Appendix B, you can craft your own conditioning modules that you can insert into the middle of a Kokoro Yoga session. The following workout patterns can be used as templates.\n\n10! UP or DOWN\n\n Pick 2 or more movements.\n\n 10 reps each, then 9 each... continuing down to 1 each.\n\n Can start at 1 and work up the ladder as well.\n\n Can do 10 of 1 movement and 1 of another and work the ladders in opposite directions.\n\nx Rounds of y Reps\n\n 5 rounds of 20 reps each.\n\n 3 rounds of 15 reps each.\n\nAMRAP\n\n As many rounds as possible (in X time).\n\n For example, 12 minutes AMRAP of 5 burpees + 5 Mountain Climbers.\n\nEMOM\n\n Every minute on the minute.\n\nRoll the Dice\n\n Pick 2 to 6 movements and assign dice numbers.\n\n Roll the dice and choose the corresponding movement.\n\n Roll it again for rep count, double or triple it.\n\nA Few Sample Modules:\n\n10! UP: standard push-ups, L+R straight punches, sit-ups\n\n5 rounds of 20 reps each of: jumping jacks, squats, Supermans, lunges\n\nAMRAP 8 minutes: 4 burpees, 6 front kicks, 8 wave-offs, 10 Mountain Climbers\n\nEMOM 10 minutes: 3 star jumps, 4 dive bomber push-ups, 5 2-count flutter kicks (scale up with 4-count flutter kicks)\n\nALSO BY MARK DIVINE\n\n_8 Weeks to SEALFIT: \nA Navy SEAL's Guide to Unconventional Training for Physical and \nMental Toughness_\n\n_Unbeatable Mind: \nForge Resiliency and Mental Toughness to Succeed at an Elite Level_\n\n_The Way of the SEAL: \nThink Like an Elite Warrior to Lead and Succeed_ (with Allyson E. Machate)\n\n# ABOUT THE AUTHORS\n\n**MARK DIVINE**\n\nA _New York Times, Wall Street Journal,_ and Amazon.com bestselling author, Mark Divine is the founder of SEALFIT and Unbeatable Mind. Mark served for twenty years as a Navy SEAL, retiring as a Commander in 2011. He is an accomplished martial artist with black belts in Seido and Goju Ryu Karate, as well as military hand-to-hand combat certification in SCARS\/San Soo Kng Foo and a senior ranking in Saito Ninjutsu.\n\nMark came to yoga from the martial arts in 1999, studying with Ashtanga Yoga's Tim Miller, where he received teacher training in the first and second series. He later received a 500-hour teaching certification from Gary Kraftkow's American ViniYoga Academy. In 2007 Mark created the innovative Kokoro Yoga program to train Navy SEAL and other SOF candidates the science of mental development through SEALFIT. Since then, he has trained thousands from all walks of life to embrace the full spectrum of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual training that yoga offers. You can sign up for author updates here.\n\n**CATHERINE DIVINE**\n\nAfter years of the stress of work as a professional cook, Catherine found in yoga a path toward healing. Yoga soon became her medicine as well as the focus of a new path in life. She is now an experienced teacher and spiritual activist, flowing with enthusiasm for the healing properties yoga brings to each individual. In collaboration with stepfather Mark Divine, the founder of Kokoro Yoga, Catherine is the head facilitator for programming, teacher training, and yoga retreats for the program. Catherine has multiple teaching certifications and has trained in various styles under some of the best teachers in the world, including Tim Miller and Gary Kraftsow. Her key focus as a teacher is to bring a community together under the common thread of the Peaceful Warrior, seeking compassion, love, and environmental awareness. You can sign up for author updates here.\n**Thank you for buying this**\n\n**St. Martin's Press ebook.**\n\nTo receive special offers, bonus content,\n\nand info on new releases and other great reads,\n\nsign up for our newsletters.\n\nOr visit us online at\n\nus.macmillan.com\/newslettersignup\n\nFor email updates on Mark Divine, click here.\n\nFor email updates on Catherine Divine, click here.\n\n# CONTENTS\n\nTitle Page\n\nCopyright Notice\n\nForeword\n\n1. An M4 and a Yoga Mat\n\n2. The Pursuit of Maximum Human Potential\n\n3. The Strategies\n\n4. The Tactics\n\n5. Core and Supporting Sequences\n\n6. Poses and Movements\n\n7. Physiological and Psychological Benefits of Yoga\n\n8. Developing a Personal Practice\n\nAppendix A: Functional Conditioning\n\nAppendix B: Combat Conditioning\n\nAppendix C: Conditioning Modules\n\nAlso by Mark Divine\n\nAbout the Authors\n\nCopyright\nThe information in this book is not intended to replace the advice of the reader's own physician or other medical professional. You should consult a medical professional in matters relating to health, especially if you have existing medical conditions, and before starting any new fitness regimen. The author and the publisher do not accept responsibility for any adverse effects individuals may claim to experience, whether directly or indirectly, from the information contained in this book.\n\nKOKORO YOGA. Copyright \u00a9 2016 by Mark Divine and Catherine Divine. Foreword \u00a9 2016 by Gary Kraftsow. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.\n\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data\n\nNames: Divine, Mark. author. | Divine, Catherine, author.\n\nTitle: Kokoro yoga : maximize your human potential and develop the spirit of a warrior \/ by CDR Mark Divine, US Navy SEAL, and Catherine Divine; foreword by Gary Kraftsow.\n\nDescription: New York, NY : St. Martin's Griffin, 2016.\n\nIdentifiers: LCCN 2015045659 | eISBN 978-1-4668-7522-7 (e-book)\n\nSubjects: LCSH: Yoga. | Mental health. | Mind and body. | BISAC: HEALTH & FITNESS \/ Yoga. | SELF-HELP \/ Motivational & Inspirational.\n\nClassification: LCC B132.Y6 D575 2016 | DDC 613.7\/046\u2014dc23\n\nLC record available at \n\nOur eBooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, ext. 5442, or by e-mail at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.\n\nFirst Edition: April 2016\n\n# Contents\n\n 1. Cover\n 2. Title Page\n 3. Copyright Notice\n 4. Foreword\n 5. 1. An M4 and a Yoga Mat\n 6. 2. The Pursuit of Maximum Human Potential\n 7. 3. The Strategies\n 8. 4. The Tactics\n 9. 5. Core and Supporting Sequences\n 10. 6. Poses and Movements\n 11. 7. Physiological and Psychological Benefits of Yoga\n 12. 8. Developing a Personal Practice\n 13. Appendix A: Functional Conditioning\n 14. Appendix B: Combat Conditioning\n 15. Appendix C: Conditioning Modules\n 16. Also by Mark Divine\n 17. About the Authors\n 18. Newsletter Sign-up\n 19. Contents\n 20. Copyright\n\n## Guide\n\n 1. Cover\n 2. Copyright\n 3. Table of Contents\n\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}} +{"text":" \n_Jess and Betty Jo Hay Series_\n_The_ MAN WHO WROTE _the_ PERFECT NOVEL\n\nJohn Williams, _Stoner_ , and the Writing Life\n\nCHARLES J. SHIELDS\n\nUniversity of Texas Press\n\nAustin\nCopyright \u00a9 2018 by Charles J. Shields\n\nPublished by University of Texas Press under license from Lebowski\n\nPublishers\/Overamstel Uitgevers B.V.\n\nAll rights reserved\n\nFirst English-language edition, 2018\n\nRequests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to:\n\nPermissions\n\nUniversity of Texas Press\n\nP.O. Box 7819\n\nAustin, TX 78713\u20137819\n\nutpress.utexas.edu\/rp-form\n\nLIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA\n\nNames: Shields, Charles J., 1951\u2013, author.\n\nTitle: The man who wrote the perfect novel : John Williams, Stoner, and the writing life \/ Charles J. Shields.\n\nDescription: First English-language edition. | Austin : University of Texas Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.\n\nIdentifiers: LCCN 2018012653\n\nISBN 978-1-4773-1736-5 (cloth : alk. paper)\n\nISBN 978-1-4773-1737-2 (library e-book)\n\nISBN 978-1-4773-1738-9 (nonlibrary e-book)\n\nSubjects: LCSH: Williams, John, 1922-1994. | Authors, American\u201420th century\u2014Biography. | Williams, John, 1922\u20131994. Stoner.\n\nClassification: LCC PS3545.I5286 Z86 2018 | DDC 813\/.54 [B]\u2014dc23\n\nLC record available at \n\ndoi:10.7560\/317365\n_To my wife_\nContents\n\nIntroduction\n\nPART I. _Nothing But the Night_\n\nChapter One. He Comes from Texas\n\nChapter Two. \"Ho, Ho! Wasn't I the Character Then?\"\n\nChapter Three. Rough Draft\n\nChapter Four. Key West\n\nChapter Five. Alan Swallow\n\nChapter Six. Love\n\nPART II. _Butcher's Crossing_\n\nChapter Seven. The Winters Circle\n\nChapter Eight. \"Natural Liars Are the Best Writers\"\n\nChapter Nine. _Butcher's Crossing_\n\nChapter Ten. Fiasco\n\nPART III. _Stoner_\n\nChapter Eleven. \"It Was That Kind of World\"\n\nChapter Twelve. \"The Williams Affair\"\n\nChapter Thirteen. _Stoner_\n\nPART IV. _Augustus_\n\nChapter Fourteen. Bread Loaf and \"Up on the Hill\"\n\nChapter Fifteen. The Good Guys\n\nChapter Sixteen. \"Long Life to the Emperor!\"\n\nPART V. _The Sleep of Reason_\n\nPoem. \"An Old Actor to His Audience\"\n\nChapter Seventeen. \"How Can Such a Son of a Bitch Have Such Talent?\"\n\nChapter Eighteen. In Extremis\n\nEpilogue. John Williams Redux\n\nAcknowledgments\n\nNotes\n\nWorks Consulted\n\nA John Williams Bibliography\n\nIndex\nIntroduction\n\nDriving slowly down North Woolsey Avenue in Fayetteville, Arkansas, hunting for an address, Anne Marie Candido had no idea what kind of house she was looking for. John Williams, she had been given to understand, was a novelist and former professor at the University of Denver. He'd moved to Fayetteville for his health\u2014the lower altitude was easier on his breathing. A friendship between him and John Harrison, dean of the libraries at the University of Arkansas, had led to Williams agreeing to donate his papers to the university's special collections.\n\nBut that had been a year ago, in 1987, and all of Williams' materials were still awaiting disposition in cardboard boxes at the library. When Candido, a PhD in literature, heard there was grant money available to hire someone to organize the collection, she applied for the position\u2014anything to do with books and manuscripts sounded interesting.\n\nShe hadn't read any of Williams' novels, though. She wondered whether she should have before coming over to his house. Maybe it was presumptuous or discourteous to arrive without having done her homework. Her husband, a professor of English, was a fan of Williams', and he had been glad to praise him: Williams' novels were outstanding\u2014especially _Stoner_ , about a Missouri farm boy who becomes a professor. Williams was from Texas during the Depression, so it could be autobiographical. He won the National Book Award for _Augustus_ , a fictional life of the Roman emperor. But the committee split the fiction award between him and John Barth that year\u2014the first time it had ever happened in that category. Some said Williams got half as a kind of consolation prize for the committee having ignored _Stoner_ ten years earlier. And there was one other novel, too, which was about buffalo hunting\u2014 _Butcher's Crossing_ , published early in his career. Too bad his books were out of print, but they had just never caught on for some reason.\n\nCandido slowed down to see the house numbers on North Woolsey, a humble street like an afterthought without curbs or streetlights. She expected some kind of rambling old place, fit for a professor in retirement, an author whose career had peaked some time ago. And then there it was\u2014number 1450. Set back in the bare January trees, a small house with a large, steeply pitched roof like a building on a farm that had been remodeled. It looked rural, somehow.\n\nFor the next three months, she arrived at John Williams' home every other week with her special file folder of mysteries. Items in his papers, such as letters without dates, handwritten drafts of correspondence, photos of unidentified people\u2014oddments from his life that might be important. She wanted to be thorough. So she sat at the dining room table, observing him as he read from the folder.\n\nHe was a small man, petite, in his late sixties with thick hair that was still resolutely dark. Could he be part Native American? He was cordial, almost courtly. He took care to be presentable for their sessions. House slippers, green slacks, and tangerine shirt with socks to match on one occasion. His voice was deep, a baritone with a trained, musical quality. He chuckled at his own droll comments. Most striking, though, were his eyes: very large, light blue, and owlish, behind a pair of heavy, black-framed glasses that she never saw him without.\n\nNow and then while they were working together, Nancy, his wife, would pause during her comings and goings to check on them. She was tall and much younger than he was. As a couple, they seemed comfortable around each other, Nancy making the point that the mystery file was \"John's thing.\"\n\nIt was curious how uninterested he was about dates and the details of his life. Often he would just smile and say, \"I don't remember\u2014I can't recall,\" as if some kind of story had already been told, and these typewritten carbons and penciled notes were like wood shavings from a completed cabinet, or lint from the office he'd occupied for thirty years in the English Department at Denver. Sometimes, as they talked, he took a mist inhaler from his pants pocket and pumped a puff of vapor into his mouth. He was a chain-smoker, never quit. If he wanted to fetch something from his second-floor study, she waited. She heard him struggling to breathe between his slow footfalls on the stairs.\n\nShe grew to like him. His fields of study had been Elizabethan poetry and creative writing. By coincidence, her father had attended the University of Denver and majored in English, and he was an English Renaissance scholar too. She invited John and Nancy to her house for dinner the next time he was visiting.\n\nThe two men did have much in common, and she and her husband enjoyed hearing a pair of older heads reminisce about their careers in academe. Both World War II veterans, they'd been in graduate school in the 1950s. And they'd both known many of the same people\u2014names that had kept appearing in Williams' papers\u2014the literary critic Yvor Winters and his wife, the novelist Janet Lewis; the poets Wallace Stegner, John Ciardi, and J. V. Cunningham; and Alan Swallow, the owner of a small press in Denver. So many names from long ago that the room, illuminated by the candlelight, seemed inhabited by listening ghosts, eager to hear themselves mentioned.\n\nShe found it hard to reconcile the English Department talk with a photograph of John she'd come across in his papers. It was a black-and-white studio portrait from the 1940s, the kind you'd have to make an appointment for. He was in his early twenties then. In the picture, he was wearing a lightweight sports jacket with a small-checkered pattern, over a button-down white shirt with a dark, regimental-stripe tie. His face was turned slightly to the side, his smooth cheek reflecting some of the light that fell favorably on his narrow lip mustache, parted in two artistic brushstrokes, left and right\u2014the image of a young man who wants to give the impression of sophistication. She hadn't seen it on the book jacket on any of his novels, so maybe it was taken before he'd been published.\n\nNow he was across the table, half a century later. She caught herself thinking how lined his face had become since that photograph. Proof once again of her belief that sometimes you can tell just by looking at people how interesting their lives must have been.\nPART I\n\n_Nothing But the Night_\n**CHAPTER ONE**\n\nHe Comes from Texas\n\n_Don't read so much, you'll make your brain tired_.\n\n\u2014JOHN WILLIAMS' GRANDFATHER, 1930S\n\nTo the jobless men killing time in Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1939, John Ed Williams\u2014the son of the janitor at the post office\u2014invited a second look as he passed by after school to his job assisting customers at the Lovelace Bookstore.\n\nStudents like the Williams boy were becoming a fairly common sight downtown, ever since Hardin Junior College had opened just a few years earlier. In the early 1920s, college classes of about seventy-five students had met on the third floor of the high school at the intersection of Avenue H and Coyote Boulevard. But after oil tycoon John G. Hardin plowed close to a million dollars into a whole new campus on forty acres of former pastureland in the city's south end, going to college had become a possibility for almost two thousand students. Wichita Falls, formerly just a railhead in northern Texas for cattle drives, now had a two-year college for the grandchildren of pioneers\u2014a point of pride among the residents\u2014and it had been built, it needed to be said, right in the middle of the worst economic depression in the nation's history. The banks had gone bust; the Great Plains were ripped up from overfarming; and during the long, ruinous droughts, mountainous dust storms the color of dirty snow blew across northern Texas.\n\nBut here was a flamboyant young man who apparently expected better times. John Ed wore a blazer and pleated trousers. Instead of a tie, he wore a silk scarf, as if he were imitating some kind of English country squire or poet. He acted as if he were from another time and place. And indeed, in his mind at least, he was.\n\nJohn Edward Williams' grandparents, Elbert G. Walker, from Virginia, and his wife, n\u00e9e Laura Belle Lee, from Tennessee, were southerners. Elbert was twenty-five, and Laura Belle only sixteen, when they married in 1886. Within a few years they headed west, drawn by the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889, which opened for settlement two million acres of the best free public land in the United States. The Walkers' two daughters, Emma and her younger sister, Amelia\u2014John Ed's mother\u2014were born in 1896 and 1898, respectively, in Oklahoma's Choctaw Indian Territory.\n\nElbert Walker's line of work was market gardening\u2014raising vegetables for local sale. But he seemed convinced that there was always a better situation to be had elsewhere. For the next twenty years, the Walkers circled the lower Great Plains, picking up and starting over each time. By 1910, they had left Oklahoma and settled on a farm in Texas outside of Young, a prosperous hamlet of cotton farmers and cattle ranchers. Then, ten years on, they could be found dirt farming in Logan, Arkansas, in the Arkansas River Valley, where many of their neighbors had come from Kentucky and Tennessee. Amelia and Emma\u2014both young ladies now in their early twenties\u2014lived at home, although Emma taught at the school. But Elbert was still not satisfied with his lot, and he decided, in his early fifties, that things would work out better if they went down to Clarksville in northeast Texas, where his mother had settled until her death in 1908, and they moved there.\n\nHe had reason to believe he might be right, because Clarksville was doing well in the 1920s. Its 3,500 residents enjoyed the services of two banks, two newspapers, two flourmills, and an electric power plant that illuminated homes and businesses. The biggest employer in town was a factory that crushed cottonseed for its light golden oil, filling the air with an aroma that was sweet and nutty. On Saturdays, farmers sold watermelons, livestock, and vegetables in the town square from trucks and wagons. In the center, above them, a statue of a Confederate soldier stood high on a twenty-foot pedestal facing north\u2014its face and uniform eroded smooth like a pillar of salt from the weather\u2014perpetually ready to repulse another Yankee invasion. Sunday mornings, the ministers of seven churches, five white and two black, delivered sermons to their congregations.\n\nIt was in Clarksville that Amelia Walker, twenty-five, met J. E. Jewell, a gentleman a few years older than she. They married on January 21, 1921. Nineteen months later, she gave birth to a son, John Edward, named after his father.\n\nLike the Walkers, J. E. Jewell was comfortable with impermanence. He shared his father-in-law's yearning to find El Dorado along the way to somewhere else. Together, the two men led their families to their next destination, Wichita Falls\u2014250 miles north\u2014the scene of the first memories of the little boy who would become John Ed Williams.\n\nIn the early 1920s, Wichita Falls was infected with oil fever. Ever since the Lucas No. 1 Well near the town of Beaumont on the Gulf Coast had struck \"black gold\" in 1901, oil fever had been boiling over in Texas. Fresh water that smelled like rotten eggs meant there was a pocket of oil below somewhere\u2014maybe a whole sea of it\u2014trapped inside a salt dome. Giant drill bits, centered by A-frame derricks, twisted down deeper and deeper into the earth like iron hypodermic needles. At Sour Lake Springs, where the water stank like burning sulfur, a black sticky plume of petroleum flared a hundred feet high. The oil reservoir was so huge that before long, derricks sprouted everywhere, like rows of wooden Eiffel Towers, hundreds of them, serviced by thousands of roustabouts who rinsed the dust and grit from their throats in fifty-two saloons.\n\nIn 1918, \"Texas tea\" erupted near the edge of the Wichita Falls city limits. Fortune-seekers stampeded the boardinghouses, willing to pay ridiculous rates. If no rooms were available, newcomers slept in shacks, in tents, and in cars and trucks, deluging the local schools with bewildered children. Bank deposits increased by 400 percent. Street corners became outdoor exchanges where buyers and sellers wrangled over real estate, water permits, and deeds to mines. Companies that existed on paper only advertised themselves with \"come-and-get-it\" names like Over the Top, Sam's Clover Leaf, Bit Hit, and O Boy!\n\nThe Walkers and the Jewells followed the flood. J. E. found an apartment for his wife and infant son, and a job selling animal feed and agricultural supplies at Miracle Coal & Feed Store. The Walkers, now without their elder daughter, Emma, who had stayed behind to teach in Clarksville, rented a farm a few miles outside the city on Walnut Road. But at least everyone was in the proximity of riches.\n\nThe work at the feed store was steady, but J. E. wanted a better life. The _Wichita Falls Times_ carried classified advertisements hinting that a clever man could climb higher\u2014like the one promising \"An opportunity to make some real money. Quick action, too. If you have a few hundred dollars in cash, see Mr. McKinney at the Morgan Bldg.\" The nature of the opportunity for \"real money\" didn't need explaining. You'd have to be living on the moon not to know it had to do with oil.\n\nWith opportunities for \"quick action\" also came frauds, double-talk, and the old switcheroo, however. The get-rich-quick game was not for the credulous. One of the biggest scams in memory had turned the Wichita Fall city fathers into a laughingstock in 1919. A property title researcher named J. D. McMahon offered to answer the demand for office space by building the first skyscraper in Texas at the corner of Seventh and La Salle Streets. Local investors envisioned a business beehive, a tower of ringing phones and ticker-tape machines opposite the prestigious St. James Hotel. After eagerly inspecting the blueprints, they raised the equivalent of $2.7 million to build it. But the completed Newby-McMahon Building, though handsomely appointed, was only 40 feet high, 10 feet wide, and 18 feet deep. The staircase took up a quarter of the interior. Outraged, the investors sued McMahon, only to have the judge rule against them when it was pointed out that the blueprints clearly stated that the wonder of Wichita Falls would be 480 _inches_ high, not feet.\n\nAccording to a story told in the family, J. E. made his move as an investor one day at an open-air exchange downtown where transactions consisted of handshakes, wads of cash, and contracts signed on the spot. He purchased some land located outside the city, intending to turn it around for profit by selling it to another speculator. He found a prospective buyer, showed him the property, and got paid in cash. On the way home, he stopped at a gas station to fill up. It's said that he mentioned his good luck. If he did, it marked him as a tinhorn who talked too much, like the hapless Swede in Stephen Crane's \"The Blue Hotel,\" who literally bragged himself to death. A hitchhiker approached and asked for a lift into town; Jewell, maybe feeling magnanimous, told him to get in. At some point during the ride, the stranger stuck a gun in Jewell's ribs, forced him to pull over, and killed him. A roll of bills that had already changed hands once that day ended up in still another man's pocket. The murderer continued off into the wilderness on foot.\n\nHowever, the real casualty might have been the truth. An examination of newspapers both in Clarksville, where the Jewells were married, and in Wichita Falls, where they lived, turns up nothing about the murder of a John Edward Jewell. Court records make no mention of it in either location. Furthermore, the robbery scenario is problematic. Why would the killer abandon a car with a fresh tankful of gas and a dead driver?\n\nPerhaps the last glimpse of J. E. Jewell, alive and heading for the red horizon, appears at the bottom of the front page of the August 12, 1924, edition of the _Vernon Record_ , published fifty miles from Wichita Falls: \"Cupid is taking a vacation according to officials of the County Clerk's office. Only two marriage licenses have been issued\u2014one for a Miss Rose Lee Owen and her fianc\u00e9, J. W. Todd; the second for a Mrs. L. L. Moreland and J. E. Jewell.\"\n\nVery little has been recorded about John Williams' father, and much less was remembered. Many years later, when Williams was filling out his own marriage license, on the line asking for his father's birthplace he wrote \"Unknown.\" \"Unknown\" will have to stand for Mr. Jewell's final disposition in the world, too.\n\nWithout a husband, Amelia listed herself in the Wichita Falls phone directory with \"(wid)\" after her name, indicating she was a widow. The suffix \"(wid)\" served to safeguard the reputation of an unmarried woman with a child. On the other hand, since the abbreviation was voluntary, it could also be interpreted as a kind of plea from a young woman possessing just a year of high school, and raising a small child alone. A studio photograph taken of her about that time shows Mrs. Jewell, quite lovely and dark-haired, gently balancing John Ed, a blond toddler, who is demonstrating, with a slightly surprised look, that he can stand on his mother's lap.\n\nNot long after that, Amelia received a gentleman caller\u2014George Clinton Williams.\n\nTen years older than Amelia, George Williams hailed from Tyler, Texas. During World War I he had served in the National Guard, claiming an exemption from the draft as the sole supporter of a wife and a daughter in Dallas. His people were in banking, but he had shunned the family's expectations, preferring instead to get paid on Fridays for shift work. He had driven a city bus, toted bricks in construction, and picked crops. He was squat, with a broad back and large hands.\n\nGeorge proposed and Amelia accepted. For a woman not quite thirty, marriage meant a husband, a wage earner, and a father for her boy. It was another fresh beginning, the sort her migrant parents had counted on so many times in their lives. Romance may have played a part too, but the reality is that Amelia's options were few.\n\nBut George, a heavy drinker, couldn't make a go of it, not even with an oil boom all around. Several times, he and Amelia jumped the rent in the middle of the night before the landlord arrived with the sheriff in the morning. Six months after they had moved into Wichita Falls proper, George and Amelia, with John Ed in tow, arrived with their belongings back at Grandfather Walker's farm just as he was putting in the spring vegetables. By then, another hard-luck relative had joined the Walker household as well: an elderly aunt who rocked all day in the parlor except to announce, now and then, \"Well, I believe I'll go to the bathroom!\" In May 1925, Amelia gave birth to John Ed's sister, who was given a boy's name, George Rae, because her father would have preferred a son.\n\nDefeat seemed to follow Amelia. When John was four, a terrible and touching image of his mother impressed itself on his memory. He heard a sound coming from the closet in the hallway. Opening the door, he saw his mother kneeling behind a curtain of swaying coats and jackets, hiding like a child, her face in her hands, sobbing.\n\nBecause they were poor, and the work they did was manual labor, silence was like a physical presence for the Walkers and Jewells. Williams later wrote, of the farm family in _Stoner_ , \"In the evenings, the three of them sat in the small kitchen lighted by a single kerosene lamp, staring into the yellow flame; often during the hour or so between supper and bed, the only sound that could be heard was weary movement of a body in a straight chair and the soft creak of a timber giving a little beneath the age of the house.\" Fortunately, there was a radio, and John Ed was allowed to listen to it with the adults, \"watching it,\" he remembered, as if voices became faces in the yellow glow of the dial.\n\nAlso, there were a few magazines to read. For the price of ten cents, his mother could escape into the pages of some of her favorites. She doted on _Ranch Romances_ , _Clues_ , _Love Romances_ , and _Sweetheart Stories_. Rather than allow her son to become too interested in swooning and kisses, however, Amelia introduced him to _Flying Stories_ , a monthly magazine featuring the Skywaymen\u2014leather-helmeted, square-jawed pilots\u2014who crossed the Arctic, flew low over thrashing waves in hurricanes, and rescued fellow aviators from their tattered biplanes in midair. In _The Blue Book of Fiction and Adventure_ , there were better stories, by contributors such as Sax Rohmer, Agatha Christie, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. From the school library, he borrowed every western by Zane Grey he could get his hands on, including the most famous, _Riders of the Purple Sage_. Grey, a midwestern dentist who had suffered under his father's authority (and beatings), found an outlet for his passions writing novels about an imagined American West with a wildness almost untouched by formal law and order, and governed instead by an unwritten code of loyalty, generosity, fair play, and integrity. Grey's idealized frontier restored men and women to natural grace, as if they had returned to Eden:\n\nVenters turned out of the gorge, and suddenly paused stock-still, astounded at the scene before him. The curve of the great stone bridge had caught the sunrise, and through the magnificent arch burst a glorious stream of gold that shone with a long slant down into the center of Surprise Valley. Only through the arch did any sunlight pass, so that all the rest of the valley lay still asleep, dark green, mysterious, shadowy, merging its level into walls as misty and soft as morning clouds.\n\nWilliams would one day challenge the paradise myth of the Old West in _Butcher's Crossing_ , especially Emerson's belief that living close to nature imparts virtue to human souls. But during his boyhood, John and his mother shared a wholesale love of stories\u2014the more melodramatic and more vivid the better\u2014for their power to spirit them away from the humdrumness of rural life.\n\nPerhaps that's why Amelia Walker waited until John Ed was nine years old to tell him the most important story of his life. Her decision to give away the secret of his birth might have been an act of love, because there are indications that John was unhappy around George Williams, who was often described as \"a difficult man.\" Revealing the truth might have been a mother's attempt at reassurance.\n\nGiven her love of romance, it's likely she presented it as a tale that her reader-son would appreciate. The setting and plot weren't uncommon in the West\u2014the Walkers were humble people, farmers, who had worked hard all their lives. But a mysterious stranger and a tragedy had changed everything. John's last name wasn't Williams\u2014not legally, because George hadn't adopted him\u2014it was Jewell. George was his stepfather; and his little sister, George Rae, who had just turned five, was his half-sister. His father, J. E. Jewell, had been murdered when John was still an infant, ambushed and killed while he was on his way home to his family, years ago, and the killer had never been caught.\n\nWilliams later claimed this revelation about his identity\u2014a thunderclap from his mother's lips\u2014didn't affect him, because George felt \"unfamiliar\" to him. But it's hard to believe that a nine-year-old boy could have been so philosophical. Personal identity is fundamental. Immediately after the creation of the world, God gives Adam the responsibility of assigning names to things to distinguish himself from other creatures. And the psychological work of constructing self-identity is repeated every time one child asks another, \"What's your name?\" In fairy tales, the unveiling of a secret, _hidden_ identity can be momentous\u2014the ugly duckling who becomes a swan, the despised stepdaughter who fits the glass slipper, or, more recently, the boy who learns he's a \"wizard, and a thumpin' good one\"\u2014because it cracks open self-perception, usually revealing fantastic, unrealized potential.\n\nBut in John Williams' case, news that he was not the person he thought he was called into question the importance of telling the truth. Until the moment of his mother's confession, the adults in his family had been deliberately lying to him. They had all been complicit in perpetuating a fiction about him. Whether they did so out of love or shame, the gist was the same: they had known all along, but he didn't. The lesson was that if everyone believes something is true then it might as well be. Lies, fictions, whoppers, and fibs could create meaning, and the best ones were the most convincing. Hadn't teachers called out \"John Williams?\" for the roll every morning, and hadn't he answered, \"Here!\"? For John Ed, the future novelist, the experience was profound, if terribly painful.\n\nAbout this time, Grandfather Walker decided his grandson needed some toughening-up. Although the boy spent time outdoors doing his chores before and after school, he spent a lot of time in the house reading. When he talked, he stammered, as if he was fearful. \"Don't read so much,\" Walker cautioned him. \"You'll make your brain tired.\"\n\nSo when John was ten, come the first cold day of winter, Walker got down his .22 rifle and escorted his grandson across the yard over to the pig pen. \"If you're going to eat pork, you should know where it comes from.\" They discussed which one was the healthiest-looking pig, then the old man climbed into the pen, took a couple of short boards, and used them to swat the animal on the rump and sides, steering it toward the fence. It ambled up to John, sticking out its muddy snout to snuffle at him. Walker leashed the pig to the fence post so it would stay there.\n\n\"Shoot it,\" he said. The old man tapped at a spot right between his eyes.\n\nJohn Ed raised the barrel of the rifle, aimed through the fence boards, and pulled the trigger. The rifle jumped and the report sent the other pigs scampering away. The old man knelt, reached with a butcher knife through the fence, and sliced the pig's jowl, releasing a splash of blood on its front feet. It collapsed butt first on the dirt then lolled halfway to one side, bleeding out through the gash. They got the truck, tied the rope around the pig's hind trotters, and dragged it over to the barn.\n\nThey filled an oil barrel standing on bricks with buckets of water from the pump, set fire to kindling underneath, and waited until it turned into a scalding bath. When Walker judged the water was hot enough, he looped the free end of a rope through a pulley overhead on a barn joist. Then they hauled the pig up into the air by its hind legs, swung it into place, and lowered it like it was diving into the boiling water. After a few minutes, they pulled it out again, steaming and clean. John Ed helped scrape the bristles off the hide until the flesh was white. With a smaller knife, Walker cored the rectum, pulled it out, went around to the front, split the crotch, and tied off the pizzle so there wouldn't be pee everywhere.\n\nIn _Butcher's Crossing_ , Williams' description of an experienced buffalo hunter skinning a carcass carries the same precision and matter-of-factness:\n\nThe hide parted neatly with a faint ripping sound. With a stubbier knife, he cut around the bag that held the testicles, cut through the cords that held them and the limp penis to the flesh; he separated the testicles, which were the size of small crab-apples, from the other parts of the bag, and tossed them to one side; then he slit the few remaining inches of hide to the anal opening.\n\n\"I always save the balls,\" he said. \"They make mighty good eating, and they put starch in your pecker.\"\n\nThen Walker took a hacksaw, held the pig's head steady by one ear, so the carcass wouldn't swing, and sawed through the neck. It separated and fell heavily to the floor of the barn. He shoved it away with his boot. He inserted the butcher knife into the neck hole and flayed upward through the chest, stopping to pull the rib cage apart, and stepped back out of the way. The gut sack leaned out and tumbled through, landing wetly at his feet.\n\nIt was hog butchering, a routine task on a farm, but Williams, observing it with a writer's eye, noted a procedure that had a beginning, middle, and end. How a beast falls from a gunshot and surrenders to the knife; how its flesh comes off like rind on a fruit; how slaughtering an animal was done rapidly and clinically.\n\nAs John Ed was leaving childhood and beginning adolescence in the early 1930s, his family was swept into a new life. In 1932, the third year of the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's confidence about the future\u2014his campaign song was \"Happy Days Are Here Again\"\u2014carried him into the White House. During his first one hundred days in office, billions of dollars rolled out from Washington across the nation through the New Deal federal recovery and reform programs.\n\nThe Williamses were among the beneficiaries. In Wichita Falls, at the corner of Tenth and Lamar Streets, built where a decrepit Methodist Church had been, an enormous new post office advertised for custodians. George Williams applied and landed a civil service job at a pay rate equal to an entry-level accountant. He and Amelia rented a house on Lee Street. In 1938, John Ed's grandparents, Elbert and Laura Walker, left their hardscrabble farm and joined them. For over fifty years, Grandmother Walker had followed her husband from one place to another: from Tennessee in the 1880s, to Oklahoma Indian Territory, to Texas, to Arkansas, and then back to Texas again. But now, at sixty-eight, she was dying from cancer, and she passed away soon after moving from the farm into town.\n\nNot long after her death, George purchased a good-sized house on Broad Street for Amelia, the children, and their grandfather. It was their first residence not owned by someone else.\n**CHAPTER TWO**\n\n\"Ho, Ho! Wasn't I the Character Then?\"\n\n_We linger for an instant in a morass of stupidity and conceit and then we graduate from high school_.\n\n\u2014JOHN WILLIAMS, AGE SEVENTEEN, 1939\n\nThe subject of a biography should be the person's search for identity. Answering the question \"Who am I?\" is the great work of life, and all of a person's efforts are, in some way, responses to that unvoiced question, which begins to be heard in childhood as soon as children perceive themselves as different and apart from everyone else. The amount of freedom to spend creating the opus of the self isn't the same for everyone, but at least a basic sense of \"Who am I?\" belongs to any child who knows where he lives, who his parents are, who loves him, who doesn't, and so on.\n\nJohn Williams' discovery at age nine that he was someone else\u2014not his father's son, not a Williams, and not related to his little sister, George Rae, in the way he had been led to believe\u2014upended his world. The narrative of who he was, the one he had been telling himself all along, was actually a story about another boy who was like him, but not him. He had the skin of John Williams on him, and the adults in his family\u2014his mother, stepfather, and grandparents\u2014had agreed to present him that way to everyone, including himself. It would be hard to imagine a more convincing early lesson for a future writer about the power of words to suspend disbelief.\n\nIn the meantime, the question \"Who am I?\" was reopened just when he was entering adolescence, a period when young people try out various faces on the world to see how they're received. Because of what he'd found out, he was more susceptible than most to choosing a radically new appearance, one that would compensate for how he had been fooled, one that would give others the impression of competence and self-possession. Ideally, too, it would be in sync with his love of books and stories, and his fascination with the heroism of airmen and frontiersmen.\n\nOne afternoon when he was thirteen, in the spring of 1936, he saw such a character\u2014a persona, really\u2014at the movies in Wichita Falls. The experience enchanted him.\n\nJohn was invited by an aunt to bring a friend to see the film _A Tale of Two Cities_ , starring Ronald Colman as Sidney Carton. Before buying their tickets, they stopped for lunch, and the boys ordered glasses of cold buttermilk, waiting to drink it until their lady chaperone excused herself to use the restroom. Once the coast was clear, John produced a cough syrup bottle filled with whiskey\u2014probably from his stepfather's stash\u2014and sociably poured half of the contents into his friend's glass and the rest into his. By the time his aunt returned from freshening up, the boys were wiping off buttermilk mustaches and grinning.\n\nAs a prank, it was a good one for a pair of adolescent boys. And the spiked buttermilk gave Williams his first real glow from liquor in public, besides adding to the excitement of watching a splendid Hollywood version of Dickens' nineteenth-century novel. Westerns were the usual matinee fare, and audiences were delighted by cowboy idols on the screen and their cold \"violence without rage,\" as Williams later called it. But Ronald Colman's performance thrilled him in ways no gunfighter ever had.\n\nIn _A Tale of Two Cities_ , Sidney Carton is an eighteenth-century English barrister wasting his talent with drinking and self-pity. But then he takes the case of French aristocrat Charles Darnay, arrested on charges of spying for the French. During the proceedings, Carton meets Darnay's love interest, Lucie Manette. Carton falls in love with her and wishes he were a better man, someone worthy of a woman like her. Ironically, Carton and Darnay resemble each other enough to be brothers, an allusion to the type of person Carton might have been. For Lucie's sake, Carton makes the case for Darnay's innocence brilliantly and brings in a verdict of not guilty, after which Darnay and Lucie marry and return to Paris.\n\nBut sometime later, Darnay is arrested again, this time caught in the net of the Reign of Terror, and he's sentenced to die. Carton sees a chance to atone for his failed life and ensure that he will live honorably in Lucie's memory. Because they look so much alike, he can impersonate Darnay and take his place on the guillotine.\n\nAs he waits to be called at the foot of the guillotine\u2014an innocent man exchanging his life for another's\u2014Carton, the former cynic, is at peace. \"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known.\" As he ascends the steps, the heavens above the rooftops of Paris come into view, underlining his redemption.\n\nWilliams was smitten\u2014he thought he'd seen a parable unfold with a message just for him. On the one hand, _A Tale of Two Cities_ is a story about injustice, oppression, and one man's Christ-like sacrifice for another, but it appealed to him because it is also a fable about two identities, like the prince and the pauper story.\n\nCarton and Darnay are two halves, dark and light. One embodies lost chances and bad luck; the other, his double, represents goodness, rectitude, and success. Ronald Colman delivered the character of Carton with a combination of grace, sex appeal, and vulnerability. His insouciant response to heartbreak is a jaunty tip of the hat. Inwardly, he suffers, but outwardly he appears cavalier, a little mad, the poet with a cloven hoof. But by bearing the worst of things with dignity, right up until the moment of his death, he turns misfortune into a moral triumph.\n\nHere was a message, a view of life that Williams\u2014a smallish boy who felt different from others\u2014could take to heart. Maybe it was possible to will yourself to be the kind of person you wanted to be. Practicing that person, performing him, despite other people's skepticism, might bring off a new invention, which would be you, the hero of your own life.\n\nA week later, his eighth-grade English teacher at Reagan Junior High, a Miss Annie Laurie Smith, assigned an essay on a topic of the students' choosing. John Ed pounced on Colman's performance as the subject of his. Miss Smith, head of the English Department, was his favorite teacher, and he tried hard to impress her.\n\nA few days later, he listened abashed and proud as she read his paper aloud to the class. She finished by saying that his analysis of Colman as Sidney Carton was \"the work of a college student.\" Not only did she praise it, she honored it by placing it in her special display case in the hallway reserved for outstanding work.\n\nHe never forgot that moment. \"It was one of the first compliments I had received about anything I'd done,\" he later said. In the stroke of a day, he had been elevated from ordinary to, as one of his classmates put it, \"someone special among us.\"\n\nMoving into town as a result of his stepfather getting a job at the post office put John Ed within the boundaries of Wichita Falls Senior High School. With Miss Smith's praise still ringing in his ears, he began his freshman year in 1936.\n\nFrom then on, he counted himself as writing with \"serious purpose and intent.\" He joined the school newspaper and submitted poems to the literary magazine. Writing, he said, was \"something I could do, and I felt some confidence in it.\" From the school and public library he borrowed armloads of titles by Willa Cather, John Steinbeck, and William Faulkner, fastening on Thomas Wolfe as his favorite author. Reading _Look Homeward Angel_ introduced him to the journey of the young artist-hero Eugene Gant, who rises above circumstances in many ways similar to Williams' own. It felt like a \"religious experience,\" he said, realizing that his upbringing didn't disqualify him from becoming a writer, which he thought would be a romantic life.\n\nHe fell upon the school library with such ferociousness, in fact, that the _Wichita Times Record_ ran a feature about the student \"poet-critic\" who was reading \"four to five novels, poetry collections, or biographies a week.\" The reporter posed the young dynamo beside a table stacked high with books, contrasting Williams' size with his appetite for reading. \"You, reader, are the victim of an optical illusion. Those books aren't over John Ed Williams' head. He has read them all and a great many more.\" The high school librarian spoke proudly of him, confirming that John Ed was \"the heaviest and most constant reader of the entire student body. No other student even approaches him in the number of books read.\"\n\nThe joke comparing his size to the height of the books behind him was an on-the-spot inspiration of the photographer, probably, but it called attention to Williams' height. In vain he waited for the growth spurt that teenagers usually get. But by the time he could drive it was plain that he would not be a \"tall lank boy\" like Wolfe's Eugene Gant. He was leveling off in the mid-five-foot range and possessed of a stubbornly small frame that resisted the effects of exercise that might add to his shoulders and chest. Aware that tall men get a kind of built-in respect that is not available to others, he worked at ratcheting up his presence and masculinity instead.\n\nHe was careful about his appearance and laid out his clothes as ensembles, a habit that never left him. His cinematic hero Ronald Colman appeared in movie adaptations of James Hilton's novel _Lost Horizon_ and Anthony Hope's _Prisoner of Zenda_ , modeling the kind of sophistication that Williams wished to have. In the breast pocket of his sports jacket, he tucked a folded handkerchief. He let his hair grow long like Eugene Gant's, combing it carefully before the mirror every morning. To conquer his stammer, he enrolled in drama courses, learning elocution and how to produce a baritone voice that came from his midsection. He discovered from school productions that he was a good actor, and wrote a one-man \"imaginary sketch of Abraham Lincoln's musings some troubled afternoon in the White House,\" which he performed at a school assembly. It's a sign of his willpower that he would write and perform an original piece before the student body, believing that he had every right to seek their attention because he was talented.\n\nIn the high school yearbook, the _Coyote_ , he listed the two things he liked: first, \"Me,\" and, as would befit a Byronic young man like himself, the color \"Black.\" (One afternoon cleaning his .22 rifle at home, he shot himself in the shoulder and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. After that episode, he strolled around the downtown jauntily smoking a cigarette, his other arm in a sling. Who could doubt that he was mad, bad, and dangerous to know?)\n\nSex raised its tumid head, of course. At the Lovelace Bookstore on Ninth Street where he worked after school, an older boy, T. G. Willis, manager of the stamp-collecting department, loaned him a censored edition of D. H. Lawrence's _Lady Chatterley's Lover_ , which had been rinsed for American readers of \"fuck,\" \"orgasm,\" and \"penis.\" But it was still instructive: \"And he took the leaves from her hair, kissing her damp hair, and the flowers from her breasts, and kissed her breasts, and kissed her navel, and kissed her maidenhair, where he left the flowers threaded.\"\n\nFor rougher stuff, there were drugstore magazines, such as _Spicy Adventure_ , _Spicy Mystery_ , or _Spicy Detective_ , copies of which he sometimes picked up on his way home. _Spicy Detective_ carried a comic strip starring \"Sally Sleuth,\" a maverick crime fighter. The point of the comic was to have her clothes come off just a few panels into the story. In one episode, crooks tied her by her wrists to a chair back; she was wearing nothing except panties, and they whipped her.\n\nBy his senior year, he had acquired a reputation as a kind of finer soul among his classmates. He was editor of the school paper, and the previous year, he had been awarded first place in the state poetry contest. \"Hail and farewell!\" he wrote in an essay for the 1939 yearbook. \"We linger for an instant in a morass of stupidity and conceit and then we graduate from high school.\" He had finished in three years instead of four. (\"Ho, ho!\" he laughed when that was read aloud to him many years later. \"Wasn't I the character then?\")\n\nIn August, he enrolled at Hardin Junior College. A young man now, and a college student, he adapted the attire of an artist, wearing a knotted scarf above his open shirt\u2014an outfit that gave the broken-down farmers and unemployed businessmen on the street corners of Wichita Falls reason to believe that the younger generation was going to hell.\n\nDespite the hard times of the 1930s, Hardin Junior College offered students a wide range of academic choices. But Williams fed his imagination and career ambitions mainly from the buffet of extracurricular clubs and activities. By the end of his first semester, he was so involved in things that he was flunking freshman English. His excuse was, \"I had already read most of what we were studying. And I had read a lot of it in high school.\"\n\nHe preferred putting his energies into things that showcased his talents. He added his name to the roster of every organization dedicated to self-expression: the literary club, the student senate, the student newspaper, and the Blue Curtain drama group. He made friends with two students who were serious about becoming actors\u2014Marjorie Coleman and Jack Newsom. On Thanksgiving, they performed for broadcast on KWFT, a new radio station in Wichita Falls, an original drama by Williams called _Dr. Cooper Speaking_ , about an English headmaster. It went so well that he wrote and directed one every week for KWFT after that, for which he would \"kind of produce it, play a part myself and get local actors around to play the others.\" George Rae, his half-sister and a teenager now, basked in the afterglow of her brother's prominence in the local arts scene. She began telling her high schools friends that she, too, planned to act, commencing an affectionate rivalry with her brother.\n\nBut come September 1939, he didn't reenroll at Hardin. The reason was money, he said, which is surprising, because he had a part-time job at a bookstore, and his stepfather, George, was a civil service employee who, according to the 1940 census, was one of the better-paid workers on Broad Street.\n\nWilliams later said too many people in Wichita Falls cared about money. It was \"absolutely pervasive. . . . They were conscious of the lack of money and the possession of money . . . a kind of consciousness about the _existence_ of money that seemed involved with identity.\" It could be that despite his stylish clothes\u2014paid for with his own money\u2014and his accomplishments in school, some of his peers kept in mind that he was the son of the post office janitor. It wasn't lack of money that kept him from reenrolling in college, perhaps, but the social side of student life.\n\nIn any case, he spent what would have been the fall semester of his sophomore year preparing to stage a piece of theater for the public\u2014Thornton Wilder's _Our Town_ , the winner of the 1938 Pulitzer Prize for drama. With his friend Jack Newsom as codirector, the two young men held open auditions. To play the townspeople in crowd scenes, John prevailed on twenty-four members of his family's church, First Presbyterian, to take the parts. For the role of Emily Webb, the female lead, they cast their friend Marjorie Coleman, who had been acting in summer stock in upstate New York.\n\n_Our Town_ was so innovative for its time that the _Wichita Daily Times_ gently primed readers about what to expect: \"Instead of a rising curtain to open the show, there will be the stage manager\u2014Jack Newsom in this production. The stage manager starts it off by making the audience acquainted with Grovers Corners, New Hampshire, right there on the stage behind him. Then the natives begin to stir about in the morning air, and the play is on.\" Because the \"entire play is of such disarming simplicity,\" there would be no sets, and actors would mime the props. All that was necessary was the audience's imagination, the newspaper guaranteed.\n\nThree weeks after staging _Our Town_ , Williams presented a costumed biblical pageant for Christmas at First Presbyterian and narrated the Nativity story, with his deep, mellifluous voice filling the sanctuary.\n\nFor a young man of nineteen, he was off to a quick start in the arts. He thought he saw his way ahead, although optimism among Americans was scarce in the spring of 1941. Conservatives in Congress had buried Roosevelt's New Deal under counter-legislation; newspaper headlines predicted war in Europe; and rainfall in dusty northern Texas was just half the yearly average. A crash in farm prices would trigger another financial quake and further depress the job market. But to young Williams\u2014budding actor, writer, poet, he wasn't sure which yet\u2014the stars were aligning for him, at least. He had a sense of knowing what he was about.\n\nHis reading kept pace with his ambitions, too. He upgraded from boys' magazines to _Liberty_ magazine and the _Saturday Evening Post_. He also discovered the \"little magazines,\" as they are still called, such as the _Partisan Review_ , where writers talked about the craft of writing and the book reviews suggested to him what to read next. Wolfe, his favorite author, was replaced by Conrad Aiken. Aiken introduced him to psychological fiction, which led on to Proust. He grazed in the public library and purchased books at a discount at the Lovelace Bookstore, reading whatever he liked. \"It wasn't anything I had to study. It seemed like kind of a fraud, it was so much fun.\" He read for enjoyment\u2014\"And I think that finally, when I began to read so-called more 'serious' things . . . they became a great deal more authentic than if I had gone to them thinking they were supposed to be terribly good.\"\n\nLikely his sister, George Rae, would be the only one interested in talking about books at the dinner table on Broad Street in the spring of 1941. Their mother, Amelia, listening to them, had only completed the eighth grade; Grandfather Walker, who had fallen back on the kindness of his daughter and son-in-law, was a simple man. And George Williams, of course, would be tired from finishing a ten-hour day cleaning the post office.\n\nIt's interesting to speculate what George Williams might have thought as he listened to his stepson hold forth about another extravaganza he was involved in. George had turned his back on his banking family and everything that tribe had stood for. How did he regard John Ed's slightly raffish clothes and his talk about poetry, novels, and his actor friends? His stepson, just like the stage-struck teenager in Willa Cather's short story \"Paul's Case,\" had \"high, cramped shoulders and a narrow chest,\" and large blue eyes that he used \"in a conscious, theatrical sort of way.\" George, a stocky man with a broad back from years of labor, may well have regarded Amelia's boy as a kid who needed to concern himself less with putting on make-up for plays or striking arty poses, and more with finding a steady job to support himself. Williams never mentioned his stepfather, an indication, perhaps, that the relationship was unpleasant.\n\nIn the spring of 1941, John Ed struck out on his own. Beckoning him was radio\u2014and more experiences like performing _Dr. Cooper Speaking_. National broadcasting had become a kingdom of the air, featuring soap operas, symphony concerts, news commentary, variety shows, and eyewitness reporting. Such was the popularity of radio that the problem of overlapping programs created wild cacophonies of voices and screeching music on the dial. By order of the federal government, over seven hundred broadcast stations shifted their frequencies to untangle the airwaves.\n\nWilliams' voice and timing were perfect for the medium, and he had already demonstrated that he could write dramatic scripts. In April he appeared on stage a final time in the Wichita Players' production of Henrik Ibsen's _Pillars of Society_ , and then he was gone, to add his voice to those competing to be heard, and not returning to Wichita Falls, as it would turn out, until after World War II.\n\nThe summer of 1941, listeners to station KRRV, \"The Voice of the Red River Valley,\" broadcasting from Sherman, Texas, were introduced to a new morning announcer\u2014\"Jon Williams,\" the on-air handle for John Ed Williams.\n\nThe format of KRRV was folksy but proper. The small staff of women running the station, some of them volunteers, worked to make radio an uplifting instrument of the home. On Sundays, \"Jon Williams\" set up the equipment for live broadcasts from area churches. During the week, he interviewed local politicians and civic leaders who wanted to say a few words to KRRV's listeners about a wholesome topic, anything from religious freedom to the firemen's annual bake sale. September found him broadcasting live from the county fair. From a booth beside the pickle display, he queried farmers about their crops, and asked homemakers for tips about how to make a dollar stretch in the kitchen. Listeners could hear the cheers and whistles of ranchers and farmers in the background who were watching Negro football teams play on a field of mown hay.\n\nIn KRRV's family-oriented broadcast day, there was no room for Williams' original sketches or news commentary. But in Denton, Texas, just north of Dallas, Harwell V. \"Shep\" Shepard, the owner of KDNT, could use an extra hand.\n\nThese were the wildcatting days of radio, and entrepreneurs hurried to sink broadcast towers into the ground ahead of the competition. \"Shep\" Shepard, born and raised in Denton, had tried his hand at other things before the radio business, including running a funeral home. But broadcasting appealed to him as a better business idea, because Dallas, a big market for advertising, would be within range of a low-power station in Denton. With a borrowed investment of $6,000, Shepard hand-wired the cottage adjacent to his home at 400 Ross Street. Above it, local plumbers constructed a 160-foot broadcast tower. It fell over, then rose again. On June 1, 1938, KDNT-AM went live. To pay the station's bills, Shepard called on advertisers in a 1932 Plymouth sedan with the station's call letters and thunderbolts painted in gold on the doors. His wife, \"Red,\" handled the bookkeeping.\n\nWhen Williams arrived to interview for a job as a newsman, Shepard showed him the new United Press International Teletype machine clattering away in a corner of the studio, generating enough bulletins from around the world for news broadcasts throughout the day. Williams was impressed and wanted the job. But Shepard also needed someone who could write advertising copy for merchants purchasing airtime. If Williams was interested in that\u2014on commission\u2014then they had a deal. They shook on it.\n\nA week later, \"Jon Williams\" was the station's main announcer and engineer. He reported the news, wrote advertising copy, played records, and ran the instrument board for his own broadcasts. Some Saturday nights, he stayed late at the station to set up the studio like a barn dance, adding hay bales for atmosphere. Those nights, traveling western swing bands took their turns at the standing microphone, singing and telling corny jokes until midnight for the listeners of KDNT.\n\nThe job had an unexpected bonus, though. The station also carried the _Saturday Night Variety Show_ from the campus of North Texas State College in Granbury, southwest of Dallas. Williams' official reason for making the two-hour drive down to Granbury was to set up the equipment in the auditorium before the show. But for socializing and meeting smart girls, there wasn't anything like North Texas State College for miles around. Over 90 percent of the student body was female. During one of his trips to campus, he met Alyeene Rosida Bryan, a junior majoring in music and drama.\n\nAlyeene's father was a lumberman in Granbury, her mother a housewife. There was something a little exotic in her Mexican-Irish features\u2014dark eyes and tight ringlets of hair that fell to her shoulders. She acted, sang, and performed as a soloist at recitals and weddings. Like John, she had been editor of her high school newspaper, and she wrote poetry, too, which she showed him, knowing he had won prizes for his. She was said to be a little melodramatic, and abided by a rarefied southern code of behavior common to the better class of young ladies. If John hadn't given her proper warning that he was coming to campus, she let it be known, through her roommate answering the door, that she \"was not accepting callers\" that evening\u2014could he call again?\n\nThey married six months after their first date, on Easter Sunday, April 5, 1942, in the Granbury Methodist Church. Both families went to lengths to see that it was a traditional ceremony, despite the demands of the war. The church altar was decorated with irises and lilacs in tall baskets. Jack Newsom, Williams' actor friend, was best man. The bride wore an afternoon dress of taffeta instead of a bridal gown, and carried a white Bible. Her bridesmaids wore pins: a pink enamel heart pierced by a wooden match with the words \"It's a Match\u2014Alyeene and Jon, April 5.\"\n\nIn addition to changing his name, Williams had also burnished his educational achievements. The _Hood County Tablet_ printed on its \"Weddings\" page that the bridegroom had earned a bachelor's degree from the University of New Mexico and done \"graduate work in Chicago.\" These credentials were later amended to \"attended the University of New Mexico\" in the wedding announcement appearing in the _North Texas State_ campus newspaper, which was read by many of Alyeene's friends who knew Jon.\n**CHAPTER THREE**\n\nRough Draft\n\n_\"Take any man,\" I said, reaching across the table and lighting your cigarette, \"study him carefully. . . . Take him, season with a little imagination and sympathy\u2014and you'll have a novel.\"_\n\n\u2014JOHN WILLIAMS, DRAFT FOR A STORY, MARCH 1944\n\nScanning the newspapers in September 1942 for items he might use for broadcast, Williams noticed repeated calls for men to enlist in the Army Air Corps. Since the bombing of Pearl Harbor ten months earlier, recruiting officers were advertising for volunteers to join up before they were drafted, especially ones with certain skills. The drumbeat on page two of the _Lubbock Morning Avalanche_ was typical:\n\nIf you're between the ages of 18 and 50 and physically able to pursue any kind of mechanical trade in civilian life, and if you're interested in enlisting directly into the United States Army Air Corps, you're urged to drop in at the recruiting station and airplane engine exhibit at 1012 Main Street today. . . . Men with any mechanical or radio technical experience may be qualified.\n\nIn this instance, specialists were needed for crew duty in bombers and transport planes. During World War I, air combat had been fought between the pilots of single-engine biplanes made of canvas and plywood. They fired at each other, raked the mud trenches below with machine-gun fire, and hand-dropped bombs the size of footballs. But now, heavy aluminum and steel bombers required crews of six to ten, including a radio man, for high-altitude, long-distance missions over Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific. An officer quoted in the article still had one foot in the previous war when he said that radiomen contributed as much as pilots to \"helping the Doughboys.\"\n\nFor John, military service would defer his career just as opportunity seemed to be opening up. His boss, Harwell Shepard, had a request in at the federal level to boost KDNT's broadcast output from 100 to 250 watts. A stronger signal would carry Williams' newscasts down past Dallas all the way west to San Antonio and east to Beaumont, doubling the listening area. If a national network like CBS heard him, it might syndicate his public affairs reporting. Shepard was nevertheless resigned to going the duration of the war with no increase of signal, given the emergency state of things and the bureaucracy in Washington.\n\nWilliams decided there was no point in delaying his military service. If he waited until he was drafted, he might be assigned to the infantry. But if he enlisted in the Army Air Corps, he could take the exam for radio technician, which he knew something about.\n\nMarried only five months, Williams enlisted \"somewhat reluctantly\" in the Army Air Corps at the recruiting station in Dallas on October 6, 1942, quite possibly the same place where his stepfather had registered for World War I in 1917. No patriotic surge of feeling swept Williams into the armed services, however. \"We had to get into the goddamn war\" was his attitude. And the majority of Americans felt the same way. As one historian wrote of lack of choice in the matter, \"If there was no practical alternative, there was certainly no moral one either. Britain and the Commonwealth were carrying the battle for all civilization, and the overwhelming majority of Americans, led in the late election by their president, wished to help them.\"\n\nJohn's young wife, Alyeene, would have to finish her teaching degree at North Texas State without him. A week after he enlisted, she saw him off at the bus depot as he departed for basic training. She had hoped he would be able to attend her solo performance coming up at Granbury Methodist Church, but recruits were never granted leave during the two months of basic training. Three hours later, he arrived at Sheppard Field, still under construction on three hundred acres of former pastureland outside Wichita Falls.\n\nHe was a twenty-year-old bantamweight, and boot camp was fierce. His pack and rifle tugged against his 104-pound frame during ten-mile marches, but he passed the radio technician examination. Alyeene came by bus from Denton in mid-November to say goodbye before he transferred to the Air Corps Technical Training Command in Greensboro, North Carolina. Then, on the morning of Christmas Eve, she set out from Dallas by train to visit him, arriving exhausted in Greensboro on Friday, Christmas night, after thirty hours of traveling, with only two days remaining on John's three-day pass.\n\nSaturday was warm for December but rainy, and they spent most of it alone. The movie theaters, restaurants, taverns, and stores were open on Sunday, which the strict religious \"blue laws\" normally would have prohibited. But it was wartime and restrictions had been lifted. Come very early Monday morning, they parted at the Southern Railway train station while it was still dark. By the time he reported for roll call, she had already begun the two-day trip back to Texas.\n\nHis orders, when they came through in mid-January 1943, assigned him to the 10th Air Force, 443rd Troop Carrier Group, 1st Troop Carrier Squadron. From San Francisco he would leave aboard a troopship bound on a fifty-day voyage to Bombay, the port city on the Arabian Sea. A train would take him to Calcutta, followed by truck transport to Sookerating Airfield on India's border with Tibet in the Assam Valley.\n\nSookerating was the Allies' closest airbase for supplying General Chiang Kai-shek, who was directing the Chinese National Army fighting the Japanese. Allied transport planes flew the five-hundred-mile resupply route every day, sometimes twice, soaring over the highest mountain range in the world, the thirty-thousand-foot wall of the Himalayas, nicknamed \"the Hump\" by pilots. The only overland route, the Burma Road, was in the hands of the enemy. Journalist Eric Sevareid visited the airfield at Chabua in the Assam Valley and found it \"a dread and dismal place. . . . They were trying to do too much with far too little. Pilots were overworked, and when they had made the perilous flight to China and back the same day, having fought storm and fog and ice, they simply fell into their cots as they were, unshaved and unwashed, to catch a few hours of unrefreshing sleep before repeating the venture the next day.\"\n\nIn March, Williams debarked in the port of Bombay to begin a train journey of eight hundred miles across mountains, plains, and desert toward Eastern India and the thickly jungled province of Bengal. For five days and nights, he passed through \"small, indescribably filthy villages,\" so described by an army engineer who also traveled the same route. Using his duffel bag for a pillow, radioman Williams tried to sleep on his wooden bench in the drowsy heat, but was awakened whenever the one-note locomotive whistle shrieked at people or animals on the tracks. Each time the train stopped, villagers rushed forward selling trinkets, or begging for food or a little _baksheesh_ , money.\n\nIn Sookerating, Williams got to work supervising \"tea parties\" of local laborers who loaded C-47 Skytrains\u2014\"Gooney Birds,\" the crews called them\u2014using blocks and tackles, and sometimes elephants sleepy with opium to keep them calm. Jeeps, trucks, grenades, coffee, gasoline, bombs, spare parts, and ambulances\u2014anything useful to the Chinese army, including generals\u2014went over the Hump. Once the aircraft had been closed up and made ready, Williams set aside his clipboard and changed into his role as radioman. First, he tested the beacon box, which beamed a secret signal identifying the airplane as friendly, and installed it in the tail section. Then he took his seat behind the cockpit and checked the communications equipment to his left and in front of him. Over the next three and a half hours, his job would be to communicate with ground operators using the daily code, take time checks, make entries in his log, and provide position reports to the navigator plotting the course.\n\nThe airbase was so near the foot of the Himalayas that, to climb fast enough for takeoff, pilots locked the brakes, waiting for the twin Pratt & Whitney 1,200-horsepower engines to roar to a thunderous, whining pitch\u2014until everything on board was shaking. The instant the brakes were released, the plane leaped forward and rushed down the runway, gathering speed and lifting its two-ton cargo into the sky. Even so, C-47s had a ceiling altitude of only twenty-three thousand feet, and if the pilot or navigator lost his way, some of the Himalayan peaks were still half a mile higher.\n\nAs the plane rose out of Assam Valley, and above the steam bath of the jungle, the men pulled on fleece-lined leather jackets. Temperatures inside the plane slowly dropped to below freezing. There were no heaters, because they weighed too much. From the Upper Assam Valley to the Yunnanese plateau, they first crossed the Mishmis Hills, which are between two and three miles high. At this point, Williams flipped on his oxygen and began using a mask. He was a chain-smoker, so he pushed the mask off-center, allowing enough oxygen to spill out the side to keep a cigarette lit in the corner of his mouth. Through his headset he sometimes heard the voice of a Japanese disc jockey the men nicknamed \"Hanoi Hannah.\" In between playing American songs and big band music, she delivered personal messages. \"To the boys on N99131\u2014turn back, fellas. Lt. Jim Kelley, turn that plane around. Because if you don't, you're all going to die on this flight.\" Williams and the rest of the crew were more concerned about the weather. From June to October, the monsoon season brought anvil-headed thunderclouds with violent updrafts that could flip a plane on its back. During night thunderstorms, the propellers sometimes became wrapped in the blue orbs of St. Elmo's fire. Spidery filaments of electricity crackled around the windows of the cockpit like miniature lightning. Occasionally, when a pent-up charge arced with the airplane's steel frame, an explosive blue fireball knocked out Williams' radio equipment and stopped communication with the ground.\n\nWinter storms brought another kind of terror. The C-47 was a workhorse, but when the wings were glazed with ice, it waddled drunkenly. At those times, Williams came forward and grabbed the retraction lever between the pilots, running the landing gear up and down to help reduce the plane's tipsiness. The wheels partly down acted like a keel, but they also created an additional drag that might cause the plane to stall. A sudden drop in altitude sent loose objects slamming against the cabin roof. If the plane crashed in the jungle, tribes of headhunters\u2014the tattooed Naga people\u2014were down there to meet them.\n\nIn a novel left uncompleted at his death, _The Sleep of Reason_ , Williams included a scene of an Army Air Corps desk officer, Capt. Parker, hitching a ride on a C-47 with an enlisted man named Matthews:\n\nThey sat apart from each other, wedged tightly between lashed crates that nearly filled the interior of the plane's long body, and when the C-47 began its long, shuddering takeoff down the runway, [Matthews] was glad that Parker could not see his hands clutching the slats of the crates on either side of him.\n\nBut when they were airborne and Matthews became more used to the odd, unsteady floating sensation, which he found not altogether unpleasant, he looked across the aisle and was astonished by Capt. Parker's face. It was a pale, yellow contortion with staring eyes and open mouth. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead, and he breathed in heavy gasps that could be heard above the roar of the airplane.\n\nFor a moment, Matthews thought that he was ill and he started to speak to him, but he realized in the instant before he spoke that what he saw was a terror as pure as he had ever imagined.\n\nAfter the Mishmis Hills, Williams' plane traversed the Hukawng Valley and the muddy meadows of the Upper Irrawaddy River. Next came the Kaolikung range, which hid the cavernous gorge of the Salween River below, walled on the other side by the four-mile-high Hump itself. When at last the silvery Tali Lake came into view, the crew was ten minutes from a plate of eggs and a cup of coffee on the Yunnanese plateau. A sign over the mess hall sounded slightly incredulous: \"You Made It Again.\"\n\nHe said he was shot down once. A shell from a spring-loaded Japanese knee mortar struck the plane on its final approach. He found himself on the ground with his back up against a tree, a pain in his side from broken ribs. Pieces of the plane were hanging in the jungle canopy. The pilot and copilot survived, but the five men in the rear were killed. Williams and the pilots found their way through the underbrush until they hit a safe stretch of the Burma Road. Once back, he volunteered to join a party to retrieve the dead men's dog tags. On the way, they ran out of rations, so they skinned a monkey and roasted it. He remembered it \"looked like a baby on a spit.\" A Japanese patrol passed by so close that their white puttees could be seen flashing through the jungle foliage.\n\nBut the Japanese didn't wear white puttees in the jungle: they wore khaki leggings, wrapped to their knees. And among the names of men flying out of Sookerating who crashed\u2014over a hundred were killed\u2014\"John Edward Williams\" doesn't appear. Also, if he suffered broken ribs, he would have received a Purple Heart. But his name is not among the list of recipients. What, then, to make of Williams' account of being shot down by the enemy?\n\nHis bravery is unquestionable, of course. The flight over the highest mountain range in the world was the graveyard of the air. He \"almost got used to people being killed.\" He came down with malaria, the effects of which plagued him for the rest of his life, and a touch of scrub typhus near his eye, a marshland disease that produces skin lesions and high fever. He endured a lot, and his superiors thought well enough of him to promote him to sergeant.\n\nBut to come home without a few good stories would have been unthinkable to Williams. Crafting a tale\u2014embellishing it, adding surprises\u2014becomes an opportunity to get a little better at the art. And the best stories, the memorable ones, hardly ever fall into the teller's lap fully formed. \"Remember Charlie,\" Ernest Hemingway wrote to his friend Charles Poore in 1953, \"in the first war all I did mostly was hear guys talk; especially in hospital and convalescing. Their experiences get to be more vivid than your own. You invent from your own and from all of theirs.\" Call it lying, but writers call it creating fiction.\n\nThe round scar on his shoulder, for instance, was left from shooting himself by accident at age seventeen. When one of his daughters asked him years later, pointing to the mark, \"What's that?\" he said, \"I got that when I was a co-pilot in the jungle and the Japs shot us down.\"\n\n\"Dear John . . .\"\n\nSometime in the early spring of 1944, Alyeene wrote him to say she wanted a divorce. There was somebody else\u2014that's what he claimed she said, although she wouldn't remarry for ten years. Or maybe she chose a reason that was irrevocable but short, one that would fit on a couple pages of overseas V-mail. In any case, they would have to wait until he returned to make the divorce official, because that was the law.\n\nWhat could he do about it, and how should he respond from the faraway edge of eastern India? For the rest of his life, he took a sporting attitude about his first marriage. \"Oh, I don't even count that one,\" or, \"That one was my fault.\" He said he grieved about it for about two weeks.\n\nBut the failure with Alyeene was one in a series of attempts at respectability. He had dropped out of junior college and tried his hand at radio plays and stage direction. Next, he had started a career in broadcasting, which turned out to be a disappointing job of covering county fairs and selling advertising. To compensate, he bestowed on himself a nonexistent degree from the University of New Mexico.\n\nAbout the time of her letter, Williams had a studio portrait taken in Calcutta. Like a movie star, he is looking up and off to his left, the light falling on his face, accentuating his large eyes and close-cropped mustache. Most men and women in uniform preferred a straight-ahead shot like a yearbook photo, but Williams went for effect. He's dressed in a sharply pressed airman's tunic, his right shoulder thrusting forward with the China-Burma-India campaign patch, a striped shield on whose blue field rests the Kuomintang Sun of China and the Star of India. There's a bid for transcendence about the way he looks up into the light. It isn't accidental. It's part performance, part personal narrative\u2014he means to say that he's different, and he's artistic. A romantic. He's still Ronald Colman in spirit, the gentleman swashbuckler. But the facts of Williams' young life so far did not shine favorably on him becoming successful.\n\nWhile he was in Calcutta, Williams purchased half a dozen composition booklets, like the kind he'd used for school: red covers, blue-lined pages with a vertical red line for the margins. Writers tend to be particular about their materials, and by reaching back for the tools he first used for essays and poems, he was indicating a wish to reconnect.\n\nHe spent some his off-hours in the tent he shared with two other airmen, laying on his cot writing. If it was getting dark, he had to reach up and light the kerosene lantern hanging from the ridgepole. The gray mongoose they let hang around to kill snakes appeared at sunset begging for scraps. In his attempts at fiction, at first he emulated his favorite authors. He wanted to invoke Conrad Aiken's psychological language that had impressed him so much, and the interiority of Proust. He hoped to sound both literary and sophisticated to the reader, and show his characters' thoughts. From a page in one of his composition notebooks, dated March 4, 1944:\n\n\"Take any man,\" I said, reaching across the table and lighting your cigarette, \"study him carefully, know him so well that you premeditate his basic reactions. Understand his likes and dislikes, his prejudices and convictions; know a little about his background, his environment. Take him, season with a little imagination and sympathy\u2014and you'll have a novel.\"\n\nYou leaned back in your chair and sipped slowly at your drink. You didn't say anything. You put your drink back on the table and drug [ _sic_ ] heavily on your cigarette and let the smoke dribble out of your lazy, skeptical mouth.\n\n\"I'll go even further,\" I insisted. \"Take any man\u2014fat or lean, wise or foolish, good or bad\u2014take one day, or one night of that man's life. Know what he does during that appointed time, understand why he does it\u2014and you'll have a novel.\"\n\nHe kept revising, adding, starting again. \"I didn't know what I was doing,\" he later said.\n\nThe best passages he copied out and mailed home to his family. What they thought about such missives from the edge of the jungle is anyone's guess.\n\nHe would be returning to the United States in six months or so\u2014at the end of the year, or in early 1945, at least. His marriage was over and he would be single again. The GI Bill would give him the financial wherewithal to attend college, but he didn't know where someone with ambitions should enroll. Through a friend, he wrote to a college instructor, Satyavati C. Jordan at Thoburn College in Lucknow, India, hoping for some advice. Mrs. Jordan was a woman in her forties who had been educated at Baker University in Kansas and Northwestern University near Chicago. Her father was the first Indian bishop elected to the Methodist Episcopal Church.\n\nShe replied that she would be \"very glad indeed\" to meet Sergeant Williams, and extended an invitation to the Sunday evening service at the Victorian-style Lal Bagh English Methodist Church, where she was the organist. \"I think you would like our service. . . . I can take you around the Isabella Thoburn College and we can have a visit.\"\n\nWilliams was nearing the end of his military service and on the cusp of deciding about the direction of his life. Perhaps during his walk with Mrs. Jordan through the gardens on campus, he mentioned that his mother was ill with tuberculosis. His family had moved while he was away from Wichita Falls to Pasadena, California, to be near his sister, who was performing at the Pasadena Playhouse. When he returned, everything would be different.\n\nMrs. Jordan responded with another invitation to dinner to meet her family, and followed up by letter with the names of two friends\u2014a journalist in Tennessee, and a poet in Kansas\u2014who might help him think through his choices. \"Remember, when you come this way again,\" she told him, \"you have friends here\u2014we'll be looking for you.\"\n\nBack in his tent at the airfield, he had kept a letter from his actor friend Jack Newsom. He liked to reread it because Newsom was back home and preparing big plans for the future. Jack was in advertising, selling radio airtime in Florida, and he'd gotten a tip that the worldwide Mutual Broadcasting System was going to tie in with a brand new station, WKWF, in tropical Key West:\n\nWilliams, at present I have things lined up so that the minute you step foot back into this country we can at once pack up and head for the most wonderful [radio] station in Florida you ever laid eyes on. . . . I really got going and met the right people and as a result have things lined up like we used to dream about. Now here's the deal. You have been fucking around over there long enough. . . . [Y]ou are a big boy now and must settle down. If you will just get a move on, we shall take up where we left off.\n**CHAPTER FOUR**\n\nKey West\n\n_I knew I could make a living as a writer for radio, but it meant you just hacked it out. I grew up a little bit, and realized this was a crappy way to live your life\u2014to be a radio announcer and hawk products or whatever_.\n\n\u2014JOHN WILLIAMS, 1981 INTERVIEW\n\nArriving stateside again in the spring of 1945, he was in a hurry. Life was precious, and yet paradoxically, not very important in the scheme of things. Sometimes, when the big C-47 cargo plane put down in China, its rubber wheels smoking on impact, he would feel an extra bump as they taxied, followed by a disgusted shout from the cockpit\u2014\"Aw _shit_! We hit another one!\" A Chinese civilian had rushed in front of the plane because he believed that the blurred, chopping blades would destroy his evil spirits. Instead, he disappeared into the slipstream of nothingness and left gore on the runway.\n\nThe former \"Jon\" Williams, the smooth-faced boy of twenty, had disappeared over the Himalayas with the sound of Hanoi Hannah crooning in his headset. In his place a veteran had returned home, sporting a mustache, sometimes plagued by bad dreams or periods of cold sweats from the effects of malaria. And who relied on drinking\u2014alone, if no one was handy\u2014to take his mind off things.\n\nHis resources for civilian life were slim\u2014one year of junior college; a year of professional broadcasting; sixty days of Army Air Corps radio school; sergeant's stripes, and a dozen composition notebooks filled with drafts of a novel. He wasn't in a position to do whatever he wanted; he would have to take what looked promising.\n\nAs soon as his ship dropped anchor in New York Harbor, he began wrapping up what still remained of his prewar life. From New York, he headed southwest to Wichita Falls to finalize his divorce from Alyeene. In the three years since he'd seen her, she had changed from a teenager into a young woman supporting herself as a bank teller. Then he continued on to Pasadena, California, northeast of Los Angeles near Hollywood, to visit his family in their new home on North Summit Avenue. He also wanted to collect the sum of his poker winnings, and the bet he'd won at the Royal Calcutta Turf Club. His parents were supposed to put the money aside for him, but it turned out they hadn't. It had gone instead into the down payment on their new house. He didn't begrudge what they had done\u2014the climate was better for his mother, and George Rae was performing at the Pasadena Playhouse, which benefited her acting career. But he left again quickly, explaining that he didn't care for California, and there might be a job in radio waiting for him in Florida.\n\nBy June, he was seated at the control board of \"the most wonderful station in Florida you ever laid eyes on,\" as Jack Newsom had described it: WKWF, \"the nation's southernmost radio station,\" in Key West, Florida. Actually, it was still a small operation in a bungalow, and owned by a local businessman with political aspirations, but John Williams was more knowledgeable than anyone in the studio.\n\nKey West, an island four miles long and a mile wide, suited him well\u2014it hit the median somehow. The sleepy, sea-level island, hanging from a string of sandbars at the tip of Florida, provided a good transition to civilian life. Key West is almost precisely the same latitude as Calcutta, and he was accustomed to the languor and sultriness. There was an air of exoticism about the town, too. Sailors, pilots, and technicians from the Naval Air Station and the Fleet Sonar School consorted with the population of bohemians, sidewalk strollers, and sun-worshippers. Few other places in the United States had Key West's admixture of ordinary and strange, but it was palpable here at the endpoint of an archipelago jutting into the Caribbean where tropical sunlight shone down on the old romance of an eastern bazaar.\n\nAnd some of Key West's residents were writers, including the poets Elizabeth Bishop, Wallace Stevens, and Robert Frost, the playwright Tennessee Williams, and the novelist Ernest Hemingway. John Williams collected local anecdotes about \"Papa\" Hemingway, which he repeated over the years. If he had to make a living as a broadcaster in order to write, then Key West was a good loose fit, until he got his bearings.\n\nSometime that fall, he finished the novel he'd begun fitfully in Sookerating, titling it _Nothing But the Night_. It had gone through six rewrites on the way to completion, and he hated revising. To avoid it as much as possible, he rehearsed passages in his mind before committing words to paper, a method he used for the rest of his life. Unlike his author-hero Thomas Wolfe, who could write thousands of words at a single sitting, a good day for Williams was a paragraph he liked.\n\n_Nothing But the Night_ is an ambitious novel, steeped in psychological realism\u2014illuminating characters' interior lives by reaching into their subconscious. Having read and admired Proust and Conrad Aiken, Williams hoped to reach even further by adding daubs of psychoanalytic theory: pretty formidable stuff for a new writer. _Nothing But the Night_ , which plays out in one Joycean day and night, explores a disturbing, perhaps abnormal relationship between a young man and his mother, opening the doors to related pathologies such as masochism, sadism, and a desire to subjugate women.\n\nIt begins with a dream unfolding. The unnamed dreamer is observing a party going on. Among the guests is a pale, flaccid young man. He makes the others uncomfortable, and they try to ignore him: \"To these people he was a noise without meaning, an explosion with disruption.\" Gradually, to his shock, the dreamer realizes that he's the detestable young man everyone dislikes. They surround him, menacingly. Then, as a kind of biblical stoning, they beat him into senselessness.\n\nThe dream over, Arthur Maxley, a young man of leisure, begins waking up. He's expecting the maid to arrive soon to clean his disordered room, but before she arrives he decides he should go out for a walk. He distracts himself by repeating the beginning of the Lord's Prayer, like a chant, until he pares it down to \"Father, Father, Father . . .\" \"What an ugly word,\" he says to himself.\n\nStopping into a diner for breakfast, Maxley comes across as neurotically aesthetic. Smells and images affront him. \"He wiped a fleck of breadcrumb from the soiled cover of a chair and sat down at a table near the front. . . . The menu was one of those typewritten affairs, and this must have been a fourth or fifth carbon, well used and smudged by previous customers. He sniffed delicately and dropped it on the table.\" He primly but silently scolds his waitress, telling her to please \"try to hide the remnants of last night's debauch.\" On all sides, the world looks like an ugly place to him, full of gross behavior.\n\nReturning to his apartment, he plays a tantalizing game of keep-away with the maid. \"He raised his free hand and let the back brush negligently across her breasts.\" Behind her back, she's hiding a letter for him. It's from Arthur's wealthy father, Hollis Maxley, who's in town and wants to meet him for dinner. In a flashback, Arthur remembers a scene of seeing his mother and father in a room, and \"that terrible thing which he could never purge from the darkest reaches of his mind,\" and how he had screamed, \" _Mother Mother Mother_ until he was in a hoarse stupor.\" Their bond seems faintly Oedipal:\n\nSometimes she would fling her arms about him, lie beside him, tousle his hair, and whisper to him. At other times she would seem distracted, absent, not really there beside him at all. Then she would hold him to her briefly, talk to him in short stops and starts. But the rarest moments of all\u2014and to him, the startlingly beautiful\u2014were the times when she floated into his room like a white angel, sat beside him, held him softly, saying little, gazing at his eager moon-bathed face with great tenderness and calm . . .\n\nBut there was always the goodnight kiss.\n\nThey would linger over that. And when her lips had left his face, he would remain so, his eyes closed, an unconscious smile hovering over his mouth.\n\nAfter receiving his father's invitation for dinner, about which he isn't happy, he meets a gay friend for drinks. This is an edgy scene for the 1940s. (The bartender throws them both out. \"What kind of place do you think this is?\") Williams seems intent on salting the manuscript with passing references to characters' psychological states. Arthur continues on his way after drinks to meet his father, Hollis, at a posh hotel.\n\nThe elder Maxley, it turns out, wants to make amends, to heal a rift with his son. Something has happened which neither of them wants to revisit, so they only allude to it. Just as Arthur begins to feel sorry for his father, a beautiful woman stops by the table. Awkwardly, it becomes apparent that she and Arthur's father are having an affair. She apologizes for interrupting and leaves. Arthur feels nauseated because the woman reminds him of his mother. He refuses to accept his father's explanation that \"they all look like _her_. I try to make myself believe that . . .\" Angered by what he perceives as his father's betrayal\u2014or, his realization that his father has a sexual connection to his mother that he can never overcome\u2014Arthur leaves and goes out into the night.\n\nHe wanders into a nightclub, where a young woman, abandoned by her date, plops down drunkenly beside him. Arthur's unhappiness is triggered again unexpectedly when on the nightclub's stage, a female dancer performs a highly erotic number. \"The smooth muscles of her belly turned and twisted; her body throbbed uncontrollably in effortless spasms.\" Her face turns into the face of Arthur's mother and he rises to his feet, crying out in pain. He recalls in a dreamlike sequence what he witnessed as a child: his mother shooting his cringing father, a repressed wish to kill his father acted out. But then \"she inserted the still-smoking barrel into her mouth. He heard the muffled report and saw the head jerk backward.\"\n\nArthur whisks the girl away from the nightclub in a taxi. Upstairs in her room, some kind of urge for revenge, or maybe just disgust, compels Arthur to lash out and strike her. She falls to the floor, naked, blood coming from the corner of her mouth. The bedroom door bursts open and in comes a large, rough man who pushes Arthur out of the room and downstairs into the darkness.\n\nFor the first time we find out that Arthur is \"little,\" like Williams. \"You know what's going to happen, don't you?\" says the man, who calls him \"sonny.\" Mutely, without protest\u2014like a guilty son at the hands of his violent father\u2014Arthur submits to a beating. His passivity suggests he's aware of having broken a taboo, because \"his hands were leaden weights that hung at his side.\" When it's over, he crawls along the sidewalk and finds his glasses, then gets to his feet unsteadily. Without a word, he walks away, \"toward where the darkness converged and there was no light, where the night pressed in upon him, where nothing waited for him, where he was, at last, alone.\" The novel ends with a sense that Arthur got what he came for\u2014or what he deserved\u2014and that the violence associated with his punishment was ordained.\n\nNow that _Nothing But the Night_ was finished, Williams needed a reader whose opinion he trusted\u2014someone who knew about fiction and literature and not just an obliging friend. By chance, just such a person appeared at the radio station: a vacationing professor from the University of Alabama who chatted on-air once a week about books, writers, and summer reading. Williams, listening behind the glass in the control room, heard a language he was hungry for.\n\nGeorge K. Smart\u2014\"Ken\" to his friends, held a doctorate in American literature from the University of Alabama. An outgoing gentleman, Smart resembled a balding southern salesman with a preference for bow ties and light-colored suits. Beneath his friendliness, however, was a serious scholar whose specialty was William Faulkner. Ten years older than Williams, Smart had a tendency to attract or seek out young people in need of advice. He and Williams arranged to meet at the La Conga Bar on Duval Street in the oldest part of Key West.\n\nWhat Smart gleaned from listening to Williams was that here was a bright, thoughtful, ex-GI who was sincere about his desire to write, but who did not have much of an idea about how to proceed. Smart had been an assistant professor at Harvard, but his instincts told him that his younger friend probably wouldn't enjoy it\u2014it was too much of a leap. He recommended the University of Alabama, and for several reasons. First, he was in the English Department there. Also, he and his wife, Virginia, had an extra room that Williams was welcome to use. Smart could put a word in with the admissions office, too. But most important for Williams' benefit, Alabama offered one of the few creative writing seminars in the country. It was taught by Hudson Strode, who had been successful bringing several of his students' novels to market. Williams could get the kind of guidance he needed. \"Alabama is a friendly, easy-come-easy-go place,\" Smart assured him. \"It's big, rambly [ _sic_ ], and extroverted.\"\n\nBut for the present, at least, Williams wasn't sure he wanted to commit to more schooling. A little magazine of contemporary art and literature in New York, _The Tiger's Eye_ , had accepted one of his poems. He had also completed a one-hour radio play; and there was the manuscript Smart had just read, _Nothing But the Night_. If there was any way he could write for a living, maybe he owed it to himself to try. Smart agreed that the novel was ready to send out, and gave Williams the name of an acquaintance, a senior editor at Harper and Brothers, Edward Aswell\u2014who had also been Thomas Wolfe's editor, by an auspicious coincidence.\n\nThe decision over whether to reenroll in college or continue writing independently was temporarily delayed, however, when Williams received word in December that his mother was seriously ill with tuberculosis. She was forty-seven and had been in and out of sanitariums since he was in high school, the first time for a minor operation in Paris, Texas. The owner of WKWF replied to Williams' resignation with a letter praising his talents, which, it was understood, Williams could use as a recommendation to find another position in radio.\n\nBut he never used it, or looked for another opening in broadcasting. Despite his friend Jack Newsom's cheery letter about making good on their adolescent plans, he realized now that he didn't want to pick up where he'd left off in 1942, before he'd enlisted. \"I knew I could make a living as a writer for radio, but it meant you just hacked it out,\" he told an interviewer. \"I grew up a little bit, and realized this was a crappy way to live your life\u2014to be a radio announcer and hawk products or whatever.\"\n\nHe headed to California to see about his mother.\n**CHAPTER FIVE**\n\nAlan Swallow\n\n_I think Denver is a good idea. This guy Swallow sounds like a very good Joe_.\n\n\u2014GEORGE K. SMART TO JOHN WILLIAMS, 1947\n\nIn the spring of 1946, residents of Pasadena became accustomed to seeing a slight, dark-haired young man in a biscuit-colored uniform and black bow tie wearing a peaked cap with a badge. He would be walking quickly between houses to peer at the meters and take a reading for the Southern California Gas Company. Williams kept up a good pace, covering about four hundred properties a day. He followed a different route each week to complete his territory, averaging about four miles of walking daily before clambering into the truck to head back to the central office.\n\nHe was living with his stepfather; his sister, George Rae; and his grandfather, Elbert Walker, who was almost ninety, at 363 North Summit. George Williams had retired from the Wichita Falls Post Office on a civil service pension and was taking care of Amelia, whose tuberculosis kept her resting in bed most days. The first antibiotic for the disease, streptomycin, was introduced that year. But it was too late for Amelia; in July, she died.\n\nWith her death, John was the last member of the evanescent Jewell family of Clarksville, Texas. His nature was to be reserved about personal matters, and later he preferred not to reminisce about his mother. When asked about her, his embarrassed silence gave the impression that \"he loved his mother too much to talk about her.\" Ten years after her death, he wrote \"Memories: Texas, 1932,\" which begins with the poet recalling how he had needed his mother when he was nine years old, the age, probably not coincidentally, at which she told him the secret of his birth:\n\n_They are gone now, but I remember_\n\n_The narrow room and the nine-year-old boy_\n\n_Who lay at night on a bed so wide_\n\n_That hands and feet could find no falling_\n\n_From softness into the dark around him_.\n\n_Deep in the drowse of childhood, he heard_\n\n_His mother's voice in the next room_ ,\n\n_Unmeaning, soft as his first comfort_ ;\n\n_And thought of what he could not know\u2014_\n\n_And his room_\n\n_shifted in its darkness, a presence_\n\n_Gathered where he could not see_ ,\n\n_His arms flailed at the blackness; and he called_\n\n_From his terror, \"Mother!\"\u2014and called_\n\n_Again._\n\nThe summer his mother died, a rejection letter arrived from Edward Aswell, the editor at Harper and Brothers whom Smart had recommended. Aswell believed _Nothing But the Night_ was irretrievable. \"Your central character is presented in such a way that the reader is unsympathetic toward him. Thus it is difficult to care very deeply about what happens to him.\" Smart tried to humor his young friend out of his disappointment. \"I know you have good sense enough not to pay any attention to his twaddle about 'sympathetic.' You might write him back that he, Aswell, is an unsympathetic character.\" The poems Williams circulated didn't meet with any better luck. Editors pointed to insufficiencies, such as a lack of \"development,\" or language that was too \"anonymous.\" In August, yet another rejection of a different sort occurred. Taking Smart's advice, Williams had applied to the University of Alabama. A letter from the admissions office informed him that he had not been accepted for the fall semester. Thus, there was nothing to look forward to, no good news. For the time being, then, his suddenly diminished world would consist of being a gas meter reader, divorced, sleeping on the couch in his stepfather's house and writing at the kitchen table.\n\nMonths passed until a bright spot appeared. Williams had heard that Swallow Press in Denver, Colorado, was on the lookout for manuscripts that had been overlooked by eastern publishers. He thought he'd give it a try and sent _Nothing But the Night_ to publisher Alan Swallow. Judging from the letterhead on his reply in November, apparently Swallow was a member of the English Department at the University of Denver. And apparently, he didn't have a secretary. Every capital letter jumped higher than the rest of the sentence. But there was sincerity in the warm tone. \"I was glad to see your novel come in yesterday. I look forward eagerly to reading it, and you may be sure I will do all I can for it. Manuscripts have piled up on me more than I anticipated, so that I am running about three weeks for consideration. However, I shall try to handle yours in two weeks or less.\"\n\nThe promise to \"do all I can for it\" was unexpected\u2014there was no suggestion that Swallow Press might consider other work, if he cared to submit it. Williams put the letter aside and waited.\n\nIn the meantime, George Rae was trying to get her brother to stay in California. The University of Alabama didn't have to be his only choice. There was no lack of colleges in the area, for one thing. Also, he'd done some acting and directing, and the big film studios in Culver City, Burbank, and Hollywood were minutes away. She was proud of John and supplied him with reasons to stay, including fixing him up with one of her friends from the Pasadena Playhouse, a nineteen-year-old brunette in junior college with freckles and a beaming smile, Yvonne Elyce Stone.\n\nYvonne was on the lookout for adventure\u2014some kind of change. She had been born in Los Angeles and never lived very far from it, spending her childhood in Beverly Hills, then her teenage years in Salinas, after which she returned to Los Angeles. Yvonne's mother, who was divorced from her father, was a bit of a crackpot. After being introduced to Yvonne's new boyfriend, Mr. Williams, and listening to his conversation, she decided he was a communist.\n\nIt was Williams' way to always have a woman in his life\u2014sometimes more than one, never going for long without a female in the background, supporting his efforts.\n\n\"Don't work too hard, baby, and be sure to write me,\" Yvonne wrote on a postcard after they had been dating for several months. It was postmarked Pacific Groves, where she was enjoying the beaches near San Francisco\u2014four hundred miles up the California coast from Los Angeles. She dropped him another postcard the next day from Carmel, telling him coquettishly, \"I finally got my suitcase and am wearing clothes again.\"\n\nSwallow followed up his initial response to _Nothing But the Night_ with two typewritten, single-spaced pages of criticism for Williams, going beyond what an editor-publisher would normally do. \"It starts out with a scene that I call surrealist, continues with a long stretch of minute emotional writing\u2014all torturous\u2014and then, approximately the last third, comes a solid psychological writing that one grasps, understands, and finds exciting.\" What concerned him was that \"the novel lacks a certain consistency or observable direction of development. . . . [I]t seems to prey a good bit on rather deliberate obscurantism in the early parts, and then, toward the end, becomes rather simple in comparison, a good ending, but not tied together thematically and stylistically as well.\"\n\nHe suggested that Williams \"may well be a writer who needs to throw away about two or three novels before the thing starts clicking.\" In other words, perhaps he hadn't served his apprenticeship yet, and Swallow added that although his press \"sponsor[ed] early work, unusual and experimental work,\" he had to be careful with his money. His advice\u2014\"if you care to hear it\"\u2014was \"that you try the novel many other places\" and benefit from the experience of having a number of editors read it.\n\nSwallow's letter was at once generous, instructive, and respectful of a new writer's hopes, but ultimately he confessed that he couldn't do it justice at present and wouldn't stand in Williams' way. It was a remarkable response, but then, Alan Swallow was an unusual person.\n\nA glimpse of him as a boy in Wyoming captures his personality and, as his friend Yvor Winters once said, Swallow's \"curious inner violence that contributed to his success and to his death.\" In 1927, he was twelve years old and speeding down a road on an Indian motorcycle that he had repaired himself. As he leaned into a curve, he thrust out his arms, threw back his head to the sun, and let the wind take its chances with him.\n\nHe had been born in Powell, Wyoming, in 1915, within sight of the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. His parents raised beets and sheep three miles outside of town on formerly Shoshone wetlands that had been drained by the federal government. The farm belonged to his grandmother; she had been working the land since her husband, a railroad detective, had died from an accidental gunshot wound to the stomach. Swallow's sister Vera recalled \"the gasoline lamps, the kerosene lights . . . the house so cold in the mornings, the wood burning stoves, the wonderful scent of fresh bread and cinnamon rolls, the baby chicks behind the stove in the spring.\" Alan was a stout boy with reddish-blond hair and a habit of standing with his hands in his pockets. He was quiet, a loner, and liked working on junked cars and tractors, thinking that he might want to go to college to become a mechanical engineer. And then at sixteen, he had an experience that\u2014in an overused, but necessary phrase\u2014changed his life.\n\nHe was working at a gas station in Gardiner, Montana\u2014the north entrance to Yellowstone National Park\u2014and passing the time by reading titles in the Little Blue Books series. The publisher was the Jewish American socialist, atheist, and social reformer Emanuel Haldeman-Julius, whose low-priced paperbacks were intended for working men and women. Printed with slate blue covers and priced at ten cents apiece, the Little Blue Books offered thought-provoking, self-improving subject matter intended to elevate readers, and perhaps lift them out of poverty, such as Thomas Paine's _The Age of Reason_ , Boccaccio's _Tales from the Decameron_ , _Hints on Writing Poetry_ by Clement Wood, Margaret Sanger's _What Every Girl Should Know_ , _A Guide to Emerson_ by H. M Tichenor, _Do We Need Religion?_ by Joseph McCabe, and _How to Be an Orator_ by the socialist governor of Illinois, John Peter Altgeld. Ultimately, there were over a thousand titles in the series.\n\nSwallow purchased a boxful of used copies and read them all. As interesting to him as the subject matter was the concept of selling high-quality literature for the price of pocket change. If he had a press, he could publish uncopyrighted classics for his list, then advertise for submissions, review them, and grow larger. His stock could be printed on a hand press in small runs to save money. The post office would take care of the rest.\n\nIn April 1932 he received a scholarship to the University of Wyoming, but by then engineering as a major had fallen by the wayside in favor of English literature. By his sophomore year, he was mimeographing and distributing his own literary magazine, _Sage_. He married his sister's friend Mae Elder, a Powell girl, in 1936, the year he graduated from Wyoming. For graduate school, and ultimately a doctorate, Alan enrolled at Louisiana State University, where Robert Penn Warren, Allen Tate, and Cleanth Brooks were leaders in the New Criticism movement\u2014which stressed close reading to see how a work, particularly poetry, functioned as a self-contained piece of art. Mae worked in the office of the New Critics' literary quarterly, the _Southern Review_ , proofreading manuscripts, keeping the accounts, collating the printed pages, and preparing magazines for mailing\u2014experiences which brought nearer the reality of Alan becoming a publisher one day.\n\nIn 1939, he borrowed $100 from his father and purchased a used electric Kelsey Excelsior Press, which ran like a miniature locomotive. A coupling rod drove the main wheel, making all the parts move and clank, including the platen that pressed the paper against the bed of type. In fact, Alan was as enamored of the craft-mechanical side of publishing as he was of books. \"I don't object to setting the type,\" he wrote to a friend. \"In fact I rather like it,\" he later said. He enjoyed printing, collating, and stapling in a \"workmanlike fashion some of the things I would be wanting to publish.\" In 1940, in a garage in Baton Rouge, he published _Signets: An Anthology of Beginnings_ , featuring poems, stories, and artwork by student contributors. It was the first to bear the imprint \"Alan Swallow, Publisher.\"\n\nAfter accepting a position teaching at the University of New Mexico, he expanded his publishing fivefold, still relying heavily on Mae, though the marriage lopsidedly favored what was important to Alan. \"Although she has no particular interest in literature,\" he admitted, \"she helped me with the publishing work, and she has suffered by being left to her own devices, while I worked night after night at the press or the typewriter.\" From his noisy Kelsey Excelsior came chapbooks and quarterlies of poetry under various short-lived imprints\u2014Big Mountain Press, Sage Books, Modern Verse, Swallow Pamphlets\u2014typical of his tendency to leap from one project to the next. As someone said of him, just having \"an idea was always a call to action.\"\n\nHe ran Swallow Press according to his principles: first, he used his own judgment to choose what to publish, instead of being driven by what was popular. He was proud of being a maverick. Second, he would keep a lookout for writers from the West. The eastern literary establishment tended to have a double standard: writers who lived in the West were treated as regionalists. Nebraska-native Mari Sandoz's novel _Old Jules_ , set in the Sand Hills of the Plains, had been rejected by every major New York publisher before it won a fiction contest and became a best seller in 1935. It seemed that an author was taken seriously only if he had the fairy dust of eastern cosmopolitanism on him\u2014such as Owen Wister, author of _TheVirginian_, a groundbreaking western. Swallow was out to prove that literature originating in the West deserved to be honored.\n\nIn addition to being a small-press publisher, Swallow was indeed an English professor at the University of Denver, as Williams had surmised when he received Swallow's reply about _Nothing But the Night_ , typed on English Department stationery. The overlap was a result of the university administration urging him to create a university press. Excited, but unwilling to abandon his own imprints, he had decided he could do both. By 1946, he was simultaneously running the University of Denver Press and negotiating with William Morrow and Company in New York to distribute Swallow Press books. At his brick, split-level suburban home at 2679 South York Street, which he shared with Mae and their infant daughter, Karen, he happily anticipated how he would need a bigger garage to accommodate all the business and inventory that would be coming his way.\n\nIn the meantime, Williams had revised _Nothing But the Night_ several times and shopped it around to other publishers, as Swallow had recommended, but the responses all harped on one thing: it just wasn't strong enough. \"We think you have writing talent,\" said an editor at Harcourt, Brace and Company, \"and we think it would be a mistake to start off with this book as your first long work. It is an excellent exercise.\" Ken Smart, at Alabama, urged him not to give up, writing, \"There are still a lot of people rooting hard for you to break down the barriers, and for Christ's sake don't get too discouraged.\" And in fact, a \"second-look\" letter had arrived from Swallow in April 1947, justifying Smart's faith in Williams.\n\n\"My lateness may have destroyed any opportunity I had to see what you have done with the re-worked novel,\" Swallow wrote rather breathlessly. \"But I am eager and interested.\" He said he was creating a category of titles in his catalog called The Short Fiction Club. \"Selections for the club will come in part from other publishers, but primarily I will publish for it under my private imprint. I don't care a damn about making money on it.\" He thought Williams' novel would fit nicely among his titles. And he had something even better to offer: if Williams would consider enrolling at the University of Denver to complete his undergraduate degree, he promised to help him in any way he could. \"I'd be damned glad if you could come to Denver next fall. . . . The writing program would interest you, particularly, I think; and especially if you plan to stay for the MA, too, for which we have a good program.\" The English Department was actually quite small, with fewer than a dozen full- and part-time instructors. But Swallow had a hunch that a personal invitation to an undecided young man with an unpublished novel might just do the trick.\n\nWilliams replied that he and Yvonne were marrying in August and things were up in the air until then, but he would have his credits transferred from Hardin Junior College, just in case. A snag occurred when the University of Denver admissions office refused to accept his unofficial transcript, but Swallow rushed in. \"The transcript matter has probably been cleared up by now. And I imagine you have received admission,\" he wrote. \"That leaves the most troublesome problem, of course\u2014housing.\" But \"we are certain to be able to get [you] a pretty pleasant sleeping and study room, very likely with [the] privilege of getting your own breakfast, so that the two of you would have to eat out two meals a day at our cafeteria or elsewhere. So if you are willing, both you and your wife, to put up with the inconvenience . . .\"\n\nYvonne, twenty, and John, twenty-four, were married on August 28 in Pasadena by a Methodist minister. Less than a week later, they left on a combination honeymoon and road trip, heading to Denver and a new life, like millions of other postwar couples just starting out.\n\n\"I think Denver is a good idea,\" Smart wrote when he heard the news. \"This guy Swallow sounds like a very good Joe.\"\n\nDenver sits twelve miles east of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, where Cherry Creek runs into the South Platte River. Its story has the romance of the Old West. Prospectors arrived on the banks of the South Platte panning for gold when it was still Kansas Territory. The Pike's Peak Gold Rush in 1858\u2014a decade after the California Gold Rush\u2014brought saloon operators, blacksmiths, carpenters, developers, and speculators swarming like bees to the mining camp on the Platte named for James Denver, the Kansas territorial governor. Within a few years, Denver was a town with streets laid out on a grid aligned with the four points of the compass. In 1870 the transcontinental railroad came through, ensuring that the location would become one of the commercial hubs of the Pike's Peak region. It became the state capital in 1876.\n\nThe region had such an abundance of agricultural and mineral resources\u2014the Colorado Silver Boom occurred in 1879\u2014that by the early part of the twentieth century, four thousand boxcars of goods and raw materials left Denver annually. Yet the city remained the \"reluctant capital\" of the Rocky Mountains West. It was \"Colorado's cow town,\" worried about losing its frontier independence, \"contentedly disinterested in its own continuing growth, abhorrent of risk-taking, chary of progress,\" according to historians writing in 1949. After World War II, the old-timers looked on unhappily as thousands of ex-servicemen, like Williams, enrolled at \"GI Tech,\" as the university was called. When a reporter asked Denver's seventy-two-year-old mayor, Benjamin F. Stapleton, how he planned to address the housing shortage, he replied, \"Oh, well, if all these people would only go back where they came from, we wouldn't have a housing shortage.\"\n\nBut they had come to stay. Enrollment at the university shot up to ten thousand, its highest ever. When the poet Alan Stephens, who later became one of Williams' friends, enrolled in 1949, he found his classes dominated by \"some exceptionally able and resolute people. Being amongst them was like being in an electrical storm\u2014the air seemed charged with dangerous intelligence. Exciting days.\" The dormitories overflowed and students resorted to living in Quonset huts, old hotels, basements, and converted garages. Williams applied for a $90 per month subsistence grant available to veterans, enough to rent the one-room apartment that Swallow located for him and Yvonne at 1000 South Clarkson Street.\n\nWilliams took a stroll not long after arriving to take the measure of his new life. Everywhere the university was scrambling to expand. Nineteen new buildings were under construction for the liberal arts and the sciences, physical science, engineering, and physical education. In _Stoner_ , Williams describes young William Stoner, until recently a farmer, exploring the campus of the University of Missouri for the first time:\n\nFor several minutes after the man had driven off, Stoner stood unmoving, staring at the complex of buildings. He had never before seen anything so imposing. The red brick buildings stretched upward from a broad field of green that was broken by stone walks and small patches of garden. Beneath his awe, he had a sudden sense of security and serenity he had never felt before. Though it was late, he walked for many minutes about the edges of the campus, only looking, as if he had no right to enter.\n\nThe same sense of strangeness and exhilaration also fell upon Williams at the University of Denver. None of his people had ever attended a university. He had grown up poor, and had received mediocre grades in junior college because he had been too busy with his own plans to care. He thought of himself as \"the most unlikely person possible to enter an academic setting.\"\n**CHAPTER SIX**\n\nLove\n\n_All of my belongings had been moved into a locked closet and there were some items that belonged to another female all over the apartment_.\n\n\u2014YVONNE WILLIAMS, UNPUBLISHED MEMOIR\n\n\"We are settled in a little four room apartment near the center of town,\" Yvonne wrote to friends at the end of their first academic year in the spring of 1948. \"The first two months we were here we lived in a stinking room. But with the right connections and a small amount of capital we were able to get this apartment and also buy the furniture that is in it. John has a study to himself and we have a front room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. It's on the fourth floor and not too bad.\"\n\nTheir new apartment, at 2058 California Street, was convenient for Yvonne, because she worked in the offices of an oil company that was within walking distance. She hated the job. John was \"doing pretty good in his studies,\" she wrote. \"I think it was the right choice of schools. The main reason being that Alan Swallow is here. He and John get along magnificently; you couldn't ask for a better set up. Throughout the past months they have become very good friends. Alan has bestowed upon John many of the duties of a publisher and has just recently asked him to be Associate Editor of the Swallow Press. Which shows that Alan must admire John's work and ideas.\"\n\nThe two men were indeed getting along well. On afternoons when Williams didn't have class, he walked the four blocks from campus to South York Street and let himself into Alan's combination garage and publishing house. Business was good, and fortunately for Alan, the English Department had reduced his teaching load in return for his work managing the fledgling University of Denver Press.\n\nWith the radio playing, the two men\u2014and whomever else Alan had enlisted, usually graduate students\u2014spent the hours arranging metal type in trays, running the hand press, collating pages, distributing the type back into its proper cases, and boxing finished books for shipping.\n\nAmong the students pitching in was twenty-two-year-old Avalon \"Lonnie\" Smith, from Silverton, Colorado, who had recently graduated from Stephens College, an all-women's college in Columbia, Missouri. She knew John in another capacity outside of Swallow Press, too, as the poetry editor of _Foothills_ , the campus literary magazine, to which she contributed verses. She took note of the up-and-coming writer. His essay on the poetry of J. V. Cunningham was slated for the summer 1950 issue of _Arizona Quarterly_. Not only that, but Swallow's smartly dressed associate editor also had a novel in the book catalog they were assembling, _Nothing But the Night_ , dedicated to Ken Smart. They were mailing dozens of review copies; Alan rarely took out advertisements, convinced that in the great scriptorium where good books were cherished, good literature eventually would meet its reward.\n\n\"Holy Jesus Christ, man!\" Smart wrote, when he received his copy. \"Multiple congratulations to you. I hope your wife realizes she has a talented husband whose chief accomplishment is knowing how to dedicate books. I am touched and overcome. . . . You have my permission to dedicate anything you like to me, including three or four thousand-dollar bills.\"\n\nSales of the book were \"not too good and not too bad,\" Yvonne reported. \"It feels swell to be old married folks but it doesn't seem like six months it seems more like six years. But it's wonderful. Wouldn't trade it for anything.\" The downside was that John wasn't home very often, and she worked downtown during the week, nine-to-five. He went to school and stayed out most evenings. When he was home weekends, she couldn't get him to go out and have fun.\n\nBack in Los Angeles, George Rae, who was twenty-two now and working as a keypunch clerk in the US Office of Price Administration, was having fun, too. She was in love.\n\nHer boyfriend, Willard \"Butch\" Marsh, was only a month older than John\u2014about the same size but stockier, with black hair and black-framed glasses. They looked enough alike to be brothers. Also, both men had been Army Air Corps sergeants during the war; both had been married once; and both wrote fiction, although Butch also needed \"plenty of time to blow jazz, man.\" Before he was drafted, he had put himself through three years of school at Chico State College north of Sacramento, California, performing on trumpet and trombone with Will Marsh and the Four Collegians. The GI Bill had paid for a senior year at San Francisco State, but he had dropped out because he wanted to write full-time\u2014an ambition still subsidized by playing gigs in nightclubs.\n\nGeorge Rae and Butch were living together in his three-bedroom, white stucco house in West Hollywood on North Gardner Street. \"We can't get married until August, because his divorce isn't final until then. . . . Daddy doesn't know anything about it\u2014not even where I live,\" she wrote to John. Should John object to this subterfuge, his sister put him on notice: \"I've never been so happy in my whole life as I have been in the two weeks we have lived here, and, of course, Butch is the most wonderful person I have ever known. I never really thought I could care about anyone as much as I do him. He's a really fine person. I know you will like him, you better!\"\n\nJohn sent her paramour a copy of _Nothing But the Night_ at George Rae's insistence, she thinking, probably, that it would give the two men something to talk about. Marsh replied to Williams' gift with a seven-page, single-spaced typewritten critique, establishing his credentials as a writer who was every bit as serious (and talented, presumably) as his girlfriend's brother was.\n\nHe started off by listing the small magazines for poetry and stories he had submitted to, such as the _Southwest Review_ , _Matrix_ , _Sibylline_ , and _Narrative_. Helpfully, he provided summaries of the editorial needs of other magazines, in case Williams might want to try them. Finally, he got into the meat of his letter on page three: \"I was only a little way into [ _Nothing But the Night_ ] when I wondered why it had been turned down by a couple of major publishers. . . . [A]t the same time I simultaneously respected, envied and was amused by your complete violation of the only real taboo in novel writing. . . . One simply does not have a yen to fuck Mother, unless one is Poppa.\" He gave his opinion on Williams' tone, his word choices, his sentences, and whether the ending was satisfactory.\n\nThen he warned Williams about publishing with Swallow Press: \"I don't think it is going to do you any good as a writer, and may hurt you a hell of a lot.\" Marsh had never heard of Alan Swallow and couldn't find any of his titles in bookstores. But then, perhaps that was because Swallow Press mainly only published writers who were eggheads\u2014the kind that the average reader wouldn't appreciate\u2014the phonies and aesthetes. Butch thought he knew the type: \"Lucinda Longhaire has been writing some of the most provocative and stimulating prose of the past decade, and is author of _Duet for Trombone and Tombstone_ and _Years Like Turds_. These challenging novels may be obtained by sending $1.75 to Watercloset Publications, or from Miss Longhaire, 69 Finger Blvd., Greenwich Village, NY. Miss Longhaire's previous appearance in _Thunderjug_ was with an essay on Gertrude Stein's use of the split infinitive.\"\n\nSpeaking for himself, Butch said he would be a dumb \"son-of-a-bitch\" if, like John, he busted his \"ass writing a novel and then, after one or two rejections by major publishers, gave it away to a well-meaning amateur with utterly no means of promoting it.\" He had twenty-eight stories and eight poems finished; and when he had fifty stories, he would blitz the publishing world, warning editors that he was not about to sit around for three months waiting for form letters. If they liked what they saw, they had better say so, and then he would send them his novel (as yet unwritten). He concluded, \"Jealously Yours, Butch.\"\n\nWilliams wasn't upset by Marsh's gratuitous critique of his novel, or his career. He could have pointed out that he'd just had a poem, \"Drouth\"\u2014about the regenerative power of tilling the earth\u2014accepted by _The American Scholar_ , which trumped any of the little off-set magazines Marsh was courting. But he replied in a friendly way, thanking him for taking the time to read his work so carefully, though disagreeing with him on a few points, too. For his sister's sake, he would withhold judgment on her bellicose boyfriend, who seemed so cocksure of himself.\n\nCooped up in the apartment in the evenings by herself, Yvonne was getting fed up with how much time John spent working. If he was at home, he was either studying or writing; or if he was away during the day, she left the door unlocked after she'd already gone to bed. She lay awake nights, thinking about this state of affairs. \"John and I never did anything together and that wasn't enough for this twenty-one-year-old. I had belonged to a little theater group in Pasadena, California as well as attending a radio school. Alone in a strange new place wasn't enough for me.\" The reluctance to socialize wasn't coming from her: She enjoyed meeting her husband's friends\u2014artists and writers mainly. Fortunately, invitations to dinner parties at the Swallows' home came regularly. In April 1948, as the school year was drawing to a close, Alan invited them over to meet a young friend of his from New England who was on his way to the Southwest, Douglas Woolf.\n\nWoolf was guaranteed to be interesting. He was a cousin of Leonard Woolf, Virginia Woolf's husband, and shared with him the same long, thin face, wide forehead, and strong nose. Born in New York City in 1922, he had been raised in Larchmont, a wealthy enclave outside the city, and in Connecticut. He came from a rather eccentric family of some means, achievement, and social standing. His father was a world-renowned expert on Persian rugs; his stepmother was Thomas Edison's granddaughter. During World War II, Woolf had served as an American Field Service ambulance driver in North Africa as well as in the Army Air Corps, experiences he later used in his 1962 novel, _Wall to Wall_. He was also an early Beat poet, rejecting literary tradition and writing Zen-like verse:\n\n_Memory_\n\n_isn't just of the past_\n\n_I went there_\n\n_I saw that_\n\n_Memory is of the future too_\n\n_I'll go there_\n\n_I'll do that_\n\n_Perhaps I'll see you_ ,\n\n_too_\n\nThe poet Robert Creeley was struck by how Woolf seemed to let the world come to him, without expectations. \"Douglas Woolf was an uncannily reflective person,\" Creeley wrote, \"as though he chose to take his color and shape from the surrounding world rather than to force upon it his own determinations and judgment. However, what he did exercise, unremittingly, was an acute perception, _his_ witness, _his_ recognition, _his_ fact in being there, wherever there was or might be.\"\n\nAt the Swallows' dinner with Woolf in attendance, conversation-starved Yvonne enjoyed listening to him. \"Where does your accent come from?\" she asked.\n\n\"Harvard.\" (\"Har- _var_ -dians,\" Williams sarcastically called them.)\n\n\"Oh.\" She thought she should have known that, for some reason.\n\nAs everyone was saying their goodbyes later, Woolf mentioned that he didn't have a car; neither did the Williamses. But he was staying in a hotel near their apartment, so the three of them caught a streetcar. Yvonne slid over on the seat to make room for Douglas to sit beside her, \"and we talked about the various entertainments in Denver. He told me of an upcoming concert at the park and we decided to go the following Sunday. John was going to be busy that day so Doug and I made arrangements to go.\"\n\nThey stayed most of the afternoon at the concert, walking around the park afterward. Yvonne was pleased that Douglas was \"interested in what I said and did.\" She arranged a double date with a friend of hers from work, but John paid more attention to her friend than Doug did. A few days later, Woolf phoned her at the oil company office and suggested they grab a bite during her lunch hour. John's reaction when Yvonne suggested they invite Woolf over for dinner was a shrug of the shoulders. \"When Doug arrived John wasn't home yet,\" she said. \"We waited for quite a while, even went for a walk to the Platt River.\" By the time they came back, the meat loaf was burned and there was still no sign of John. She didn't know what to make of it. She always assumed he was working at Swallow Press, or perhaps he had \"his own social life which didn't include me. I didn't know for sure. I just knew that for a relatively new bride, very na\u00efve, I needed more attention than I was getting from John and I enjoyed Doug's company.\"\n\nThe lunch dates continued, sometimes over martinis; other times, after Yvonne had finished work, they met at a drugstore counter for chocolate mint Cokes, their favorite treat. At some point, the friendship turned serious; when Doug told her he was heading to Tucson, Arizona, in June, she told him she would meet him there on her way back from a trip to California to see her parents. In Douglas Woolf's novel _Wall to Wall_ , Yvonne is the barely fictionalized Vivien; the narrator, Claude, runs away with her to the deserts of the Southwest. Vivien pleads, \"'Twenty-one is too old to go anywhere alone, you know that. I want to go with someone. I don't mean as a bride, I'm not so gauche as that, but as a mistress or paramour or concubine or companion or friend or pal or anything else. I just don't want to be left alone! I want to get out of here!' She said it again for all the wide-faced flowers to hear: 'I want to get out of here!'\"\n\nThat summer, too, the Swallows were away from Denver for three months. Alan had accepted an eight-week lectureship at the University of California, Berkley. But he had perfect confidence in John, and temporarily handed him the reins of the press as if it were his own. From Berkeley, Swallow redirected a submission to him. \"John Williams, my associate editor, has taken a great interest in these poems of yours. I am returning the manuscript to Williams in Denver, and you will hear from him next.\"\n\nAs associate editor, into Williams' hands came submissions of poetry and fiction from both established writers and those who were on their way to making a reputation. In the former category were Louise Brogan, Caroline Gordon, Thomas McGrath, Archibald MacLeish, Henry Miller, Wallace Stevens, Allen Tate, and Mark Van Doren. In the category of new and notable writers were Herbert Gold, Weldon Kees, Janet Lewis, and Ana\u00efs Nin. When it was literally hot off the press, Williams read a collection of critical essays by Yvor Winters published by Swallow Press\u2014 _In Defense of Reason_ , a reply to the Romantic poet Shelley's _In Defense of Poetry_. Winters argued for a moral versus a romantic theory of literature, and for practicing rationality in art over feeling. He attacked Walt Whitman's \"loose and sprawling poetry to 'express' the loose and sprawling American continent,\" adding, \"In fact, all feeling, if one gives oneself (that is, one's form) up to it, is a way of disintegration; poetic form is by definition a means to arrest the disintegration and order the feeling.\" Winters' perspective so impressed Williams that he left behind his romantic, scarf-wearing persona in Wichita Falls forever. He counted himself as a Winterian from then on, and took a special interest, as Winters did, in English Renaissance poetry and rationalism.\n\nThus, Williams, the \"most unlikely person possible to enter an academic setting,\" was finding himself quite at home in university life. He enjoyed his coursework. And by temporarily taking over Swallow's chair as editor and publisher of the press, he was being schooled in the freshest contemporary literature.\n\nBut his fiction, still a bit overwrought with psychology and exquisite language, hadn't changed. _Mademoiselle_ magazine rejected his first-person short story \"The Summer\" with an unusual amount of scorn, saying, \"It offered more poetically than fiction-wise. The theme, for example, is developed so cynically that the piece takes on the nature of a philosophical treatise. Similarly, the characters are bloodless, paper-people. . . . Our whole feeling is that the story could, and should have, generated power within itself, but even its natural pace has been slowed by [a] too stylish treatment.\"\n\n\"The Summer\" is largely an interior monologue by an unnamed narrator who recalls spending a vacation, when he was sixteen years old, with friends of his family at their cottage on a \"foam-tipped cobalt lake.\" It's a coming-of-age story. \"For I was doubly in love that summer, first with Tom and then with Doris; or first with Doris, then with Tom,\" says the narrator. \"It was impossible to determine which was more important.\" He is infatuated with Romantic poetry, reporting: \"I imagined myself sinking into the blue cold lake behind our cabin, a poem on my lips.\" The style is breathless and word-drunk, which smothers the quieter story about the boy's first love. But Williams' early penchant for big words and abstractions reveals something important. In his later fiction, too, there tends to be a lag between a character's thought and emotion\u2014overthinking gets in the way of feeling. Later, in Williams' first major novel, _Butcher's Crossing_ , the young buffalo hunter Will Andrews runs from the room rather than let a young woman seduce him:\n\n\"What is it?\" Francine said sleepily. \"Come back.\" \"No!\" he said hoarsely, and flung himself across the room, stumbling on the edge of the rug. \"My God! . . . No. I'm sorry.\" He looked up. Francine stood dumbly in the center of the room; her arms were held out as if to describe a shape to him; there was a look of bewilderment in her eyes. \"I can't,\" he said to her, as if he were explaining something. \"I can't.\"\n\nIn _Stoner_ , Williams' second major novel, middle-aged Professor Stoner struggles to express himself to Katherine, his graduate student, with whom he's falling in love. Stoner's presentation of himself as a suitor is sadly funny as he uses his classroom approach to discuss their \"problem\":\n\n\"I was perhaps selfish. I felt that nothing could come of this except awkwardness for you and unhappiness for me. You know my\u2014circumstances. It seemed to me impossible that you could\u2014that you could feel for me anything but\u2014\"\n\n\"Shut up,\" she said softly, fiercely. \"Oh, my dear, shut up and come over here.\"\n\nIn the final scene of \"The Summer,\" the story kicked to the curb by _Mademoiselle_ , it's nighttime, and the narrator is sitting in the front seat of the car beside his friend Tom. The vacation is ending, and Tom's sister never did return his love, or sexual desire, because he didn't let her know how he felt:\n\n\"Well, it was a good summer?\" [Tom's] face was placid, calm, unconcerned, the composed eyes staring straight into the darkness. I did not speak. He looked at me. \"Wasn't it a good summer?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said bitterly, too agonized to think. \"Oh, yes.\" Then I turned away [. . .] to look back up into the impenetrable past darkness, searching always, vainly, fruitlessly, without hope, another face somewhere lost, somewhere shrouded, somewhere dead and half-forgotten in the dim irretrievable past.\n\nWilliams could build his fiction around thought warring with feeling, which creates tension, and to suggest that emotions are ineffable, beyond characters' reach. But he was also writing poetry, and the intellectual distance, the control, he wielded in fiction did not serve him well as a poet, which will be addressed later.\n\nIn July, George Rae received a phone call from Yvonne, who was back in Pasadena, visiting her parents, and wanted to meet for lunch. Had her courage not failed her, she intended to tell her sister-in-law that she was falling out of love with John, and there was another man in her life. What George Rae heard instead was that Yvonne was more mature now. \"I hope you and Yvonne get your difficulties straightened out,\" she wrote to her brother the day after seeing Yvonne. \"She seems to have developed into quite a nice kid\u2014no longer the bobby-soxer type. . . . And she was missing you like the devil already.\" By then, Yvonne had called John to say she needed time \"to think about our strange marriage.\"\n\nFrom Pasadena, Yvonne went by train to Tucson, and Doug met her at the station. For a few weeks, they lived the kind of life Yvonne had been expecting to have with John. They enrolled in courses for the second half of the summer term at the University of Arizona and did their homework together. Earlier, Doug had renounced his family's wealth in favor of art, and Yvonne was willing to join him in that. Lugging a suitcase full of sample wares in the summer heat, they sold plastic household items door-to-door: tablecloths, shower curtains, plates, knives and forks. She loved the adventures they were having. \"We would work the same neighborhood and meet in a little mom and pop grocery store to cool off with a cold soft drink. When we weren't going to school or walking the streets selling, we would often go for nighttime swims at El Conquistador Hotel. We took buses and at times even hitchhiked to town. Doug and I had lots of fun together.\"\n\nIn August, John phoned. He was having second thoughts about their break-up, and he wanted to give the marriage another try. George Rae and Butch were getting married in Los Angeles, and he wanted Yvonne to attend the ceremony with him. Although he didn't say so, perhaps the reason he wanted her to go with him was that he didn't want to face a lot of questions about why she was not there. Gallantly, Doug paid for Yvonne's bus ticket home to Denver and saw her off.\n\nJohn wasn't in the apartment when she arrived, so she let herself in. But as she entered, she had a sense of being in the wrong place. \"All of my belongings had been moved into a locked closet and there were some items that belonged to another female all over the apartment.\" Putting her suitcase on the bed, she noticed a crumpled piece of paper in the wastebasket. It was a note in John's handwriting: \"Better get your stuff out of the apartment today. My wife is coming back from the insane asylum.\"\n\nShe called Doug and he wired her money for airfare to Tucson. She filed for a quick divorce in Florida\u2014which was available only to state residents, but she met the requirement by signing a lease for a rented room in Miami. She was not someone who was starry-eyed about the institution of marriage and the courts; she suspected \"all they ever wanted was money, anyway.\" The divorce became final in February 1949.\n\nGeorge Rae loyally took her brother's side. \"It's a tough stinking deal about Yvonne, but it is slightly understandable with the bitch-mother she had. I guess early training sooner or later shows.\" Butch added a postscript, figuratively throwing his arm around John's shoulder as a comrade-in-arms, saying, \"I don't suppose it would be quite safe for me to express a wistful envy for your status as a bachelor; not unless I intend to start getting my own breakfasts\u2014a prospect which I am too cowardly to face.\" He recommended Williams go to a free legal aid clinic and explain that he was an ex-GI enrolled in college, broke, and needing help with a divorce.\n\nWithout Yvonne, though, John didn't want to attend their wedding, news his sister was not pleased to hear. \"You've got to\u2014we have everything planned and you must! Besides, I want to see you, and I want you to meet my boy. So, you see, you can't get out of coming.\" But he demurred, saying he had too much work. \"Damn! Damn! Damn!\" his sister replied, disappointed and hurt. \"You don't have enough time between semesters to make the trip, do you? This is very upsetting\u2014we had planned so on you coming.\" When she asked for a postcard update\u2014\"Write to us, you stinker, and let us know what goes\"\u2014he sent her one with a paragraph of typed gibberish that ended, \"Nyet, nyet, klumph.\"\n\nButch, bothered that George Rae was upset, picked a fight with John by bad-mouthing Swallow Press again. \"I will have to risk stirring your hackles by pointing out what seems to me to be an embarrassing inconsistency in your stand: your own book has been the only publication of Swallow's that I've read that I would trouble to wipe my ass on. . . . All of the selections of The Short Fiction Group I've seen . . . have been so consistently pitiful.\"\n\nGeorge Rae feared a permanent break and tried making peace before it was too late: \"I hope by this time you have stopped bristling with anger at our last letter. Butch really isn't a violently commercial boy. . . . It is true that he hasn't liked the recent Short Fiction selections. But you can't completely condemn him for that. He feels that Swallow is giving you a bad deal, etc. Well, enough of this\u2014but I wish you two could meet\u2014then you would stop fighting\u2014I know you would, because you would find that you were pretty much in agreement.\"\n\nWilliams, as a peace offering, sent a signed copy of his poetry collection, just published by Swallow Press, _The Broken Landscape_ , which included the poem \"The Lovers\":\n\n_This cluttered room knows form tonight. Before_\n\n_My window, casual and tense you stand_ ,\n\n_While to the north an erosive moon explores_\n\n_The freezing sky, and crumbles on your hand_.\n\n_Now we, though silent in our rafted room_ ,\n\n_May meet, although we do not speak, or brush_\n\n_As unique petals on earth's blackened rim_ :\n\n_Here distance is made finite in times hush_ ,\n\n_And here the shrinking dark conspires with space_.\n\n_But you must turn and shatter me, invite_\n\n_Dispersion through your body's aching space_.\n\n_\u2014Thus all is huge again, and depthless night._\n\nAcknowledging its receipt, Butch replied, \"We were both surprised to learn, from the dust jacket, that you are 'Currently attending the graduate school of the University of Denver.' Why didn't you tell us you had graduated?\" Butch didn't remark on, or perhaps he didn't notice, that the volume was dedicated to \"Lonnie\"\u2014Avalon Smith, who worked at Swallow Press.\n\nIn March 1949, a month after Yvonne's divorce was final, John and Lonnie married in Provo, Utah, where her parents lived, in a private ceremony, again at a Methodist minister's home.\nPART II\n\n_Butcher's Crossing_\n**CHAPTER SEVEN**\n\nThe Winters Circle\n\n_Yvor Winters cut a giant's figure. . . . [N]o one whom Winters touched as a poet, critic, colleague or teacher could remain indifferent to his passionate convictions about poetry_.\n\n\u2014KENNETH FIELDS, WINTERS' COLLEAGUE, _STANFORD MAGAZINE_ , 2000\n\nAs John Williams' marital problems waxed and waned, quarterly statements began indicating that Swallow Press was in real trouble. It wasn't because of anything Williams did or failed to do; it was because Swallow had his fingers in half a dozen pies\u2014teaching classes on creative writing, directing the university's creative writing program, and managing both his own and the university press. He was overwhelmed, and his business showed it.\n\nOn the positive side, he had a keen eye for spotting worthy submissions, which time alone would prove. Swallow Press carried a few strong titles, such as Janet Lewis' _The Wife of Martin Guerre_ , which Williams admired tremendously; and Allen Tate's _On the Limits of Poetry_. But Swallow's business acumen was almost nonexistent. And in his haste to publish what he liked, Swallow Press books were riddled with typographical errors. Mark Harris, one of Williams' fellow students at Denver, and later the author of _Bang the Drum Slowly_ , wondered how Swallow could carry on. \"His publishing struck me as crazy,\" he later said. \"He published poetry and criticism by people I had never heard of, assumed financial losses, and was constantly in search of warehouse space for thousands of books he never sold.\"\n\nNevertheless, Swallow tended to operate from a happy frame of mind. All would be well as long as he was moving in literary circles and his Swallow Press books were going out the door. He wrote to Williams, in fine spirits, \"Glad everything is going so well there.\" He was in San Francisco now, after his summer teaching stint at Berkeley. There was \"a poet on every block, and about every tenth poet has written some rather decent poems,\" he said. \"And the influences and crosscurrents are remarkable and almost impossible to straighten out, I'm afraid. . . . The wonderful thing about it is that they all, on the surface, get along well and help each other create the atmosphere of much activity going on; privately, they scratch each other like cats.\"\n\nNearly at the top of the intellectual heap of cats who were into poetry was Williams' hero, the poet Yvor Winters and husband of the novelist Janet Lewis. Winters was the \"sage of Palo Alto,\" Swallow called him, and Winters would not have minded the appellation. From his high place at Stanford University forty-five miles south of San Francisco, \"Yvor Winters cut a giant's figure,\" said Kenneth Fields, a student of his who later became a colleague. \"He stood out from the crowd and was often viewed with awe\u2014or, occasionally, near-loathing. Whatever the reaction, seemingly no one whom Winters touched as a poet, critic, colleague or teacher could remain indifferent to his passionate convictions about poetry.\" His reputation was at its peak in the late 1940s, and there was nothing he liked better than defending it with a good intellectual spat. Critic Stanley Edgar Hyman said Winters' \"heart and mind seem firmly back in the London of 1700,\" where \"violent oracular tradition\" ruled. Winters warned his adversaries, \"I have spent my entire life in the remote west, where men are civilized but never get within gunshot of each other.\"\n\nSome of it was bravado. He had not always been such an Augustan; or even a Californian, for that matter, much as he loved the West. His roots were in Chicago, where his father had been a well-to-do stock and grain broker on the Chicago Stock Exchange. As an undergraduate at the University of Chicago during World War I, where he met his future wife, Janet Lewis, he had cofounded the Chicago Poetry Club to redress the lack of modern poetry in the university's English courses. He was writing experimental verse then and would have counted himself an imagist. Had he stayed connected to the university somehow, he might have become a Chicago poet, instructor, and literary critic, a contemporary of Carl Sandburg's.\n\nBut during his junior year at Chicago, Winters was diagnosed with tuberculosis and sent by his family to St. Vincent's Sanatorium in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for a dry-climate treatment. Writers of his generation, including Lewis, went to Paris if they could, but due to Winters' health\u2014and perhaps a break with his family\u2014he supported himself for three years by teaching poor children in Raton, New Mexico, an experience that turned him into an advocate for social causes. He published the first of two collections of mainly free verse during those years, _The Immobile Wind_ (1921) and _The Magpie's Shadow_ (1922), both of which were well received. He was completely at home in modernism at that time, considering poetry as escapist and druggy, \"a permanent gateway to walking oblivion.\" His early poems were moody, concrete as opposed to abstract, and not overly concerned with ideas.\n\nFrom Paris, Lewis wrote him to say that she, too, had been diagnosed with tuberculosis: What did he think she should do? He found her a position as a tutor at the Sunmount Sanatorium in Santa Fe. A passionate correspondence between them followed, and they married in 1926. From New Mexico, they went to the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he earned degrees in Romance languages and Latin. He disowned his youthful work, which had followed in the tradition of the Romantic poets. To Harriet Munroe, founder of _Poetry_ magazine, he expressed his views humorously, but succinctly:\n\n_May hell wipe out divinities_\n\n_And a-cerebral infinities_\n\n_And other asininities_ ,\n\n_Praise hell, praise hell, praise hell._\n\nNow he was writing poetry with the aims of the English Renaissance poets, to go \"from oblivion to definition\"\u2014without vagaries, or Romantic flights. Winters now had a \"rage for order.\" Poetry should reflect certainty and clear moral choice, he argued, arrived at by thought, not by an \"impulse from a vernal wood,\" as Wordsworth would have it. The venerated English poet Thomas Gray had waxed sentimental on nature and death in \"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard\" (1751). But Winters, a New Critic, wanted nothing hovering outside the text itself\u2014no ghosts, no Thanatos, no nostalgia, no fearful impulses. In one of his best poems, \"On a View of Pasadena from the Hills\" (1931), he gazes with satisfaction on his tidy garden, the product of thoughtful planning, carefully maintained and hemmed in by \"seeping concrete walls \/ Such are the bastions of our pastorals!\"\n\nA poem, he insisted, should reveal meanings in human experience that were expressed in precise terms. The problem distorting modern poetry was extravagant and obscure language. He called for replacing it with a return to the classical or plain style\u2014sometimes called the Native style in English Renaissance poetry\u2014which uses concrete words rather than abstract ones, and native words rather than borrowed ones. Plain style called for modulating emotion versus abandoning oneself to mystery, obscurity, or the supernatural. As was said of the Greek historian Herodotus, his writing was, \"clear, rapid, euphonious, marvelously varied according to variations of his subject matter; he can write in a plain and simple manner, with short sentences loosely strung together, but he can also build up elaborate periodic structures making effective use of many poetical words.\"\n\nFor teaching to students his approach to poetry, Winters assembled a new canon of poems from the 1500s through the 1950s. Dashing expectations, he largely excluded the poets of the English Petrarchan School\u2014their language was too rich, he claimed, and most of their substance was clever rhetoric\u2014though he did include two of its most famous representatives, Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser. Instead he elevated plain-style poets of the period, including George Gascoigne, who \"deserves to be ranked,\" he said, \"among the six or seven greatest lyric poets of the century, and perhaps higher.\" Other members of his pantheon included Sir Walter Raleigh, Ben Jonson, Thomas Nashe, Thomas Wyatt, and John Donne. And then, reaching down into the realms of obscurity, Winters pulled up Barnabe Googe, George Turberville, and Fulke Greville and set them among the best, too, where he believed they belonged.\n\nIt was a bold project, examining four hundred years of poetry, and his methods were hard to understand. \"He gives only his conclusions,\" complained Hyman, \"almost never with any evidence approaching adequacy, and in a form in which it is not possible to argue with him or even understand what he is trying to say.\" The poet Kenneth Rexroth was more blunt: Winters was \"responsible for some of the most wrong-headed and eccentric criticism ever written.\"\n\nBut Williams accepted Winters' _In Defense of Reason_ as a manifesto. It was fresh, yet old school and reactionary, and it was anarchic, but held in place by Winters' uncompromising doctrine:\n\nThe Romantic theory assumes that literature is mainly or even purely an emotional experience, that man is naturally good, that man's impulses are trustworthy, that the rational faculty is unreliable to the point of being dangerous or possibly evil. The Romantic theory of human nature teaches that if man will rely upon his impulses, he will achieve the good life. When this notion is combined, as it frequently is, with a pantheistic philosophy or religion, it commonly teaches that through surrender to impulse man will not only achieve the good life but will achieve also a kind of mystical union with the Divinity: this, for example, is the doctrine of Emerson. Literature thus becomes a form of what is known popularly as self-expression.\n\nWilliams was not being dogmatic by taking sides during exchanges of robust, provocative criticism like this. Some of the sharpest minds on American university campuses were attracted to English and American literature after World War II. Criticism by I. A. Richards, William Empson, T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, Lionel Trilling, Allen Tate, and F. R. Leavis swept away the older nineteenth-century approaches of philology and literary history. \"You waited for their essays,\" said the poet Robert Lowell, \"and when a good critical essay came out it had the excitement of a new imaginative work.\" By allying himself with the Winters Circle, Williams sought to join a school of poets that included Edgar Bowers, Thom Gunn, Helen Pinkerton, Philip Levine, Margaret Peterson, Donald Hall, J. V. Cunningham, Catherine Davis, Donald Justice, Alan Stephens, and Robert Pinsky.\n\nWilliams also heard in Winters' summons to return to a restrained, classical style of writing a call to stoicism\u2014thinking one's way to clarity and understanding; practicing rational acceptance of what is. Life promises nothing and will never yield, especially not to those who attempt to please or mollify it by losing their integrity. Ecstasy was self-indulgent; giving over to feeling meant renouncing self-possession; and every line of poetry or sentence should reflect, Williams came to believe, the writer's will, rather than awe.\n\n\"How is it really all working out?\" Ken Smart wrote from the University of Miami in early 1949. \"How do you feel about the future\u2014I mean would you ever seriously like to do any teaching, do you plan to stay writing as a major undertaking, or are you like so many people, content to make plans for the next ten hours only?\"\n\nWilliams, newly married, was juggling his time between writing fiction and poetry; working as an editor at a small press; and, if he continued in graduate school, possibly laying the groundwork for a career in academia. Of the three, teaching at the university level would provide a stable base, one that would also allow him time to write. He didn't anticipate that writing and teaching would interfere with each other. \"My God, since when is working for a living selling out?\" he asked. \"Writing isn't something you do in the mind of God, or in some abstraction; you write in the world, in a room, on a table, with a typewriter or a pencil. You've got to eat in order to live; and if it distracts you less from your writing to eat well than to eat badly, then you ought to eat well.\" Besides, teaching would strengthen him as a man of letters who understood texts, historical periods of authorship, and so on, unlike Butch, who believed that talent, inspiration, and time were enough for a writer. \"You boys in Denver are missing a great opportunity in not providing me with a crate of muscatel and a tape-recorder,\" Butch, the jazzman\/writer, exalted. \"I could turn out pages of fantasy in the joyous mode: you could sell it, not in thin pamphlets, but by the laundry-basket full, and make a fortune.\"\n\nWilliams ignored the taunt; he was convinced that a writer needed to be better read than any scholar. Earning a PhD and teaching would provide what he needed and was what he sought to accomplish, working \"in a room, on a table, with a typewriter . . .\" He'd like to be an author-academic. Alan Swallow had introduced him at a party to someone in that category, who happened to be a member of the Winters Circle, besides\u2014poet and essayist J. V. Cunningham.\n\nCocktail parties for the literary-minded were one of the perks of being friends with Alan Swallow. He invited students and colleagues over to meet Swallow Press authors. Sometimes the gathering was an autograph party; other times, just a Friday afternoon shindig after work. Williams attended regularly; like his fellow graduate students, he appreciated the chance to feel a \"sense of connection with the world of achievement.\"\n\nIt was generous of Swallow and Mae to act as hosts. Social situations were not Swallow's forte. Novelist Mark Harris remembered his almost painful attempts at making conversation: \"Among fellow professors and talkative students, he was slow at repartee and banter, giving the impression of a man either humorless or a little deaf.\" Mae Swallow felt self-conscious too, because book-talk was not something she kept up with. So she occupied herself with providing a nice event. Her graciousness put everyone at ease and offset Alan's awkwardness, as he stood in the middle of the living room, a whiskey in one hand and flipping peanuts in his mouth with the other, listening and nodding.\n\nIn attendance now and then was J. V. (James Vincent) Cunningham. Raised in Denver in a working-class family, Cunningham was Jesuit educated. Speaking of himself in the third person, he said, \"the tradition that surrounded him and formed much of the texture of his early years was the tradition of Irish Catholics along the railroads of the West. . . . He was a Catholic by tradition, training, and deep feeling. . . . Hence, his own identity he fenced off, and though it formed part of the terrain it had its property lines.\" Cunningham was an intense but detached listener, witty at times, not grave. It was true that some part of him was \"fenced off\"; there was a hint of the patrician in how he deliberately held himself apart\u2014an unspoken assumption that intellectual integrity and self-reliance called for being reserved. Irving Howe, the literary and social critic, sensed tension beneath his polished surface: \"Cunningham lived with, believing in and suffering from, an inordinate pride. Pride was the defense a serious man put up against the world\u2014pride and a fifth of bourbon. Pride was a sin, but an enabling sin: it helped one get through one's time.\"\n\nCunningham's father had been a steam-shovel operator. The family had arrived in Denver from Montana when Jim was four. At fifteen, he graduated with top honors in Latin and Greek from Regis Jesuit High School. But then his father was killed in an accident at work, and his plans for college were set aside. To help support his mother and siblings, he worked as a copyboy for the _Denver Post_ writing headlines, and then as a runner at the Denver Stock Exchange. The Crash of 1929 upended his hopes a second time. Jobless, in September 1930 he and his brother took to the road in an old car. Small-town newspapers and trade magazines paid him by the article for items of interest to merchants, farmers, and businesspeople.\n\nCunningham wrote to Yvor Winters at Stanford asking for help, because Winters had befriended him when Jim was still in high school and they had corresponded about poetry. Winters urged his young, penniless friend to come from his freezing cabin in northern Arizona to sunny Palo Alto; he could stay in the garden greenhouse temporarily, rent-free, and Winters would see to it that he was admitted to Stanford. He told him which train to take to San Francisco, and he was there waiting on the platform when Cunningham arrived.\n\nCunningham was ten years older than Williams, but Williams could imagine becoming like him one day\u2014a professor at the University of Chicago, a teacher, a scholar, and a poet. True to the Winters Circle, Cunningham's verses had a kind of \"cold grace\" about them. He mistrusted emotion. The emphasis was on meter, rhyme, and precise use of language, giving his stanzas the burnish of seventeenth-century poetry, traits that Winters praised. His verse was classically epigrammatic, and his satire had the sting of Juvenal or Martial. In \"For My Contemporaries,\" he salutes (but smiles behind his hand) the groaning efforts of poets to bare their souls:\n\n_How time reverses_\n\n_The proud in heart!_\n\n_I now make verses_\n\n_Who aimed at art_.\n\n_But I sleep well_.\n\n_Ambitious boys_\n\n_Whose big lines swell_\n\n_With spiritual noise_ ,\n\n_Despise me not!_\n\n_And be not queasy_\n\n_To praise somewhat_ :\n\n_Verse is not easy_.\n\n_But rage who will_.\n\n_Time that procured me_\n\n_Good sense and skill_\n\n_Of madness cured me._\n\nThe madness he has been cured of, the \"spiritual noise,\" was his Catholicism. Without his faith, he was a \"renegade\" now, he said, although there is a trace of loss in his poetry, a sense that what had been good and consoling could never be recovered. His first wife, the poet Barbara Gibbs, with whom he had a daughter, bitterly compared him in \"Accusatory Poem\" to \"shifting chips of brilliant colored glass,\" like a shattered stained-glass window.\n\nWilliams submitted his first critical essay, \"J. V. Cunningham: The Major and the Minor,\" to _Poetry_ magazine in the fall of 1949. The poet Hayden Carruth, the senior editor, might have returned it automatically because Cunningham was a contributing editor, and it would look like an inside job. \"I cannot print any commentary\u2014particularly such an extended one\u2014on members of my staff,\" he wrote. Instead, he responded with a two-page letter about the career politics of publishing criticism in journals. It included some pointed advice:\n\nYou have a chance to do Jim [Cunningham] some good, but you must do it in the right way. Winters has done Jim much more harm than good\u2014though out of the most honest and generous motives\u2014by pushing him too hard, too belligerently, when others were ignoring him. The result is that Jim has come to be known as Winter's boy, and of course, that is neither true nor just. . . . What I mean to say is that your essay should be published out of the Winters's orbit, yet not in the other camp. It should be published in the East. If I were you, I'd try _Hudson Review_ first.\n\nAs a sidebar, Carruth added that he couldn't accept Williams' claim that there has been no major poem since Milton: \"Even limiting ourselves to English, which I suppose you intend, there have been other major poems.\" Without a stronger premise to defend, the rest of Williams' argument regarding major and minor poets didn't follow: \"You are overstepping your evidence by about ten thousand miles.\"\n\nCarruth's gentle cuffing of him in the ring of heavyweight criticism did Williams a favor. Six months later, in the spring of 1950, the editors at the _Arizona Quarterly_ accepted his new draft of the Cunningham essay, saying they were \"unanimous in their praise.\" They, too, however, admitted to being a little confused about Williams' major\/minor dichotomy. What did he mean, \"'major' poetry is intrinsically preferable to 'minor' poetry, since there is between them no real difference\"? But it didn't bother the editors enough to ask for a revision.\n\nAppearing in the _Arizona Quarterly_ seemed a good omen, among others, that he should continue for a doctorate. Swallow recommended the University of Missouri, Columbia, where there was a new program combining creative writing with literary scholarship. On Alan Swallow's advice, he applied to Missouri. Columbia beckoned for another reason, as well: Lonnie could complete an advanced teaching degree there.\n\nWilliams was following the path of Winters, Cunningham, and Swallow. He felt a kinship with them\u2014intellectually and personally. In particular, the Winters and Cunningham philosophy that combined life and art\u2014independence of thought as a matter of integrity, the power of reason over emotion, and the plain style as an extension of stoicism expressed in prose and poetry\u2014strongly appealed to him.\n\nAnd yet, although he wanted to belong to the Winters Circle, he seemed not to have realized how different his goals were from those of most academics in the humanities, who cared nothing about writing novels, and looked skeptically at professors who did. Ironing out problems of character development, pacing, motive, and theme generally didn't interest them. Nor would they, moreover, when they were in their mid-twenties, like Williams, have dreamed of showing fiction to an agent.\n\nWilliams had only to look at the three men he admired for glimpses of the scholar's life. J. V. Cunningham would distinguish himself with the monograph _Woe or Wonder: The Emotional Effectof Shakespearean Tragedy_, published by Swallow Press. Winters, the older he got, would crossly fight off all claimants to the throne he thought was rightly his as the preeminent American critic of poetry. And Swallow, the professor\/independent publisher, might have served as an example of trying to straddle too much, of having too many masters. There was hardly time enough in Swallow's life to do anything well. Regardless of their different circumstances, none of these academics had a professional inclination to spend years on a novel, which John Williams fully intended to do, and hold down a professorship in the bargain.\n\nAs he and Lonnie prepared to leave for Columbia in the fall of 1950, he packed the manuscripts and story ideas he was working on.\n**CHAPTER EIGHT**\n\n\"Natural Liars Are the Best Writers\"\n\n_I write of human experience so that I may understand it and thereby force myself into some kind of honesty_.\n\n\u2014JOHN WILLIAMS, 1964 INTERVIEW\n\nAshland Gravel Road in Columbia, Missouri, where newlyweds John and Lonnie Williams found an apartment in the fall of 1950, was only a few blocks from campus. Years before, it had been out in the country\u2014explaining why, in Williams' novel, when young Bill Stoner enrolls at Missouri in a time set decades earlier, he boards at his relatives' farm but can walk to class. What struck Stoner so powerfully in the middle of the university's quadrangle is still there:\n\nSometimes, in the evenings, he wandered in the long open quadrangle, among couples who strolled together and murmured softly; though he did not know any of them, and though he did not speak to them, he felt a kinship with them. Sometimes he stood in the center of the quad, looking at the five huge columns in front of Jesse Hall that thrust upward into the night out of the cool grass; he had learned that these columns were the remains of the original main building of the University, destroyed many years ago by fire. Grayish silver in the moonlight, bare and pure, they seemed to him to represent the way of life he had embraced, as a temple represents a god.\n\nThe implication is that the University of Missouri, the first university west of the Mississippi, is a kind of Athens on the edge of the wilderness. It's fitting that Stoner, the son of a farmer, should come to the brink of his vegetable world and view the columns as a kind of outpost of the ancient tradition of thought and inquiry. Enrolled to study agriculture, Stoner grows lonely in this strange world of metaphysics, discussion, and analysis.\n\nWilliams, on the other hand, was accustomed to the sociability offered by college life. His first semester, he joined a club, the Tabard Inn, consisting of about twenty-five students and professors, all men, who met twice a month in a banquet room at the Moon Valley Villa, a dine-and-dance restaurant on the eastern edge of Columbia. A \"Chaucerian cell,\" they called themselves in \"spiritual affiliation\" with \"Chaucer's pilgrims who set out from a grog house yclept 'Ye Tabard Inn.'\" The club's purpose was to offer camaraderie among men who liked conversation with a literary bent. Within a year of joining, Williams was part of the inner circle. And it was probably here, while the members lingered past midnight to prolong their revels, that he heard the story of a decades-old feud between two professors of English at Missouri, which became one of the inspirations for _Stoner_.\n\nYears earlier, about the time of World War I, Robert L. Ramsay and A. (Arthur) H. R. Fairchild had been colleagues and friends at the University of Missouri. Both were \"learned,\" in the quaint phrase of the day, with doctorates from Johns Hopkins and Yale, respectively. Later, their animosity toward each other became legendary.\n\nRamsay, a southerner born in Sumter, South Carolina, taught courses in the history of the English language. He corresponded with just about every American and English scholar of language of his day. His hobby was investigating the origin of place names in Missouri\u2014whether they were Native American, French, Spanish, or English, and so on. His love of etymology carried over into his linguistics classes, which were demanding. He wrote energetically on the board, connecting various forms of words and their origins, with chalk lines of red, yellow, or purple, getting the dust on the sleeves of his jacket and sometimes on his snow-white beard.\n\nIn his short-story writing course, students were surprised to hear him say that if they were natural liars, then they might succeed as writers. \"Many men start life with a natural gift for exaggeration,\" he pointed out, \"but in a short time develop a morbid and unhealthy faculty of truth-telling. If, when you look over your past life and recall those occasions when you ventured to use a lie, you find that you met humiliating failure, then you will not make a writer.\"\n\nThere were other prerequisites for being a writer, he said, such as a yen for \"poking [your] nose into other people's business.\" A writer should also be \"an ardent lover of gossip and a confirmed listener to all sorts of scandal.\" A penchant for cruelty helped, as well: \"A genuine artist will never hesitate to deprive his characters of any happiness, to hurt them, mutilate, torture, or even kill them.\" If these traits made some students uncomfortable, he reassured them: don't worry, because \"you may at least be a good citizen.\"\n\nHis gently ironic sense of humor extended to oral examinations of candidates seeking a master's degree. \"Well, do you think you've written a masterpiece?\" Professor Ramsay would inquire, looking skeptically at the student's thesis.\n\n\"Oh, no, sir,\" was the usual, humble reply.\n\n\"No? Why not? What is a masterpiece?\"\n\nThe student, trying to recall everything he or she could about guilds and journeymen, would explain that a masterpiece was work done to qualify a craftsman for the rank of master.\n\n\"So then,\" Ramsay would say, smiling, \"you have written a _master_ piece, haven't you?\"\n\nRamsay's colleague in the English Department, Fairchild, an Elizabethan specialist, was a Canadian from Toronto who limped from an unsuccessful operation in middle age. His lectures tended to be formal and arid\u2014\"austere,\" as someone called them. His logical mind expressed the link between education and success as a syllogism. \"In the last analysis,\" he concluded, \"the success of a man in any line of work must depend upon his knowledge of human nature. A man who limits his capacity for understanding human nature limits his ability to deal with his fellows. A widened point of view, a knowledge of our fellowmen, can only be drawn from good books.\" In 1915, Fairchild married a Miss Workman from Grand Rapids, Michigan, who became a renowned hostess and chairperson of many activities. Invitations to their home for social occasions were prized.\n\nFor a time, Ramsay and Fairchild gave public lectures together about developing taste in books, poetry, and Shakespeare\u2014topics of broad interest to residents of a college town who enjoyed a little cultural spillover from the campus. Seated on the dais, side by side, glancing at their notes, they were the epitome of university men\u2014two scholars, both alike in dignity. But then a split occurred, resulting in an antagonism that became, as one department member said, \"intense, protracted, and largely inexplicable.\"\n\nDuring Fairchild's chairmanship, he slighted Ramsay. Ramsay usually taught the works of Milton to undergraduates. But Fairchild, who believed he was better qualified to teach Milton because he was the department's Renaissance expert, took the course away. Ramsay's fellow instructors rallied around him and created a course at the graduate level called, \"Miltonic Criticism.\" For three decades, Professor Ramsay happily taught the course under the department chair's nose, but Fairchild never forgot how Ramsay had played mutinous Fletcher Christian to his Captain Bligh.\n\nA second quarrel, over splitting the department, came to a head in 1937. Fairchild agreed with a lengthy report from a senior speech professor pointing out that treating speech and drama as separate from the study of literature was becoming a national trend in higher education. But Ramsay didn't see it that way; he blamed Fairchild's imperiousness for creating a rift, writing to him, \"Your overbearing attitude and unwillingness to share supreme control [of departmental matters] was, I believe, the primary cause that drove our fourteen brother teachers of speech, oratory, and dramatics to press for the setting up of a separate department\u2014a step I cannot help thinking disastrous for our students and our common interests.\"\n\nThe fight between Ramsay and Fairchild had become notorious by now, and the bad blood trickled into every corner of the department, impossible to ignore. In fact, it poisoned the oral examination of one of Ramsay's doctoral candidates.\n\nRamsay's student arrived at the examination prepared to defend his thesis about the importance of local color for creating regional literature, such as the dialect found in William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, or Willa Cather. Ramsay and Fairchild, and the rest of the thesis committee, took their seats. Everything seemed to be going well, until it was Fairchild's turn to begin asking questions. Feigning the bewilderment of Socrates, he pressed the candidate to define his terms: the words \"regional\" and \"local\" and even \"literature\"\u2014what did they mean? For example, _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ , would that be considered \"great regional literature\"?\n\nNervously, the student tried to reply as best he could; but Fairchild continued to badger him, probing, until at last he was ready to spring his trap. \"Since Aristotle has established the principle that great literature must be universal,\" he said, \"local color writing, which is your subject, must by its nature be something less than great\u2014wouldn't you agree?\"\n\nRamsay and other examiners were aghast. They understood what Fairchild was doing\u2014his trick question was intended to demean Ramsay and his hobby of collecting the \"local color\" of place names, which Fairchild thought was a childish pursuit. The candidate was being sacrificed for malicious reasons in front of his adviser's horrified eyes. But before Fairchild could thrust home, Ramsay interceded, and other instructors came to the rescue as well, until the thesis and the student seemed to be on safe ground again. Fairchild retired not long after that, in 1946, having accused Ramsay of stealing postage stamps from the office.\n\nWhen Williams arrived at the University of Missouri in 1950, there was still the odor of brimstone hanging about the English Department. With few changes, the feud would become a set piece of _Stoner_ , appearing in the novel as the decades-long antagonism between Bill Stoner and his nemesis, Hollis Lomax, a professor of Romantic poetry, who not only limps like Fairchild, but has a humped back, too.\n\nEverything was \"going great guns!\" back in Denver, Swallow reported in May 1951. \"The writing program and the progress of the university press are the bright spots. Yet the rest promises to be a shambles if we can't hold it together.\" A distance of seven hundred miles wasn't enough to keep Swallow's problems from becoming Williams', as well. Would he mind, Swallow queried, taking delivery on a five-hundred-pound shipment of printing paper already on its way to his apartment? \"I hope you will find it not too inconvenient.\" An agreement followed, indicating that the cardboard boxes of paper belonged to him and not to Swallow Press. \"I'd appreciate it much if you could sign the enclosed,\" Swallow wrote to Williams, \"\u2014and perhaps your landlord would go along with signing to reinforce the situation.\"\n\nSwallow's difficulties, usually the result of lurching from one project to another, tried Williams' patience at times, but Swallow was meticulous about returning favors and using his influence whenever he could. To thank Lonnie, who was compiling his _Index to Little Magazines_ practically for free, Swallow wrote a letter of recommendation to support her application to graduate school at Missouri. And when Williams completed a novel he'd begun in Denver, called _Splendid in Ashes_ , he sent it to Swallow, confident that his friend would reply with a candid and detailed opinion.\n\nThe title _Splendid in Ashes_ comes from Thomas Browne's 1658 _Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial_ : \"Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave.\" The book \"smells on every page of the sepulcher,\" said American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose poem \"Threnody,\" about the death of his son, is one of the greatest memorializing poems of the nineteenth century.\n\nWilliams was intrigued with the possibilities of starting a novel eulogistically by describing a life that has ended. _Splendid in Ashes_ begins that way, with the main character, Douglas Morely, already dead, which will be the identical method used on the first page of _Stoner_.\n\nMorely, in _Splendid in Ashes_ , is a solitary person, observing life from the other side of an emotional wall. Standing apart from everyone else, he rebuffs attempts to break through to him. He's a Nietzschean hero, straining against the boundaries of a conventional life. All that defines him is creative freedom.\n\nSwallow praised it, and thought it so good that it deserved a larger readership than he could reach with Swallow Press. That's what he told Williams, although he may have been trying to avoid having to turn down a friend's submission because it wouldn't sell. _Splendid in Ashes_ was another piece of experimental fiction, similar to _Nothing But the Night_ , copies of which were in boxes unsold in Swallow's garage. For a second opinion of Williams' newest novel, Swallow put him in touch with Barthold Fles in New York, a Dutch American literary agent and former book reviewer for _The New Republic_. Fles' clients included Bertolt Brecht, Heinrich Mann, Jessica Mitford, and Bruno Walter.\n\nFles' response to _Splendid in Ashes_ was rapturous. \"Both my wife and I, as well as my assistant,\" he wrote Williams, \"have now read your novel. It is a pleasure to be able to tell you that we are unanimous in considering it one of the most distinguished pieces of fiction that we have read for a long time. It was an experience to read it.\" It brought to mind a few parallels. \"We mentioned _Wuthering Heights_ , _Under the Volcano_ and some French novels, when we discussed the book. We feel confident of finding a first rate publisher for this.\" In short order, Fles distributed _Splendid in Ashes_ to every major publisher in New York and Boston.\n\nIt would have been better if he hadn't, and had offered Williams some editorial advice instead. But Fles was taking the approach of throwing spaghetti against a wall, because something had to stick. Within weeks of receiving a copy of the novel, many prestigious American publishing houses\u2014Random House, Knopf, Harpers, Simon and Schuster, and a dozen more\u2014returned it. And generally their criticisms were the same. Remarks by Harry Brague at Charles Scribner's and Sons were typical:\n\nThere is a great deal of superlative writing in it, and the characterizations for the most part are skillfully developed. But somehow when you have gotten through reading the manuscript you are left with a puzzled feeling as to what the author is attempting to say, and the reader is puzzled as to just what Douglas Morley's problem was and not a little impatient over the fact that so many people should spend so much time worrying about a basically uninteresting and irritating character. . . . The book begins by informing the reader that Douglas is dead, and as it progresses the reader is given no reason for either sorrow or elation over the fact.\n\nTo us it seems a shame that a writer of Mr. William's [ _sic_ ] obvious capabilities and potentialities should have spent so much time delineating a character who is basically not worth it.\n\nPerhaps Barthold Fles hadn't read this letter when he replied ebulliently to Williams from Beverly Hills:\n\nYour letter updated caught up with me here, which is most unfortunate, because I would certainly have come down from Iowa to see you had it come in time. As it was, we were both anxious to get to the West Coast, because of a pending movie deal about which we are in constant telephonic touch with Hollywood. . . . We consider your novel, _Splendid in Ashes_ , one of the best we have seen in years and a real discovery.\n\n_Splendid in Ashes_ continued to stagger through Manhattan after that, being turned away from every door. From an editor at E. P. Dutton: \"Unfortunately, we think that in the present market this manuscript is just too long and too pretentious. This does not mean that there is not a great deal which is powerful and thoughtful, but the material seems to us somehow too elaborate and somewhat too posing.\"\n\nFinally, Fles threw up his hands. \"John, this has had endless submissions\u2014twenty in all\u2014and it's just impossible to do in today's fiction market.\" Bowing out with a tip of his hat, Fles expressed his regrets. \"Sorry, but we tried hard\u2014I tried hard.\" Williams never heard from him again. As Ana\u00efs Nin said when she quit Fles, dissatisfied, \"Bonjour, friend, and good-bye, literary agent.\"\n\n\"Dear Slaves,\" Butch Marsh began a letter to John and Lonnie in October 1952. He and George Rae had relocated to Mexico and were living the life of literary bums. With \"both typewriters clacking, and the jug of tequila diminishing as we go\"\u2014they were writing to congratulate Lonnie and John on the birth of their first child, Katherine. (John said, \"Except for the mustache, she looks like me, God help her.\") The Marshes were living in a rented house in the town of Ajijic, south of Guadalajara, a \"quietish, friendly, clean little town on the banks of the country's largest lake.\" They had two floors and seven rooms to themselves above, at street level, an ice factory. They were on the main floor, and upstairs on the third floor was a glassed-in studio overlooking a roof garden with a view of the town, where Butch worked all day. \"We find that we can seem to live quite well, in our cozily disordered way, for about seventy-five bucks a month, including everything.\"\n\nHe was getting a lot of work done, Butch informed John, in the new digs, having an \"almost pathological obsession with getting everything I turn out into print, somewhere or other\u2014even to the point of using goofy pen names if I am ashamed of both the story and the magazine.\" His output since moving to Mexico included a fifty-eight-thousand-word novel written in forty days (rejected); a poem published in the _Arizona Quarterly_ , and a short story carried in the _Antioch Review_. Random House returned his second novel \"for commercial reasons. [The editor] didn't want I should have a novel that would only get mild praise, when I had such manifest gifts, etc. I tell you, there wasn't a dry eye in the house.\" An editor at G. P. Putnam suggested he revise and then resubmit the manuscript, but by then Butch had lost interest. Now he was a quarter of the way into his third novel, salvaging some of the material from the first. Added to this, he was generating stories and poems constantly, banking on the odds that he could make a few hundred dollars a month at it.\n\nHe confessed, tongue-in-cheek, to feeling contrite about the difference in their situations. \"I hope you understand that we are not gloating about living in a country where we, of all people, are considered millionaires.\"\n\nThe rough teasing was accepted. Williams didn't begrudge his brother-in-law the freedom to write all day, because he was after bigger game than selling stories to monthly magazines. Many writers were paying the bills that way (before Upton Sinclair became a novelist, he wrote eight thousand words a day for pulp magazines, seven days a week). But the respect of his peers was important to Williams, and he would never submit to _Colliers_ or _Argosy_ any more than he would to _Spicy Detective_. Besides, added to the demands on him as a new father as well as a student, novelist, and poet, he had a doctoral thesis to write.\n\nHis subject was English literature, and his work at Swallow Press, together with Swallow's influence, had led him to the English Renaissance. The press had published, and Williams had read, a revision of Swallow's master's thesis at Louisiana State, \"Principles of Wyatt's Composition,\" retitled as _Some Poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt_. Williams was so taken with Wyatt's \"They Flee from Me\" that he memorized it, savoring its cadence by reciting the poem aloud. His introduction to Wyatt had coincided with reading Winters' _In Defense of Reason_ , also published by the press, which included the essay \"The Anatomy of Nonsense,\" which criticized Romantic poets for using \"words denoting emotions . . . loosely and violently, as if the very carelessness expressed emotion.\"\n\n_In Defense of Reason_ introduced Williams to Winters' canon of the greatest English-language poems, where he found, among the reexamined Elizabethans, Fulke Greville (1st Baron Brooke), a member of the sixteenth-century Essex-Pembroke circle of playwrights, versifiers, and essayists. Winters claimed Greville was one of the most important lyric poets of the age, because his work resembled Drayton's, \"although it is far better.\" \"Furthermore,\" he wrote, \"in [Greville's] later work he became a greater poet in every way than any of the associates of his youth. It is my opinion that he should be ranked with Jonson as one of the two great masters of the short poem in the Renaissance.\"\n\nGreville is not unknown to Elizabethan scholars. As an aristocrat, courtier, soldier, spymaster, patron, dramatist, historian, and poet, he certainly led a colorful life. Some claim he was one of Shakespeare's collaborators. But after his death in 1628, Greville was deemed a lesser light of Elizabethan England's golden age of poetry. He was \"uncertainly admired\" by Coleridge, Lamb, and Hazlitt; and C. S. Lewis labeled him \"imperfectly golden.\" More attention has always been paid to Greville's closest friend, Philip Sidney, in whose memory Greville wrote _The Life of the Renowned Philip Sidney_. Because of that book, Greville is better remembered as a biographer than as a poet.\n\nBy choosing Greville for his dissertation, Williams would be moving toward acceptance in the Winters Circle. By siding with Winters over Greville's importance, he would be linking arms with the famous critic's assessment of an overlooked poet. If his dissertation was then published as a book, he would have a title on the shelf of scholarship declaring that he was a Winterian.\n\nIntense reading of the poetry of that era had a salutary effect on his writing style. The benefit of studying the plain style, practiced by many of the greater English poets of the Golden Age, was seeing its genuineness. Editors had faulted him for being tedious and overwrought. But the more he came to appreciate the merits of using simple sentence structures and concrete words and actions, the better he was able to recognize the problems with _Nothing But the Night_ and _Splendid in Ashes_. A sentence like, \"I shook the rain from my hat and walked into the room,\" from Mickey Spillane's _I, the Jury_ , is purposeful and vivid. Nothing might seem further removed from the traits of classical prose as it was practiced by some Elizabethans than pulp fiction\u2014Seneca from Sam Spade\u2014but both styles demonstrate the virtues of thinking clearly and writing honestly. When handled well, the result can be poetical.\n\nWilliams' challenge was to say what he meant, and to resist his desire to impress. His inclination toward flair, embellishment, and exaggeration\u2014\"lying\" a bit while telling a good anecdote or polishing up his experiences\u2014did not belong at his desk while he was writing. (The good-humored Professor Ramsay at Missouri oversimplified when he compared fiction-writing to lying.) Winters' beliefs about restraint and rational stoicism commanded Williams to write honorably. \"I have found that the knowledgeable act of writing a poem or a novel or an essay,\" Williams said, \"is a means not of self-expression (which is of little importance in a literary sense) but of contemplation. I write of human experience so that I may understand it and thereby force myself into some kind of honesty.\" The demands of the craft altered his character during the hours he spent trying to establish a real world for his characters to exist in, because truth is paramount in creating readers' belief.\n\nIt was a nice coincidence, and a boost to his career, when the editor of the literary quarterly the _Western Review_ , Ray B. West, contacted him in early 1953, requesting a review of Winters' _Collected Poems_ from Swallow Press. Williams entitled his piece\u2014fitting for Winters' emphasis on intellect over feeling\u2014\"The Goddess of Mind.\" But West shelved the Winters' review for the time being, pleading a backlog of submissions. \"It caught me at the end-of-semester rush,\" West apologized. \"Yes, it did come too late for the summer issue. I will use it in the fall.\"\n\nDisappointed, Williams asked a fellow student, Alan Stephens, a friend from his Denver days, to give the review to Janet Lewis, Winters' wife, who was coming to campus for the Missouri Writers' Workshop. As the workshop's director, Williams thought it might be inappropriate to ask a favor involving her husband when he had invited her as a guest speaker. But Stephens didn't mind helping his friend.\n\nWinters had a reputation of \"provoking out of people their ineptitudes,\" as Swallow put it. Replying to Stephens, Winters gave Williams' review a high grade. \"The review by John Williams I liked a great deal, partly, I suppose, because it praised me, but partly also because it gave a very good account of what I was trying to do.\" But Stephens' poems annoyed him, because they were too similar to his own. Some poets would be flattered to see that younger ones were emulating them, but Winters considered imitation lazy. It was stealing his work, which made him roar.\n\n\"There are certain poems in this lot, which are so obviously plagiarized that they could hardly be published; and I cannot see the virtue of that kind of thing as exercise,\" Winters wrote to Stephens. \"If you wish to write well, you must learn to adjust language to subject; you can do this only if the subject is your own and you have come to understand it.\" He upbraided Stephens for appropriating from him: \"When you swipe a subject and a bundle of imagery from someone else, it is not your own, you have not mastered it, and the original poem, in which the subject is well handled is perpetually in your way, so that you can depart from the original only by moving out into inferior treatment. . . . There is too much miscellaneous diction and imagery mopped up from my own verse, even where the subjects are original.\" Stephens, for his efforts, felt abashed, but Williams had the pleasure of finding out even before his review was published that Winters appreciated his critique.\n\nAnd then the unthinkable happened. Whether West, at the _Western Review_ , discovered that Williams was an editor for Swallow Press, and was worried about a conflict of interest, or he simply didn't get around to reading Williams' review for months, he returned it abruptly that fall. \"We all liked it, but agreed finally, that it took too long to make its point.\" He was \"going to have someone else do the review.\"\n\nWilliams was mortified. He was in Winters' good graces now; the \"sage of Palo Alto\" would be expecting to see the review in print. Quickly, Williams tried to interest other magazines and journals in accepting it, including _Poetry_ and the _Sewanee Review_ , explaining plaintively that he had been led to believe he had been \"commissioned\" to write the review. A note of desperation followed: \"I feel very strongly that this review should have a hearing, and I assure you that I am not alone in that feeling. I believe that I have something to say about Winters' poetry that has not been said before, and I believe that what I have to say is of some importance.\"\n\nBut it was no use\u2014it was too late. Reviews of _Collected Poems_ had been assigned already. Autumn passed, and Williams never heard whether Winters noticed that the favorable review of _Collected Poems_ he had read wasn't published. But one thing was certain: he was aware of a young professor named John Williams who admired his work.\n\nWilliams' dissertation, \"The World and God: The Poems and Dramas of Fulke Greville,\" was accepted in June 1954, and he passed his oral examinations. Alan Swallow added a further measure of happiness by informing him that there were two positions available in the English Department at the University of Denver, and Alan was recommending him and Alan Stephens.\n\nTo celebrate, the Williamses chose a long vacation to Mexico. Butch and George Rae, in Ajijic, had been asking for a visit. \"In case you should ever have a sabbatical or a little time off why don't you and Lonnie and Kathy come down here for it?\" And so, with another couple from the university, Florence and William Hamlin, the Williamses drove to San Miguel de Allende for a three-month stay, with the Marshes dropping in on weekends for parties.\n\nThe days were spent relaxing, reading, driving a dusty seven miles to a private pool for a swim, and drinking. To ensure that everyone had enough tomato juice for their morning Bloody Marys, Butch and John went around to every _mercado_ in town and bought up their stock, with the result that hotel owners had to come to them, pleading for a share. Florence Hamlin was delighted by John's sense of humor. \"We rode the train to Mexico City to see the bullfights,\" she later said in an interview. \"We laughed the entire way. It was just ridiculous. We laughed all the way going to the bullfights. There were six of them in one afternoon.\" They all read Ernest Hemingway's _Death in the Afternoon_ , which is both a treatise on bullfighting and a manual for fiction. \"Find what gave you emotion,\" Hemingway exhorts, \"what the action was that gave you excitement. Then write it down making it clear so that the reader can see it too. Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over.\"\n\nFlorence Hamlin, observing Williams, noticed he was happier outside the university. Without the pressure of coursework for the first time in seven years, living loosely like Butch\u2014up early to write; reading in the shade during the long afternoons\u2014he was a pleasure to be around. Hamlin \"liked John so much,\" but found she couldn't get close to Lonnie. \"I didn't dislike her,\" she said, \"but I don't think I was fond of her. She was rather cold. John was the one that everyone liked. He was wonderful, just a delightful man.\"\n**CHAPTER NINE**\n\n_Butcher's Crossing_\n\n_The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never melted_.\n\n\u2014D. H. LAWRENCE, _STUDIES IN CLASSIC AMERICAN LITERATURE_ , 1923\n\nAt the University of Denver, Alan Swallow was no longer teaching or directing the creative writing program when Williams returned in August 1954 from vacationing in Mexico. An affair with the wife of a university trustee had cost him everything, and he had resigned acrimoniously. Behind him, the administration had closed the University of Denver Press.\n\nBut he was content. \"As you all know,\" he wrote to Williams, \"one of the prides I had in my publishing was its independence, the fact that it was frankly only the taste of myself and some friends to aid me. But the damned thing has mushroomed.\"\n\nOnce he was released from teaching, his days were devoted entirely to running Swallow Press. Bookstore owners in the Denver area became accustomed to seeing him deliver books in his MG roadster with the top down, smoking a cigar. For bigger hauls, he used his Rambler station wagon, loaded with books. The basement of his home became his sanctuary. There, he typed long, rambling letters to friends and clients, or stayed up late drinking whiskey and reading car magazines. \"I'll not apply for a job elsewhere,\" he assured Williams, \"but try to stick it out here in Denver for a year or two, living from publishing, writing, and probably manuscript criticism and consultation.\" Before his awkward departure from the university, Swallow had recommended Williams as the new director of the creative writing program. After all, besides being an instructor and published author, Williams also brought experience running a public conference about writing, an innovation in its day.\n\nAt the University of Missouri, Williams had run a ten-day conference. All the members of the English Department, and their wives, received personal invitations to evening social events, which added, as one of their colleagues gallantly put it, \"dignity and charm to the occasion.\" Participants received individual critiques from English Department instructors and from guest speakers, many of whom were prominent writers of the day, such as Katherine Anne Porter, Nelson Algren, Walter van Tilburg Clark, and James T. Farrell. The guest lecture was free to the public. By the end of the conference, scholars of literature, teachers, and administrators were \"flattered to be included for talk with the celebrated, and came away with only the most positive feelings about the worth of the Writing Program.\"\n\nIt was a success at Missouri, and in Denver, Williams would hold an even grander event. He would expand the conference to four weeks, adding summer writing courses to the offerings. Later, his experience went into serving as president of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP), the largest professional organization of its kind in the United States. The AWP played a foundational role in establishing creative writing as an academic discipline.\n\nSwallow believed in Williams and tended to be more relaxed around him than he was with others. He often confided in him. Swallow could be impatient, sometimes \"harsh\" and unable to \"tolerate 'stupid' people who weren't interested in the literary world.\" One of his former students, Gerald Chapman, who later joined the Denver English Department and rose to chairman, said the friendship between Swallow and Williams operated on several levels: \"Alan was John's mentor, in a way. And they had a very great deal in common, including a drinking problem, but I think Alan probably felt John identified with Alan.\"\n\nThe West was Swallow's passion, and they discussed misperceptions of it: how screenwriters had bowdlerized the region's history so much that it became a Christian parable about retaking Eden from heathens; or a paean to \"justice at the end of a gun,\" as movie-makers would have it\u2014buckaroos and sheriffs in silk shirts, blazing away with pearl-handled revolvers. Pulp western magazines and paperbacks\u2014comic strips, too\u2014perpetuated these fantasies. Williams found himself thinking about a show-biz-produced American history \"in which 'The West' does not exist, did not ever, exist. It's a dream of the East\u2014almost as if The East made up The West.\"\n\nThe real Old West had lasted only a few decades. It was already part of legend in 1883 when William Frederick \"Buffalo Bill\" Cody\u2014a former army scout during the Indian Wars\u2014premiered _Buffalo Bill's Wild West_ , a three-hour spectacle that toured the country annually for thirty years. Part circus and part historical romance, \"Buffalo Bill's Wild West\" was a nationalist extravaganza about taking and securing the West.\n\nAs a brass band struck up \"The Star-Spangled Banner\" and audiences got to their feet, cowboys on horseback, whistling and war whooping, stampeded a procession of elk, cattle, and buffalo past the grandstand. Behind them, former Pony Express riders came riding full-tilt, snatching mailbags from startled rodeo clowns who fell over in amazement. Annie Oakley, skipping into the middle of the arena to thunderous cheers, shooed the clowns away, bowed, and shot fifty glass balls being thrown high in the air by her husband, the handsome Frank Butler. Next, at the far end of the ring, a red, white, and blue curtain rose slowly, revealing a sentimental scene: a settlers' cabin and a little family dancing to fiddle music. But then a band of \"wild Indians\" attacked. A trumpet blast announced the timely arrival of the US cavalry, but the savage enemy was trying to make off with a white child. So Buffalo Bill himself came barreling into the melee driving a stagecoach, the reins clenched in his teeth as he fired at the retreating Indians with a pistol in either hand. And at last came the ear-splitting climax: a reenactment of Custer's Last Stand at the Little Big Horn River, featuring a troop of die-hard US bluecoats commanded by a blond-wigged Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, fighting the Lakota Sioux surrounding them to a dramatic, staged \"death.\" Some of the Native Americans in the arena had been at the actual battle.\n\nTo millions of Americans\u2014and Europeans who saw the show in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and France\u2014 _Buffalo Bill's Wild West_ was an epic story of heroes and villains contending gloriously in a showdown of good versus evil. The knock-off industry it created of B films, cowboy ballads, and third-rate novels about gunslingers helped to explain why eastern literary critics tended to dismiss western fiction as frivolous stuff.\n\nSwallow was willing to wager that he could give the West its due in American literature. He had seen the rise of the Southern Agrarian movement and its standard-bearers\u2014William Faulkner, Katherine Anne Porter, Tennessee Williams, and Zora Neale Hurston, among others. Now he \"hoped that the time in the South was achieved,\" said Gerald Chapman, \"and it was the time for the West.\" According to Chapman, \"[Swallow] was interested in cultivating the Western literature, and John picked up a lot of that.\"\n\nWilliams' interest as a novelist, however, was how to redress in fiction the misperceptions about the West. Cultural critic Lewis Mumford, in his influential book _The Golden Day_ (1949) suggested that the \"vast gap between the hope of the Romantic Movement and the reality of the pioneer period is one of the most sardonic jests of history.\" The Westward Movement, he said, was the \"epic march of the covered wagon, leaving behind it deserted villages, bleak cities, depleted soils, and the sick and exhausted souls. . . . The truth is that the life of the pioneer was bare and insufficient: he did not really face Nature, he merely evaded society.\"\n\nWhat if a young man, Williams wondered, steeped in Romantic notions about nature, expecting to meet the divine and invisible, arrives on the Great Plains during the height of the Westward Movement and heads into the wilderness, like Ishmael going to sea in a whaling ship. On the Great Plains, in a wilderness as large as Mexico, what would a New England intellectual flower do? How would a \"Har- _var_ -dian,\" accustomed to holiday caroling in Boston, cope with a Rocky Mountain winter?\n\nHistorical details would be essential, and Williams had never extensively researched a novel before. From his Texas boyhood he could recall a rusted gate squeaking in the wind, or the smell of a creek that was flat, warm, and ankle-deep. But to re-create the West in the years immediately after the Civil War, to depict a balanced conflict, a fair fight between poetical abstractions and reality, fidelity to time and the environment would be key.\n\nWilliams collected maps of the Pike's Peak region in 1860 showing the locations of wagon trails, cattle drives, and towns. The territories in those days were surprisingly unmarked by human habitation. If a rider left Fort Larned in Kansas, for example, heading north, and stopped for supplies at Fort Kearney in Nebraska before continuing on to Fort Randall in the Dakota Territory, he could go for days without seeing another human being. Williams chose a working title that reflected the vastness: _The Naked World_.\n\nBut there were great interior seas of buffalo. \"Tremendous numbers,\" Williams wrote in his notes, \"whole landscape sometimes seemed a mass of buffalo.\" An estimated 20 million buffalo lived on the western plains in 1850, the most numerous single species of large wild mammals on Earth. An adult buffalo weighed about two thousand pounds, stood six feet high at the hump, and measured ten feet in length. By the 1840s, the market for buffalo meat and robes among whites was flourishing, and in the Kansas Territory during the 1850s buffalo were hunted for sport. In the winter of 1872\u20131873, more than 1.5 million buffalo hides were loaded onto trains bound for St. Louis, Chicago, Cleveland, and New York. The despoiling continued until by 1889 only 541 buffalo could be found alive in the United States, sheltering at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.\n\nA parallel exploitation had taken place in fiction, Williams believed, regarding how the story of the Western Movement had been told. He blamed the despoiling on \"literary racketeers\" and \"hired hacks,\" writers who were \"contemptuous of the stories they have to tell, of the people who animate them and of the settings upon which they are played.\" There were better westerns\u2014a recognized genre by the 1940s. Walter van Tilburg Clark ( _The Ox-Bow Incident_ ), A. B. Guthrie Jr. ( _The Big Sky_ ), and Jack Shaefer ( _Shane_ ) had developed moral complexity. But Williams was convinced that \"each of these novelists is, in his own way, guilty of mistaking the real nature of his subject,\" which should be the interior lives of those who went west. Many had \"no precise ideological motive for [their] exploitation\" of the land except to change their lives somehow. That experience, more challenging to show than adventure, could be better presented by a mythic quest, \"one that is essentially inner.\"\n\nIn literature, myth dares to enter areas that are ambiguous to the soul. The external world becomes a backdrop, offering no law or guidance to the wanderer. And in the American West, a cowpoke could become Ulysses on the illimitable sea\u2014a character driven by the rage to survive and to conquer the dictates of conscience. The outcome of myth, as the _Odyssey_ shows, \"is always mixed,\" Williams said, because \"its quest is for an order of the self that is gained at the expense of knowing at last the essential chaos of the universe.\"\n\nWilliams anticipated western revisionist novels such as Oakley Halls' _Warlock_ , Thomas Berger's _Little Big Man_ , Larry McMurtry's _Horseman, Pass By_ , and Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy. But after a year of research on his novel-in-progress, he moved with the English Department into a three-story, red-brick building that had been a student dormitory, and he lost most of his notes for _The Naked World_.\n\n\"You seem to be nicely settled. I guess we are too, as much as we ever are,\" the Marshes wrote, congratulating John and Lonnie on the birth of their daughter Pamela during John's first semester teaching. Butch was pleased to report that his luck in Ajijic, Mexico, was holding out. \"Blessed be the name of Ellery Queen,\" he said, praising the mystery magazine that had paid well for one of his stories. He was also selling science fiction, a new avenue for him, and the money was enough to keep the Marshes solvent for a few more weeks and to party with the expat writers and artists in town. George Rae mentioned that a friend of theirs, science-fiction writer Theodore Cogswell, whom John knew from the writer's workshop at the University of Missouri, would be applying to graduate school in English at the University of Denver. \"Tracy [his wife] and the kids are going to her family or some damn place,\" she said, indicating that she knew him well enough to know of his marital problems.\n\nIt was hard to forget Ted Cogswell once you met him. Handsome, unserious, and offbeat, except when he was depressed, he had joined the Young Communist League (YCL) when he was seventeen and shipped out on the _Aquitania_ for Spain in June 1937, to serve in the Spanish Republican Army. He returned after two years (\"Most of the time I was hauling cabbages,\" he reported), completed college, and enlisted in the Army Air Force during World War II, assigned to airfields in India, Burma, and China. His early science-fiction stories, published during the 1950s, proved to be his most popular, beginning with \"The Spectre General\" and \"The Wall Around the World.\" When Butch and George Rae met him in Mexico, he was an instructor at the University of Minnesota, preparing to motorcycle to the 1953 World Science Fiction Convention in Philadelphia, which would be attended by \"all the Young Turks,\" including Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Silverberg, Harlan Ellison, Isaac Asimov, and Robert Sheckley.\n\nThat the Marshes would know a maverick like Cogswell, or be going to bullfights with Norman Mailer, was part of living in Ajijic and why they loved it. The pretty lakeside town had been popular with writers since the 1920s. D. H. Lawrence had written _The Plumed Serpent_ there, and Somerset Maugham, _The Razor's Edge_. In the 1940s, Tennessee Williams played poker many nights at the Old Posada hotel, an experience that became part of _A Streetcar Named Desire_. George Rae hoped their house might hold a bit of literary kismet for them, too. \"Another bit of interesting anecdote,\" George Rae wrote:\n\nIt was given out by our landlady a few days ago that [Robert Penn] \"Red\" Warren wrote _All the King's Men_ in the place where we are living now. She said he was a \"nice person with red hair who drank a lot\u2014and gave wonderful parties.\" She had no idea of what she did to me\u2014I'm still going around sniffing the same air and touching the same walls as Robert Penn Warren and Butch is hoping that some of his wonderful writing will carry over to his novel.\n\nBeing in a small community of writers, Butch and George Rae were just as likely to end up as characters in somebody else's novel, which they did. Ellen Bassing's 1963 novel set in Ajijic, _Where's Annie?_ , features Butch as \"Willie Chester\" and George Rae as \"Sam.\" One afternoon, a passerby in the novel peeps in on them while the _chicharras_ (locusts) are clicking in the heat:\n\nShe paused and looked around. She was almost at Willie Chester's house. He was enshrined there on his patio only half hidden among the tel\u00e9fono vines, typing away. He wrote. Merciful God, how he wrote. A story every day he said, good, bad, indifferent, sensational, like a nondiscriminating machine, learning, he said, with each one he wrote, but writing them so fast, so terribly, frighteningly fast. And he sold some of them, not many. That he sold any was alarming. He had no reverence, no respect, no fear of his own possible or impossible talent. He wrote; it was the answer to everything for him. And there, in the patio behind him, was his wife . . . Sam. Of course Sam wasn't really her name\u2014that is, her parents didn't name her Sam when she was born\u2014but it was the name she had chosen for herself and which she requested everyone to use. It wasn't used very often, because nobody ever had anything to ask of her and if anybody did, he just called her \"you.\" Sam was behind Willie, circling about in a stained and tattered leotard, steadily but badly practicing her ballet. Did she woo and win him with her twittering, soiled dancing? Oh, turn my eyes from the vision of their lives . . .\n\nButch would retaliate later, in _A Week with No Friday_ , by turning Ellen Bassing into Martha Blissing, \"a lady novelist with a lousy memory.\" Her husband, Beau, a \"fairly entertaining slob,\" has poodles he can't afford to feed and is possessed of one gift: he can sing \"Blue Skies, Nothing But Blue Skies,\" backward.\n\nLosing his notes for _The Naked World_ turned into \"a most fortunate accident,\" Williams realized when he began writing the first chapters. \"I might have tried to force what I had learned into the novel; as it was, I simply wrote the novel, and I found that when I needed a fact, it would come to me,\" he later said. \"In other words, the accident forced a method on me, and the information was, I hope, wholly subservient to the more important concerns of the novel.\"\n\nAs a counterpoint to Emerson and the transcendentalists\u2014the inspirations for his young hero going west\u2014he had been reading American authors who treated nature as an indifferent presence\u2014neither opposed to, nor supportive of, human hopes. He admired Stephen Crane, Jack London's _Call of the Wild_ , and especially Willa Cather's _O, Pioneers!_ and _My Antonia_. Cather's desire to suggest \"the inexplicable presence of the thing not named, of the overtone divined by the ear but not heard by it,\" evoked the ancient Greek stage, where forces play out, but are not seen. Naturalists such as Cather didn't seek cause behind events: they found truth from depicting life faithfully. She said of _My Antonia_ \u2014the story of several immigrant families becoming Nebraska settlers, \"In it there is no love affair, no courtship, no marriage, no broken heart, no struggle for success. I knew I'd ruin my material if I put it in the usual fictional pattern. I just used it the way I thought absolutely true.\"\n\nThe naturalists' influence on Williams was apparent when he sent a completed first draft of _The Naked World_ to Janet Lewis at the end of the summer of 1958. \"It struck me that the method you use is that of Crane in the 'Open Boat,'\" she replied. \"You have characters who exist only in the moments of the story, of the immediate account of events. They have no pasts and no futures. This makes the events very intense, and that is exactly right for both experiences. In fact it would seem to be the main point in both experiences. . . . Congratulations. It is the most extraordinary reversal of procedure from your first novel.\"\n\nWilliams' protagonist, Will Andrews, drops out of Harvard in the 1870s and, armed with a small bequest, travels from Massachusetts to Kansas and the desolate town of Butcher's Crossing, a tiny, hardscrabble hamlet. Will is brimming with Romantic ideas about nature, and he's eager for an adventure that will unlock \"the Wildness\" in his \"unalterable self.\" He wants to become \"a part and parcel of God, free and uncontained.\" Shortly after his arrival, looking for adventure, he impulsively agrees to bankroll a man named Miller, a seasoned hunter, who promises to lead one of the last great buffalo hunts. With them will go Charley Hoge, a wagoner, to haul supplies, and Fred Schneider, a skilled buffalo skinner. Hoge's right arm ends at the wrist, where he lost a hand to frostbite, an omen of what awaits. They saddle up and Miller leads the expedition over the prairie. Yet the spiritual experience Andrews was expecting is nowhere to be found. He feels numbed by \"the routine detail of bedding down at night, arising in the morning, drinking black coffee from hot tin cups, packing bedrolls upon gradually wearying horses,\" the rituals that mark the passing of one monotonous day, and then another. At last, Miller finds the secret pass he was looking for\u2014a sort of chink in the ordinary world\u2014that leads into a Colorado valley that seems to be known only to God:\n\nA quietness seemed to rise from the valley; it was the quietness, the stillness, the absolute calm of a land where no human foot had touched. Andrews found that despite his exhaustion he was holding his breath; he expelled the air from his lungs as gently as he could, so as not to disturb the silence.\n\nMiller tensed, and touched Andrews's arm. \"Look!\" He pointed to the southwest.\n\nThe buffalo are innumerable, a dark, undulating shadow as if cast by a passing cloud on the sunlit grassland. Miller becomes obsessed with killing every last one of the animals for their hides, and after weeks of shooting and skinning, the valley becomes an abattoir of carcasses, while \"the remaining herd strayed placidly among the ruins of their fellows,\" until nearly all the creatures are dead and Miller is sated. Then, from the clouds, a single snowflake portentously falls\u2014the only hint of supernatural agency that Williams will allow\u2014heralding an apocalyptic winter that arrives within hours. The men are trapped for months under the snow. Hoge, already prone to religious fever, shows signs of going mad. The men survive, but Schneider, the skinner, is killed crossing a river on the way back; the wagon, piled obscenely high with hides, falls over into the water's torrent and gets washed away. The uselessness and cupidity of the whole venture is underlined when they reach Butcher's Crossing and learn that the buffalo hides are worthless\u2014the bottom has fallen out of the market from oversupply. Miller makes a pyre of hundreds of rotting hides, stored in a corral, and sets them afire, the burning stink and sparks rising into the night like an Old Testament sacrifice to appease the anger of Jehovah. Looking on, an easterner appalled by the irrationality and chaos, cries out at the destruction. \"Go back,\" Miller tells him evenly. \"Get out of this country. It doesn't want you.\"\n\nWill Andrews, purged now of sentimental notions about nature learned from books, doesn't want to accept that he's been lied to:\n\n\"'No,' Andrews said. A vague terror crept from the darkness that surrounded them, and tightened his voice. 'That's not the way it is.'\"\n\nWilliams started looking for an agent. _The Naked World_ had taken four years to write, his most sustained effort. For some reason, he turned for advice not to his university colleagues, or to Alan Swallow, but to someone whose situation he identified with: Morton M. Hunt, a former Army Air Corps pilot he had been friends with in Burma, who was now freelancing in New York. \"About an agent for you,\" Hunt replied. \"There are a number of large agencies with glittering names, to which I might recommend you, but I know about them only their general reputation, and have no personal intimate contacts with most of them. I prefer to suggest to you a smaller agency, where I am personally well acquainted with the principal partner, and know her to be a woman of considerable sensitivity, charm, and creative ability.\"\n\nHer name was Marie Rodell. \"She is utterly ethical, well thought of in the business, and perfectly capable of handling contract details, Hunt told him.\" Hunt had already spoken to her by phone, in fact, before responding to Williams, and she had said she would be delighted to read the manuscript.\n\n\"Wild man, wild,\" Butch wrote when he heard the news.\n**CHAPTER TEN**\n\nFiasco\n\n_I'm almost physically sick . . . to be classified as a \"Western\" novelist could be damn near ruinous to me as a teacher and a scholar. And don't think the gleeful word won't get around_.\n\n\u2014JOHN WILLIAMS, 1960\n\nMarie Rodell had been an agent for ten years when she received Williams' manuscript for _The Naked World_ in 1958. She was \"world-wise, well-traveled, a sophisticated New Yorker fluent in four languages who moved comfortably in many of New York's most elite literary and publishing circles,\" said a biographer of Rachel Carson, author of the ecology classic _Silent Spring_ and one of Rodell's clients. Rodell had been an editor at several large houses until after the war, when layoffs of women in publishing, to make room for veterans, forced her to strike out on her own. Briefly, she'd been married to a playwright. Because the statuette of Edgar Allan Poe awarded to her by the Mystery Writers of America reminded her of her ex-husband, she kept it in a closet. Attractive, of average height, with auburn hair that she wore upswept, she was a poker player, chain smoker, and gourmet cook. She was comfortable around men\u2014who liked the contrast between her femininity and her bawdy sense of humor\u2014but her views about men and women were conservative, making her a good match for the traditionally minded Williams. Rodell had resigned as Betty Friedan's agent after reading _The Feminine Mystique_ in manuscript. \"I think she was threatened by my book, as many women were,\" Friedan later wrote. \"She was a great devotee of Freud and she wanted me to throw out the whole chapter on Freud.\"\n\nShe was not an aggressive agent. She used a light touch with clients' work\u2014reviewing their manuscripts, and offering her reactions and suggestions here and there for improvement, but leaving the close editing of style and syntax to publishing house editors. Her job was selling the book, and she liked coming up with catchy titles. \"She does not fight or argue quite as fiercely as some for the last inch of advantage,\" Morton Hunt had written to Williams, \"but I don't conceive that to be important to you. When you sell 150,000 copies of the new book and are ready to do another, that's when you have to do the hard fighting, not now.\"\n\n\"Dear Mr. Williams,\" Rodell replied in October after having his manuscript for a month, \"Both Miss Daves [her assistant] and I have read _A Naked World_ and like it very much. You have made a meaningful as well as a highly readable novel of the story, and we'd be delighted to represent you and it.\" Williams replied that he was pleased because he was convinced _A Naked World_ was \"something above the run-of-the-mill novel.\" She asked what else he might be working on. He was reluctant to say because it was hard to summarize. The next one would be about a college professor:\n\nTo all outward appearances, he is a failure; he is not a popular teacher; he is one of the less distinguished members of his department; his personal life is a shambles; his death by cancer at the end of an undistinguished career is meaningless. But the point of the novel will be that he is a kind of saint; or, stated otherwise, it is a novel about a man who finds no meaning in the world or in himself, but who does find meaning and a kind of victory in the honest and dogged pursuit of his profession.\n\nIf she had any reservations about a novel by a college professor whose hero was a failed college professor dying of cancer, she didn't say. Instead, Rodell responded warmly to the news that he was already working on his next book.\n\nSeeing John go from strength to strength in his career, Butch had decided perhaps he should give teaching writing a try, too. Having hit a dry spell at the typewriter in Ajijic, he wrote, \"Poverty can be amusing, if you like your humor on the ironic side.\" Not that his \"weirdly precarious existence\" as an independent writer for ten years had been fruitless. He had a dependable market selling to pulp and men's magazines such as _Playboy_ , _Nugget_ , _Dude_ , _Swank_ , and _Rogue_. His smart-alecky, dame-wise characters\u2014projections of himself, really\u2014were suited to male readers. His better work\u2014mysteries, science fiction, and domestic dramas\u2014had appeared in two best-of-the-year short story anthologies, including Random House's _Saturday Evening Post Stories 1954_.\n\nBut for George Rae's sake, he believed it was incumbent on him to finish his bachelor's degree as a precaution. She had been able to \"enjoy leisure with poverty\" long enough. With the help of an adviser at the University of Iowa\u2014Paul Engle, soon to become famous as the director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop\u2014Marsh's three years' worth of college credits put him within a semester of receiving his undergraduate degree. But Engle, seeing an opportunity to add an experienced, published writer to his faculty, also offered him a paid assistantship teaching creative writing, provided he stayed to complete his masters. The only other \"real professional\" on the faculty, Marsh discovered, was Vance Bourjaily, author of _The End of My Life_ \u2014a respected postwar novel.\n\nSo September 1958 found Willard Marsh\u2014former jazz musician, bohemian, and expat writer\u2014trudging across the Iowa campus as a college instructor. To students, he appeared to be a slightly pudgy, shorthaired, mid-thirties gentleman with a stern expression, wearing thick glasses and letting a cigarette hang from the corner of his mouth. For his brother-in-law's delectation, he described a normal day:\n\nI rise at a civilized hour, unhungover, don a clean shirt and even tie, walk a few clean streets of East Overshoe (unlittered by burro shit and drunken Mexicans) to a room on the campus where twelve to twenty eager youths want to learn how to sell their first short story to the _Saturday Evening Post_ and\/or the _Yale Review_ , and thereby instantly and perpetually become that dashing figure, The Professional Writer.\n\nI figure I'm just the cat to show them how. I don't know who was teaching those things at East Overshoe before I came along, but compared to me, he doesn't know his ass from a hot rock. Could _he_ tell them how to con an editor into thinking he's seeing a rewrite of a story he rejected last year? Could he even know which editor should see that story in the first place? Get in and get that big slick dollar, children, like I used to before I became as dated as a celluloid collar; screw that arty-farty literary twaddle. Get in there where the tall cane grows.\n\nUnlike Williams, Marsh didn't think he could ever become \"a very nice, dedicated prodigy-Ph.D. like yourself.\" His ambition was to teach well, get the master's degree, and then return to Ajijic as soon as possible, where he could sit at his desk every day and listen to how his typewriter blended with the _chicharras_ buzzing outside, while in the kitchen George Rae prepared another pitcher of margaritas with lemons and limes, rattling with ice cubes.\n\nWilliams' hopes for _A Naked World_ received an unexpected boost when he received a call from the senior editor at Macmillan, Cecil Scott, saying he happened to be in Denver\u2014could he have a look at the novel? Morton Hunt, who had recommended Rodell as his agent, must have tipped him off, because Rodell hadn't sent out the manuscript yet. Williams said he could, but he instantly wrote to Rodell as a precaution. \"I made it quite clear to him that you were handling the book, and that if he became seriously interested that he would have to work through you.\"\n\nScott, an erudite Londoner, read about forty pages and seemed excited, Williams thought. A few days later, a note from him arrived, written on the stationery of the posh Hotel Adolphus in Dallas. He had forgotten to mention that Macmillan was offering a new fiction award worth $7,500. _A Naked World_ would make an excellent candidate.\n\nIt was a bit overwhelming: unexpected compliments from a major publishing house, plus the chance at a prize worth two years of his salary as a college professor. Rodell assured her anxious client there was nothing to worry about. Scott had phoned her, wanting to know whether any other houses had seen it. She told him cagily that \"the manuscript was under consideration elsewhere,\" but she would note that Macmillan was interested. \"They [Macmillan] are very far from my favorite house,\" she informed Williams. \"The president retains the attitude most publishers had fifty years ago (but have since been persuaded out of it) that if his house wants to bestow the grace of its imprint on an author's work, that should satisfy him. . . . Since there are many other good houses who don't share this attitude, I stay away when possible.\" Williams, never before having reached this level in his writing career, put his faith in his new agent; apparently she was a cool customer when it came to doing business: \"I do not wish to urge a judgment of mine in an area where you are more knowledgeable,\" he told her.\n\nTwo months passed, but other publishers didn't share Cecil Scott's enthusiasm. \"He may be a writer,\" replied an editor at W. W. Norton. \"The main problem, it seems to me, is that the hero's motivation is not made fully clear. The author simply attributes to him a vague yearning to find the meaning of life, not much better defined than that.\" _Nothing But the Night_ had been criticized for the same kind of shortcomings. In fact, at Scribner's, Harry Brague, who had also disliked _Nothing But the Night_ , rejected _The Naked World_ because it, too, seemed \"watery.\" A rejection from an editor at Viking took a devastatingly condescending tone, as if he were holding the manuscript away from him with a pair of tongs. \" _A Naked World_ is not a novel. . . . In fact, the book is almost completely static. The hero, William Andrews, leaves Harvard and comes west, and we don't know why. He goes out buffalo hunting and all he learns is how to skin one, and then he leaves we know not whither. I hope Mr. Williams will one day decide to tell just a story.\"\n\nMystified, Williams wondered what he should do. He had spent almost four years on the novel\u2014time that might have been spent submitting to journals and advancing his academic career. Thinking that perhaps he should retreat to firmer ground, he asked Rodell if she'd like to see his doctoral dissertation, \"The World and God: The Poems and Dramas of Fulke Greville.\" Greville, the Elizabethan poet and courtier, hadn't received \"a book-length study\" since 1903\u2014\"and that one was quite inadequate,\" Williams urged.\n\nRodell was not enchanted by the idea of trying to sell a book about a minor poet in tights, a doublet, and feathered hat. She asked instead if he had any short stories they could offer to magazines such as _Esquire_. He mailed half a dozen, adding, apologetically, \"I don't feel that I write very good short stories. I have never taken the form with the seriousness I'm sure it deserves. I'm afraid I reserve my best energies for my novels.\" In the meantime, his novel about the college professor had come to a halt, he said, because he was under \"academic pressures.\" Likely, he was getting the jitters and couldn't write without some good news.\n\nRodell advised giving editors another month to reply. Then they should take advantage of Cecil Scott's interest and enter Macmillan's fiction contest. As a courtesy, they would defer any offers until the winner was announced. It would be a gamble. Macmillan might not offer a contract if they lost, but those were the stakes.\n\nWilliams began having doubts about the novel's title. Perhaps _A Naked World_ was a bit existential-sounding\u2014too pretentious. Maybe just _Butcher's Crossing_ , the name of a town, would be better. He asked Cecil Scott's opinion, who replied, \"Frankly, I do not like _Butcher's Crossing_ as well as _A Naked World_. It seems to me a good title. Obviously the jacket would give some clue to the subject matter and I would prefer _A Naked World_ because it would remove any suspicion in the prospective reader's mind that this was another conventional Western. So for the present at least I would prefer to leave the original title.\" With the results of the contest only a week away now, Williams decided to leave well enough alone.\n\nOut of two thousand manuscripts submitted to the Macmillan contest, _A Naked World_ came in second. To Williams, Rodell dashed off, \"I'm so sorry!\" And during the judging, the publisher Little, Brown and Company had made an offer higher than Macmillan's. Cecil Scott counteroffered with even better terms, because \"we have the most substantial faith not only in this book but in the author's future.\" Rodell urged Williams to accept the Macmillan offer. Or perhaps she didn't\u2014it was hard to tell. She tossed the ball back to Williams. \"I do not want my own prejudices against Macmillan to influence you unduly.\" Comparing the two publishers, she said, \"Both are honorable imprints. Enthusiasm at Macmillan seems to be more unanimous than at Little Brown.\" Williams, a novice, \"rather dazedly\" agreed, his only concern being that Macmillan make a sincere effort to promote the book, even though it had come in second, \"to give it a chance to gain some attention. . . . I presume they will not neglect that.\"\n\nFor a second opinion, he turned to Janet Lewis, who complimented him by pointing out that her advance from Doubleday for _The Ghost of Monsieur Scarron_ was much less than what Macmillan was offering him, and her novel just missed becoming a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. In the end, she said, publishing is \"something of a gamble always.\" She wished him well. That settled, he accepted Macmillan's offer, his first time doing business with a major trade publisher.\n\nWith _A Naked World_ slated for publication in the spring of 1960, still eight months off, he returned to his next novel, about a mid-western college professor. The time needed to plan it would be about a year, he estimated, and a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship, awarded to those \"who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts,\" would relieve him of teaching. He decided to ask J. V. Cunningham, now at Brandeis University outside of Boston, a previous recipient of a Guggenheim, if he could use his name as a reference on his application.\n\nThe deferential tone of the letter is uncharacteristic for Williams, who was thirty-eight at the time and an associate professor after six years at the University of Denver. But having Cunningham's respect was important to him. \"I realize that you don't know a great deal about my abilities as a novelist\u2014I assume that you have not read my first novel, published by Alan, and I fervently hope that my assumption is correct; it isn't a very good novel, and it certainly does not adequately represent, or even foreshadow, what I am trying to do now.\" Not immodestly, he mentioned that Janet Lewis compared him to Stephen Crane. Cunningham assured him of his support.\n\nIt was the start of some good luck. The University of New Mexico invited him to apply for a position in the English Department. He supplied a two-page autobiographical sketch listing his work in _The American Scholar_ , _Arizona Quarterly_ , and _A Journal of Modern Culture_ , among others. Having a novel that was scheduled for publication looked impressive, too, by any measure. Then came a letter from a former colleague and friend from the University of Missouri, who said he would be happy to consider Williams' dissertation on Fulke Greville as a scholarly book for the university press.\n\nHe seemed to be reaching a milestone, a turning point. To celebrate, he went camping in the Rockies, ten thousand feet up and off a dirt road, about a mile from Clear Lake in the Arapahoe National Forest, near a ghost town. While he was camping, he would \"descend briefly a couple of times a week\" from the mountains to check on the family, and then he was off again. He didn't clear his plans with Lonnie because seeking permission from his wife was not in his nature: where he went, and how long he would be away, was his prerogative. He stayed the latter half of June and all of July, fishing in the Cherry Creek reservoir and cooking his catches over an open fire.\n\nCome September, he went to New York to meet Marie Rodell in person for the first time, and to have lunch with Cecil Scott. They were still dickering about the best title for the novel. Rodell didn't care for _A Naked World_. \"I'm inclined to think the word 'Hunt' should be in it and perhaps 'Valley'? No. 'Lost Valley?' Better. If it sets up in book buyers a subconscious association with _Lost Horizon_ it can't hurt sales!\" Scott was pulling for _A Naked World_. Williams offered _The Crossing_ , _The Hunt_ , _Hunt in the Valley_ , and _The Western Path_. \"I don't like _The Western Path_ ,\" Rodell cautioned, \"because I think we have to be careful never to let careless reviewers or bookstore personnel classify this as a Western.\" Scott, wanting to bring the discussion to an end so he could begin thinking about marketing, told Williams, \"Personally I like the best of any of your suggested titles, and better than any title I have come up with myself, _Butcher's Crossing_ . . . _Butcher's Crossing_ on the right kind of jacket will give the reader a certain clue to the contents. It is a phrase which is easy to remember and it is also mellifluous.\" Scott, at last, won the day, and he accompanied Williams over to the Macmillan offices on Fifth Avenue to meet the staffers who were already working to meet the _Butcher's Crossing_ publication date set for late March.\n\nA few weeks before its release, Williams took a sentimental trip. He drove 875 miles south from Denver to Clarksville, Texas, intersecting with the fictional paths of his four buffalo hunters in _Butcher's Crossing_ across Kansas and into the Colorado mountains. In Clarksville, he located the house where he had been born, and walked the brick streets that his mother and father had known. In Paris, Texas, the first town west of Clarksville, the newspaper editor heard of his return and ran an article about the exciting career of \"Dr. Williams.\" An elderly gentleman in Clarksville, who had known the Williams family well, felt moved to write to him in a crabbed hand, congratulating him on his \"wonderful achievements in the educational field,\" adding, \"Your Aunt Emmie [Walker] was a wonderful teacher, also.\" On the eve of publication, advance orders of _Butcher's Crossing_ to bookstores exceeded everyone's expectations.\n\nMarie Rodell broke the news. \"Brace yourself for a bad shock next Sunday. The _New York Times_ has reviewed _Butcher's Crossing_ as a western, and the idiot who writes the column has of course no small inkling of what the book is about.\" She was furious. \"It's too, too revolting. I told Cecil that if the reviewers had been informed this was the runner-up in the contest, and if the jacket hadn't looked like a western, this wouldn't have happened.\" On the cover, a man and woman in Hollywood western dress stand in the foreground; behind them, far below on the plain, a wagon train of pioneers passes by. The cover announced, \"Through blinding heat across an unyielding land they trekked. Men in search of a burning vision.\" There was no trek in the novel; it was a buffalo hunt. There was no vision, just the desire to get rich from buffalo hides. There was no Conestoga wagon train with settlers walking beside it, only four men with a string of packhorses behind them. And the only woman in the story is a prostitute who appears at the beginning and at the end.\n\nThe review, by Nelson C. Nye, founder of the Western Writers of America (his pen names were Clem Colt and Drake C. Denver), damned the book. It \"is practically plotless, an account of four men who go out to hunt buffalo, find them, slaughter them and are caught by cold weather. The work abounds in graphic descriptions, even to the variegated colors of blades of grass. The story, however, contains little excitement and moves as though hauled by a snail through a pond of molasses. You can leave it anytime, a lot of people will.\"\n\nWilliams was horrified. The damage was irreparable and he knew it. A review carried by one of the most respected newspapers in the United States\u2014a source that booksellers and buyers relied on\u2014had branded _Butcher's Crossing_ an unreadable bore. \"I'm almost physically sick,\" he wrote to Rodell. \"I have just received your letter, have thought about it for an hour, and I get sicker by the moment. God knows, I might be angry at a bad, imperceptive review\u2014but it would be anger and nothing more. But this is really inexcusable\u2014of the _Times_ , of course, but mainly of Macmillan. It would have been much better had the book been entirely ignored\u2014at least it would have been better from my point of view.\" The situation was a \"great deal more serious than it might appear.\" As the director of Denver's creative writing program, he had ventured into mainstream publishing, confident that it was within his power to compete with the best contemporary novelists. He had intended to revive a genre, to contribute to literature. Instead, \"to be classified as a 'Western' novelist could be damn near ruinous to me as a teacher and a scholar. And don't think the gleeful word won't get around after next Sunday. One might say that anyone who read the book would realize the falsity of the classification\u2014but who the hell's going to read it after such a tantalizing invitation not to?\" He was heartbroken, and if had the money, he would purchase every copy and destroy them.\n\nAt Macmillan, Scott took the unusual step of objecting strongly to the editor of the book section of the _New York Times_ , arguing that the novel should not have been reviewed in a column about westerns. \" _Butcher's Crossing_ is not a 'Western' although its background is the early west, any more than [A. B. Guthrie Jr.'s] _The Big Sky_ is a 'Western.'\" Paul Engle of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Scott pointed out, had called it \"a superb tale of the Old West\" on the front page of the book section of the _Chicago Tribune_ , and the _Denver Post_ had hailed it as \"one of the finest novels of the West ever to come out of the West.\" Scott commiserated with Williams by inveighing against idiot reviewers, and the tendency of people to suspect anything new and different, and tried to persuade him that no serious readers would really pay attention to Nye's column anyway. \"The thing you must simply not allow yourself to be is discouraged.\"\n\nBut the novel's chances were ruined. The summer passed and _Butcher's Crossing_ sold only a few thousand copies. Come fall, the Guggenheim Foundation turned down his application for a fellowship, leaving him to wonder whether there was a connection between being scorned in the _New York Times_ and not receiving the award.\n\n_John Edward Jewell, later to become John Williams, with his mother Amelia, about 1924_.\n\n_Williams' birthplace, Clarksville, Texas, when he was a child. The statue in the square is of a Confederate soldier facing north in perpetual defense_.\n\n_\"The Corner,\" in Wichita Falls, Texas, where land speculation and oil deals were made on a handshake. Williams' father, John Jewell, would have known this place well_.\n\n_Williams at Hardin Junior College in Wichita Falls, wearing a silk scarf out of admiration for Ronald Colman, who played Sydney Carton in the 1935 film version of_ A Tale of Two Cities.\n\n_For a short time, and during his first marriage, Williams pursued a career in radio news broadcasting under the name \"Jon Williams\" in Denton, Texas_.\n\n_Williams served as a radio operator aboard US Army Air Corps cargo planes in northwestern India, flying \"the Hump\" over the Himalayas into China_.\n\n_Yvonne (Stone) Woolf, shortly after her divorce from Williams in 1949. She married Beat writer Douglas Woolf that year_.\n\n_George Rae, Williams' sister, and her husband, Willard \"Butch\" Marsh, in a photograph taken for identification purposes during one of their frequent trips to Mexico_.\n\n_Florence Roberts, whose husband was an English professor at the University of Missouri, the setting for_ Stoner _; John Williams; and Williams' third wife, Avalon Smith, during a vacation to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, in 1954_.\n\n_Williams, when he was writing_ Butcher's Crossing _, shortly after joining the faculty at the University of Denver_.\n\n_Buffalo hunters in Texas about 1870_. Butcher's Crossing _, published in 1960, was dismissed as a Western, instead of what Williams intended: a debunking of Emersonian ideas about nature and the frontier_.\n\n_Poet and classicist J. V. Cunningham, a friend of Williams' and the model for professor Bill Stoner in_ Stoner.\n\n_The 1966 faculty of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference_. Rear, left to right _: William Sloane, John Frederick Nims, William Hazlett Upson, David Wagoner, John Aldridge, X. J. Kennedy_. Center, left to right _: Brock Brower, Dan Wakefield, Eunice Blake, John Ciardi, Seymour Epstein, William Lederer_. Front, left to right _: John Williams, Robert Pack, Edward Alexander Martin. The conference was the first time Williams was in the company of other fiction writers and poets, and it helped assuage his loneliness. Robert Pack led a small countercultural revolution that overthrew most of the old guard, including Williams, by 1972_.\n\n_Williams in his office, a converted dormitory room at the University of Denver, in 1967, two years after publishing_ Stoner.\n\n_Williams and his fourth wife, Nancy, in the early 1970s_.\n\n_Williams near the end of his life. Novelist Joanne Greenberg (_ I Never Promised You a Rose Garden _) said, \"He had a face like a five-day rain.\"_\nPART III\n\n_Stoner_\n**CHAPTER ELEVEN**\n\n\"It Was That Kind of World\"\n\n_They wanted to know who was I, apart from papers and credentials\u2014\"Can you do it? Can you do the work? Could you teach and inspire students?\"_\n\n\u2014ROBERT D. RICHARDSON\n\nJohn's foray into mainstream publishing, where the landscape was familiar to Butch Marsh, left him bewildered. Likewise, Butch was finding that academe was another country. \"Being a faculty wife is a rather strange experience for me,\" George Rae confided to John, \"and here in the South it is a full time job. This place is crawling with women's clubs, literary societies (made of illiterates), and social groups. The sole occupation of the members of these groups is giving Teas, 'Coffee-drop-ins,' and 'little luncheons.' However, I'm holding up pretty well, and the people are really extremely nice and kind.\"\n\nShe and Butch had left the University of Iowa after he had completed the coursework for his masters, a few months before the publication _Butcher's Crossing_ , and relocated to Rock Hill, South Carolina, where he was now an assistant professor of creative writing at Winthrop College. Their experiment with college teaching was continuing as they weighed the benefits of security versus living paycheck-to-paycheck from Butch's fiction. He had stockpiled about fifty stories, but was too busy teaching to submit them. He fantasized about a New York editor just dropping by their little apartment at 830 College Avenue and choosing the best for a short story collection. \"It isn't as if I'm never going to have a decent novel of my own someday, so I feel I'm worth the visit.\"\n\nThey had purchased a car, their first\u2014a two-door 1952 Nash Rambler, a favorite of suburbanites\u2014sleek, modern, and \"frighteningly cute,\" George Rae said. The wife of the English Department chairman had befriended them and was playing fairy godmother, loaning \"Mrs. Willard Marsh,\" as she was referred to, enough furniture, sofa pillows, and dishware to set up housekeeping. She took George Rae under her wing, \"helping me learn the ropes,\" as George Rae put it. \"She also tells me that I may begin to say 'no' to invitations. Thank heavens.\" On weekends, there was \"some very pleasant socializing with the younger, drinking segment of the faculty.\" The chairman's wife had made it quite clear that the Marshes could stay as long as they liked\u2014indefinitely. Ajijic receded into the distance.\n\nJohn could have told them that if Winthrop College was cliquish, that was to be expected; it was no different from the English Department at the University of Denver. Everyone belonged to a subset. In the early 1960s, for example, Elizabeth Richardson accompanied her then husband, the biographer Robert D. Richardson, to the University of Denver to begin his instructorship in the English Department. After they arrived, \"one or two other women made a real effort to include me,\" she said. \"But I had zero in common with them. We had young kids, so several times we went out to Cherry Creek Reservoir and sat in the sand while the kids played and most of the conversation was complaining about husbands. After a while that got\u2014well, I was a biology major and all those women were English majors, so it seemed I couldn't be part of a conversation that transcended those topics.\"\n\nMen in the University of Denver English Department\u2014the faculty was male throughout most of the 1960s\u2014had a different experience. Newcomers were invited to join a kind of band of brothers who were outdoorsy, drank hard, and were at the top of their game. Robert Richardson, a New Englander and Harvard-educated, was excited by the West as \"open country.\" For the job interview, he said, \"John did to me what he did to everyone\u2014he took me to a cabin with some faculty members and a few wives and we got drunk. It was a weekend retreat with a cookout, mostly men. They wanted to know who was I, apart from papers and credentials\u2014'Can you do it? Can you do the work? Could you teach and inspire students?'\"\n\nIt was hard not to warm to John if he liked you. \"Always very nattily dressed. Spiffy dresser,\" said Richardson. \"He was low-key, and loved to laugh. 'Hi- _lar_ -ious!' he would say, and 'And in this country, it was _bound_ to happen.' His small stature didn't matter to him. He felt no need to work against that. He was extremely kind.\" If John didn't like someone, he tended to be prickly, according to Fred Inglis, a cultural historian; more often he just ignored them. But when he felt sympathy for a person, he tended to extend his help and friendship as a kind of respect. A deciding factor was whether the person seemed genuine. Inglis came to Denver on a fellowship from Oxford University because John had worked out the details with his tutor, a mutual friend. As a Briton arriving at the foot of the Rockies, Inglis felt a little disoriented at first, but \"John and I got on instantly,\" he later recalled. \"He was good at that. The friendship was plainly stated, and you knew it was there\u2014you could just reach out a hand and touch it for reassurance without ever making a great to-do about it. He was somebody who lived at the front of a friendship.\"\n\nIt was not only the bonhomie of the department that induced English instructors to come to Denver, either. Williams offered them an opportunity to help build the \"Harvard of the West.\" He was developing a PhD program in creative writing that had the potential to become one of the best in the nation, requiring proficiency in two languages, passing an oral examination, and submitting a thesis\u2014in this case, a novel or a short story or poetry collection. As a result, said Richardson, there were \"bright, hard-working students\" in the program who earned the respect of instructors who taught English literature and literary criticism. \"The department ran with a kind of smooth unity.\"\n\n\"It was that kind of world,\" said Gerald Chapman, \"and John helped us keep it alive. He didn't care for the ponderousness at all, or any pretension would really turn him off quickly. But he loved people who were willing to pitch in and be there.\"\n\nThe ethos of the English Department, being all male, was in agreement about something else, too\u2014sex. Male chauvinism was taken for granted, and affairs, which included sleeping with students, weren't worth mentioning except as gossip. \"This was the decade when the east-to-west academic exodus was in full flood,\" wrote Harvard professor Daniel Aaron in his memoir, _The Americanist_ :\n\nPalo Alto and Berkeley had become gilded Botany Bays for middle-aged East Coast professors in flight from sagging marriages undermined by their irregular romances with students: The West Coast represented a paradigm shift, new love in a new clime. Here was the stuff for a spate of tragic-comic college novels with an archetypal plot: a professor falls in love with a young woman prettier, smarter, and more exciting than his shopworn wife, who has drudged for him, raised their brood in mean surroundings, and grown obsolescent in the process; the professor feels he has earned his eminence and can no longer deny himself what Providence has decreed, so he dumps the wife with varying degrees of anguish and remorse.\n\nDuring the summers, Williams left for weeks at a time to stay in the mountains where he wrote and fished, accompanied now and then by his third child, Jonathan, who was thrilled to wake up one morning, during hunting season, \"with about three inches of snow on us\u2014that was pretty much of an adventure!\" Williams purchased a cabin near the town of Pine, Colorado, in remote territory favored by hunters. By going up to the cabin on Thursday, he could get three days of writing done on the screened-in porch.\n\nLonnie was not in the picture for much of John's life outside of home. To the wife of a department member, the third Mrs. Williams came across as \"a Colorado girl, kind of small-town, bright, but not a very forward personality.\" Gerald Chapman \"didn't know Lonnie well. I had dinner at their home and I saw her on various occasions. She and John had some pretty bad quarrels.\" More than once, Lonnie had wanted to leave a faculty party, but John, drunk and annoyed with her, had wanted to stay. It was known that John was having an affair with Shirley White, the English Department secretary. The romance had been going on for about a year when one day, in the spring of 1960, one of Williams' students\u2014a tall, rosy-cheeked young woman in her mid-twenties\u2014asked him to sign her copy of _Butcher's Crossing_.\n\nHer name was Nancy Ann (Gardner) Leavenworth. She was living in Denver with her parents and her four children, having left her husband, James Leavenworth, who had suffered a nervous breakdown. Her father was a Denver elementary school principal, her mother a housewife, and Nancy and her sister had been raised in a conservative home and educated at local Catholic schools. During junior high, 1946\u20131947, she had attended extracurricular classes for young ladies that taught domestic arts, including how to speak politely and practice social graces that would suit her as a wife and mother. In 1950, she had enrolled as an English major at Grinnell College\u2014a small liberal arts college in Grinnell, Iowa\u2014partly because her parents were pleased that it was only an overnight train ride away. When she met James Leavenworth, he was a junior, not long out of the army, and working toward a degree in comparative literature. At the end of her freshmen year, they married after she became pregnant.\n\nJames showed promise as a writer, winning awards at Grinnell for original plays and musicals. He might have pursued a career in college teaching, or gone into the arts, but married with two children when he graduated in 1953, he accepted a job writing for General Electric's trade magazine in Western Springs, Illinois. After that, the Leavenworths relocated to upstate Schenectady, New York, to General Electric's huge, campus-like research facility, and then back to Illinois again\u2014typical of a young corporate couple on their way up after the war.\n\nIt was around that time that James' behavior and personality changed. His voice lost its highs and lows and he began speaking in a monotone. He shambled, heavy-footed, despite being tall and long-limbed, as if he were a stranger to his body. After losing his job, he became obsessed with a solution to everything. The Leavenworth family needed to escape to the mountains, where they could start over, he insisted. He would be a \"mountain man\"\u2014answering to no one, and he would provide by building a house, and they could live off the land, the way nature intended. To get ready for hardship, he began sprinkling dirt on his food, because that was what mountain men ate.\n\nNancy fled with the children on a train to Denver, having witnessed the \"cruelest, saddest thing\u2014he didn't know what was wrong.\" James followed them, wandering about the city helplessly, protesting, wanting the children back, until Nancy's aunt, a pediatrician, prescribed medication to quiet his mind, enough to allow him to return to his family home in southern Michigan. Their divorce was uncontested.\n\nBy the time Nancy enrolled in Professor Williams' poetry class in the spring of 1960, thinking she might finish her degree in English, Williams had entered a new, and rather splendid, sartorial phrase, perhaps to counter the damage from\u2014or in defiance of\u2014the review in the _New York Times_ that had labeled him the author of a terrible western novel. His new plumage stated unequivocally that he was an artist. He replaced his usual Windsor-knotted tie with a dark blue, polka-dotted cravat. For social occasions, around his small waist he drew a cummerbund, purchased in the men's clothing section at the Denver, the best department store in town, which he wore under a blazer (two-piece suits made him look petite). For the final touch, he added a dab of Brylcreem to his hair and combed it before the mirror up and away from his forehead into a pompadour. Before going out the door, he inserted a fresh cigarette into a short holder made of pear wood and brass. By fashioning himself as a cultured, sophisticated loner, like the Hollywood leading man of his youth, Ronald Colman, he restored his self-confidence.\n\nHe was a presence as he entered the classroom. \"John was a fairly small man,\" remembered a student, \"with dark hair, glasses, a creased face, and a salt-and-pepper goatee. Being a poet, I thought he looked like a bohemian Black Mountain Poet, perhaps Robert Creeley without the eye patch. . . . He had a certain flair, and an elegance of manner, though with a slight rough edge by way of Texas.\"\n\nNancy felt her instructor's big, booming voice conveyed important things. He read aloud from _Butcher's Crossing_ now and then, to illustrate his points about rhythm and sense. \"I loved to hear him talk about it,\" she said. \"I liked his authority in that it was all earned. He knew what he was talking about. And his wit, of course. It was never dull with John, ever.\"\n\nNancy signed up for as many classes taught by Professor Williams as the quarter-system schedule would allow, becoming dependable company in his classrooms, as if she were proof of her conviction about him and his talent. Reading Melville's _The Confidence-Man_ , she found a quote that fit young Will Andrews' experience in _Butcher's Crossing_. She copied it out: \"Aye, and poets send out the sick spirit to green pastures, like lame horses turned out unshod to the turf to renew their hoofs. A sort of yarb-doctors in their way, poets have it that for sore hearts, as for sore lungs, nature is the grand cure. But who froze to death my teamster on the prairie? And who made an idiot of Peter the Will Boy?\"\n\nShe took it to his office, along with her copy of _Butcher's Crossing_ to sign. He read the quote, smiled, and took the book from her hand. On the title page, he wrote, \"To Nancy, in memory of that mad, mad night on the Cap D'Antibes, when . . .\" and no more. He handed it back to her.\n\nShe understood that he was declaring his intentions.\n\nHe began courting her\u2014asking her out for coffee, coming over to her house to cook his specialty from his India days, chicken curry and rice. Afterward he would serve her tea and they would talk. He didn't mention Lonnie, and she didn't ask about her. Shirley White, the English Department secretary, had left to take a position at the University of New Mexico, but Nancy wanted to make sure that affair was over. He went to Albuquerque to break it off. On dates, John said hello to people occasionally, but he didn't introduce her, wanting to keep their relationship private. As in _Stoner_ : \"He had no talent for dissimulation, nor did it occur to him to dissemble his affair with Katherine Driscoll; neither did it occur to him to display it for anyone to see. It did not seem possible to him that anyone on the outside might be aware of their affair, or even be interested in it.\"\n\nOne afternoon while they were sitting in her parents' kitchen, Nancy confessed something that she had been trying to keep from him. She wanted to have his baby, but that wasn't possible, not with his three children and her four. \"I wasn't depressed, I was sad and passionate,\" she later said. He propped his elbows on the table and began telling her a story. \"It was about a perfect child\u2014ours. It was never born, it just materialized somehow and it was ours.\" After that, whenever he came over, he continued the story where he had left off. She didn't have to ask him; in the evenings when he came by to ask how her day had been, he talked about the baby. The child had a name and did funny, endearing things. After a while, she began to laugh when she knew exactly what the baby would do and how they would respond. \"He courted me for a year before we made love,\" Nancy recalled. \"I wasn't ready. But by the time the year was up, I was just insane about him. I adored the guy.\"\n\nProgress on the novel about a college professor named William Stoner was going \"slowly,\" Williams wrote to Marie Rodell in September 1960, \"but there's nothing to worry about, I think. I hope to have a draft by Spring.\" Professor Stoner was having a love affair with a graduate student named Katherine, moving him into an emotional sphere he had never before experienced. Williams' working title for the novel was _A Matter of Light_. Meanwhile, he had high hopes of publishing a collection of his poems, titled _The Shape of the Air_. He needed a victory after the debacle of _Butcher's Crossing_ ; and, as he told Rodell, \"I don't want to sound snobbish about this, but I have spent a good twenty years of my life in a fairly concentrated study of the problem of poetry and poetic method, and I know what I am talking about.\"\n\nWilliams refused to accept that the ideas and methods advanced by the up-and-comers such as John Berryman, Elizabeth Bishop, Gwendolyn Brooks, or Theodore Roethke were legitimate. Like other practitioners of the New Criticism, in \"poor simple Walt Whitman,\" as Alfred Kazin said of that school, Williams could find \"no Donne-like tension, paradox, or ambiguity.\" He greatly admired the 1930s modernist American poet William Carlos Williams, and endorsed his doctrine about the importance of concrete objects\u2014\"no ideas but in things\"\u2014because it dovetailed with Winters' emphasis on rationality. But further on the timeline of poetry he would not go. Consequently, as the 1960s bloomed, Williams' conservatism as a poet made him difficult to publish. Moreover, his convictions prevented him from becoming a better poet. To write verse well\u2014the kind that is sublime and flashes an image of a thing or experience on the reader's inner eye\u2014he would have needed to be more in touch with those Wordsworthian impulses that he resisted. If he felt them, he forced them and racked them into a frame with so many beats per line. Mastery of technique is not art, or there would be statues of forgers, counterfeiters, rock 'n' roll tribute bands, and plagiarists. Williams' insights about life and human nature, the empathy\u2014the _interiority_ of experience\u2014that made him a superior novelist, aren't evident in his verse. He maintained a distance from the material. He kept his greatest strengths out of his poetry.\n\nIt showed. \"I am very much afraid that our final verdict has been the same as with the earlier manuscript of poetry which you sent us,\" wrote Cecil Scott from Macmillan. \"There simply has not been the sort of enthusiasm on the part of our readers that would warrant our embarking on publication.\" The rejection annoyed Williams, who was still smarting about the fate of _Butcher's Crossing_. He wondered whether Macmillan's continued negativity about his poetry meant they should offer the new novel, _A Matter of Light_ , to another publisher. He expressed these thoughts to Marie Rodell, writing, \"I think they did rather a bad job in packaging [ _Butcher's Crossing_ ], that is to say, in a sense they misrepresented it, by the jacket, the jacket copy, and the advertising.\" But she demurred, saying it wasn't worth breaking with Macmillan \"just in order to get the poems published.\" Eventually, after rejections of his poetry collection had arrived from Harcourt Brace, Scribner's, Viking Press, and New Directions, Williams conceded that perhaps, as a last resort, they might try a small press.\n\nScott, realizing he was in a position to do a favor for an author who must be unhappy with him, assisted with a related project instead. Williams hadn't given up trying to publish his dissertation about Fulke Greville. But editors hadn't shared his conviction that a book focusing on a lesser-known Elizabethan poet, even edited for the trade market, was needed. Not even his friend and former colleague at the University of Missouri William Peden, editor of the university press, expressed much enthusiasm after he read the manuscript. \"Nothing but bad news,\" Peden wrote to him. \"Very regretfully, I have been unable to include your study of Greville in our publications schedule for the next couple of years.\"\n\nBut then Williams saw a practical way of folding Greville into a larger concept\u2014one that would both serve his career as a scholar and honor, at the same time, the portion of the Winters canon that dealt with the 1500s\u2014an anthology, _English Renaissance Poetry: A Collection of Shorter Poems from Skelton to Jonson_. He explained to Scott how, by being specific, it would fill a niche: \"The anthologies [currently] available are either critical collections based on what is essentially 19th century taste; or 'representative' collections which include snippets of virtually everything, important or unimportant; or 'period' anthologies designed primarily for lower division survey courses, and inadequate for anything beyond that.\" Professors who taught the Elizabethans would welcome it in their classrooms, he knew from experience. The era was a staple of upper-level and graduate courses\u2014and anthologies that became the cornerstones of instructors' syllabi could become classics in their own right, enjoying long and profitable lives in college bookstores.\n\nScott proposed the idea to Macmillan's college textbook department, but the editors, thinking that the collection would be just another paperback of best-loved poems, or something like it, decided the cost couldn't be justified. So Scott, unwilling to give up, went out of his way for Williams. \"Would you like me to drop a line to Pyke Johnson at Anchor Books?\" he asked. Anchor was an imprint of one of Macmillan's competitors, Doubleday.\n\nNo sooner had Williams given his permission\u2014literally within a few days of Scott contacting his fellow editor\u2014than an offer arrived. \"Your idea for an anthology of Renaissance poetry strikes us as a very interesting one,\" Pyke Johnson wrote, \"and one that we would be interested in publishing as an Anchor Book.\" He offered a generous advance\u2014better than many midlist novelists were receiving\u2014along with a first printing of ten thousand books, with an expectation of reaching thirty thousand. He only needed to know when the manuscript would be delivered to finalize a contract. Williams replied that he could finish it in a year\u2014midsummer of 1963, because he already had all the material. He was steeped in Winters, and relied, for classroom instruction, on his three important essays about sixteenth-century lyric poets, which had appeared in issues of _Poetry_ magazine in 1939.\n\nIt's easy to imagine him rubbing his hands with satisfaction. His admiration for Winters was constant, and his friendship with Winters' wife, Janet Lewis, indicated that Williams might reasonably count himself as part of the Winters Circle. If he published an anthology essentially canonizing the Elizabethan portion of the canon, then he would have done yeomen's work in the service of the \"sage of Palo Alto.\"\n\nWilliams exceeded his self-imposed deadline by six months, and the ease with which the anthology came together was the beginning of a tide of small but good things rising around him. To Marie Rodell he reported, in February 1963, that \"the novel is coming along so well that I hesitate even to speak of it. When I spoke to you in New York, I predicted optimistically a June 1 completion date for the first draft. Well, that is no longer optimistic; I will almost certainly have it done by then, maybe sooner.\" He walked in on his typist, a junior in history, while she was finishing \"typing chapter 15, and discovered great huge tears coursing down her cheeks. I shall love her forever.\"\n\nIn the English Department, the feeling of fellowship was running high. Gerald Chapman, in his new capacity as department chairman, wrote a letter of praise in support of Williams' application to attend a summer session on Elizabethan poetry at Oxford:\n\nProfessor Williams is, without question, one of the more brilliant artist-scholars in the Rocky Mountain region, and, some may think, in the United States. Only a very few in university circles can be a novelist, a poet, a research scholar, an editor, and a teacher, all with high excellence. Professor Williams is responsible for our having one of the two organized doctoral programs in Creative Writing throughout the United States. . . . He is currently finishing a third novel and planning a fourth. He has published poems, essays and reviews in almost every important journal in the country; his anthology _English Renaissance Poetry_ is being published by Anchor Books this spring.\n\nHis choice of words is telling. He characterizes Williams as an \"artist-scholar\" and lists his achievements beginning with his literary ones. Privately, Chapman didn't regard his friend as \"that much of a scholar.\" Later, he said, \"His anthology on poetry is an excellent one. But when we talked, he thought he knew more about the Renaissance than he really did. John didn't have a scholarly mind.\" In any case, Williams was accepted into the six-week summer program at Oxford. Chapman had sweetened the whole experience by giving Williams the fall quarter off to pursue his writing. After Oxford, Williams planned go to Rome for several weeks to think about another novel he was considering.\n\nThe trip was important for another reason, too. Lonnie would be accompanying him. Although the marriage was damaged, he felt obligated to share this reward with the person who had supported his career, regardless of the state of their relationship now. He booked passage from New York for the two of them, because the \"prospect of a few days on board ship, with nothing to do, is damned attractive right now,\" he wrote to Rodell. Besides, he said, he had developed a dread of flying.\n\n_English Renaissance Poetry_ was slated for publication in May 1963, a month before their departure for England. Williams' introduction to the anthology, written with students in mind, is an approachable, easygoing discussion, as if he were a professor giving an overview of what the class will cover. He explains that in Renaissance poetry \"there was a fairly conscious progression from one set of principles to another, from one method to another, throughout the century,\" and then sets out to examine those principles and methods. The introduction itself exemplifies the plain, or Native, style that Williams favors, because, in Thomas Wyatt's phrase, it's \"graven with diamonds, in letters plain.\" Williams dismisses the Petrarchan style because \"the rhetoric is very nearly the whole poem.\" Each of the twenty-three poets represented in the anthology receives a brief biography that is very interesting and colorful, preparing the ground for the verse to follow, and there are madrigals, too. It isn't just an anthology of verse: it's about writing poetry and the joy of reading it.\n\nFrom Anchor Books, Pyke Johnson flew out to Denver to meet Williams for the first time and convey his congratulations on the upcoming publication of the anthology. The two walked around campus, and Williams told Johnson the story of how his interest in Renaissance poetry had begun, principally due to his friendship with Alan Swallow and his reading of Yvor Winters' _In Defense of Reason_.\n\nIn mid-June, Williams took the train two thousand miles to New York and met Lonnie, who preferred to fly, at Idlewild Airport (now John F. Kennedy International). Ahead of him, he had mailed a completed draft of _A Matter of Light_ to Rodell at her office in Manhattan on East Forty-Eighth Street, just off Fifth Avenue. She was not at all sanguine about the appeal of _A Matter of Light_ , a college novel whose protagonist, the narrator admits on the first page, was eminently forgettable:\n\nStoner's colleagues, who held him in no particular esteem when he was alive, speak of him rarely now; to the older ones, his name is a reminder of the end that awaits them all, and to the younger ones it is merely a sound which evokes no sense of the past and no identity with which they can associate themselves or their careers.\n\nRodell's pessimism was not unjustified\u2014it was based on what people were reading. Novels at the top of the best-seller lists were richly adorned with description and dialogue\u2014lively stories that favored European settings: Daphne du Maurier's _The Glass Blowers_ ; Morris L. West's _The Shoes of the Fisherman_ ; and _The Moon-Spinners_ by Mary Stewart. Barring exceptions that year, such as J. D. Salinger's _Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, and Seymour: An Introduction_ , and G\u00fcnter Grass's _The Tin Drum_ , Americans generally preferred fiction that prized plot over character, and trusted genres they recognized at a glance: romance, historical fiction, biography, history, and so on.\n\n\"I may be totally wrong,\" Rodell said, speaking as someone who had agented one of the most talked-about books of the previous year, Rachel Carson's _Silent Spring_ , \"but I don't see this as a novel with high potential sale. Its technique of almost unrelieved narrative is out of fashion, and its theme to the average reader could well be depressing.\" She knew the market and readers' tastes. _A Matter of Light_ was going against the grain of contemporary literature.\n\nWilliams, however, seemed not to be listening, replying:\n\nOh, I have no illusions that it will be a \"best seller\" or anything like that; but if it is handled right (there's always that [excuse])\u2014that is, if it is not treated as just another \"academic novel\" by the publisher as _Butcher's Crossing_ was treated as \"western,\" it might have a respectable sale. The only thing I'm sure of is that it's a good novel; in time it may even be thought of as a substantially good one. A great deal more is going on in the novel than appears on the surface, and its technique is a great deal more \"revolutionary\" than it appears to be.\n\nAnd so, with that, he prepared to sail.\n\nThe MS _Berlin_ had weighed anchor shortly before noon in New York Harbor on a clear, hot day in late June to begin its weeklong journey across the Atlantic to Southampton. As a diversion, Williams kept a journal during the crossing. He intended to relax by jotting down his impressions of what he saw and heard\u2014good practice for a writer. But strangely, strains of unpleasant feelings related to the World War II seem to have intruded on his thoughts.\n\nHe may have accidentally invoked them by choosing for the voyage exactly the same kind of composition booklets he'd used in Burma, and this was his first oceanic trip since shipping out for India in 1943. Warming up his pen by journaling, he noticed that shadows of the war seemed everywhere. \"I had known it was a German ship, but I had not really anticipated that most of the passengers would be German. But\u2014my God!\u2014they are,\" he wrote. A sense of history, and the rise and fall of power, had stolen aboard somehow. He caught a little boy goose-stepping up and down the corridor outside his stateroom door. The resentful expressions he saw on the faces of the ships' German laborers, \"the deck hands, lowest of the crew members,\" who picked up the cigarette butts and trash, made him think of the concentration camps: \"These are the men\u2014the sergeants, the corporals\u2014who did the physical shoving of the victims into the ovens\u2014laughing perhaps, making jokes\u2014while our ship's officers stood by and shook their heads regretfully, after they had signed the orders.\"\n\nA topic of conversation in the ship's baronial and high-ceilinged passenger lounge\u2014\"English style in oiled walnut and green leather, a peculiar kind of wilderness\"\u2014was John F. Kennedy's arrival in West Berlin that week. His refrain of \"Ich bin ein Berliner!\" within sight of the Berlin Wall, on the knife-edge of the Soviet hegemony, would be met with roars of acclamation from tens of thousands of West Berliners, some of whom, just twenty years earlier, had shouted themselves hoarse swearing their allegiance to the Thousand-Year Reich.\n\nIt made Williams think about the mystery of identity. He had heard a story, shortly after the publication of _Butcher's Crossing_ , about a scandal during the reign of Caesar Augustus. Despite being emperor of the Western world, he couldn't force his daughter Julia to obey him. Though he trusted her with private secrets, she would not be reined in. Her behavior gave his enemies reason to hope that he was vulnerable. In 2 BC, Augustus exiled his only child to a tiny island called Pandateria, removing her from society. Here in mid-ocean, Williams thought about the human dimension of the conflict: on the throne Augustus was emperor; in his own home, he was a father with a difficult daughter, and the ramifications shook the known world. In Augustus' story, in postwar Germany, and in the novel he was working on, _Stoner_ , the question of identity, and which one was truest, intrigued him. It spoke to the person who had been John Jewell, then \"Jon\" Williams, and the effort to become what he wanted to be.\n**CHAPTER TWELVE**\n\n\"The Williams Affair\"\n\n_I don't wish any communication with Williams unless it is to plead for mercy. . . . I will wreck this book unless you provide proper acknowledgment_.\n\n\u2014YVOR WINTERS, 1963\n\nThe Williamses unpacked their travel belongings in their rooms at 26 St. Michael's Street in Oxford, a rather dingy three-story rooming house run by a Mrs. McArdle in a neighborhood that wore, as someone said about the face of postwar England, \"an insulted look.\" Their disappointment with the living arrangements contributed to strains between them, until, after just three weeks, Lonnie announced that she was going home early. \"I believe she misses the kids,\" Williams explained to Marie Rodell, minimizing what her sudden departure suggested about the state of their marriage. Williams stayed on, enjoying the tourist-crowded streets of Oxford and discovering, to his surprise, that \"the teachers here in the University are no better than you will find in a decent graduate department in the States\u2014perhaps not quite so good, really, though they do speak better and are a great deal wittier and handsomer.\"\n\nIn the meantime, Rodell had given _A Matter of Light_ to Cecil Scott at Macmillan. As she predicted, the response was a flat-out no. In fact, Scott and his associate editor, Al Hart, were willing to let Williams go. \"While both of us agree that the writing is excellent, we simply cannot foresee a satisfactory sale, the sort of sale that John would expect and feel entitled to. We understand, too, that this will mean our losing John as an author, which disturbs us because quite obviously he has a bright future in front of him.\"\n\nWilliams was unfazed, and, as Rodell prepared to send the manuscript to other publishers, he expressed relief they were finally free of Macmillan, writing, \"I can't really believe that it's going to be impossible for us to find a publisher for the novel, and I suspect that almost anyone we get will be an improvement.\" He asked her to wait until he could tighten the manuscript a bit more, but she had already sent it on to Little, Brown and Company, along with a letter that sounded like regret: \"Here is John Williams' new novel, _A Matter of Light_. This is not the final draft; John wants to do more with the wife's motivations, for one thing.\"\n\nWhile he was away in Oxford, Williams' editor at Doubleday Anchor, Pyke Johnson, also took a vacation for most of July. _English Renaissance Poetry_ had been in college bookstores since May, ready for the fall semester, and sales of the first printing of ten thousand had been brisk. When Johnson returned to the office, on his desk was an airmail letter from Williams\u2014a nice coincidence for bringing him up to date about the anthology's success. But there was also a small sheaf of correspondence in chronological order, on top of which was a three-page letter from Yvor Winters.\n\n\"Dear Sirs,\" Winters began frostily, \"There has recently come to my attention an anthology published by yourselves entitled _English Renaissance Poetry_ , edited by John Williams. I regret to inform you that you have been taken. The book is in a large and serious measure pirated from my own publications.\" To substantiate his claims, Winters had asked a colleague to compare the titles of poems from the Winters Canon against _English Renaissance Poetry_ 's table of contents. The overlap was about 80 percent. \"You will find not only a surprising number of the titles in Williams' anthology,\" Winters continued, \"but a theory of the history of the sixteenth century lyric which Williams takes over bodily and which no one except myself (or so far as I know has ever) propounded. . . . Williams discusses many of the poets exactly in my terms. This outline of 16th century poetry is original and it is correct, but it is mine, not Williams'. In so far as he departs from it, he departs into fog.\" Winters said he would have protested to the English Department chairman at the University of Denver, too, if it weren't for the fact that \"the poor bastard has a wife and two or three kids, and they need the job.\"\n\nUnderneath this opening salvo was a reply to Winters from Johnson's assistant. \"John Williams is presently abroad, so I am afraid we will not be able to contact him about this matter until the fall. Mr. Johnson, the editor of the volume is also on vacation for a few weeks, but I am sure he will give your letter his prompt attention when he returns.\" Winters, beside himself with anger, replied accordingly. Into a file he labeled \"The Williams Affair,\" he placed a carbon of his response, which carried a threat of retaliation:\n\nI have your courteous brush-off letter of yesterday. There is not the slightest reason why this matter should wait until Mr. Williams gets back from his tour of Europe or Mr. Johnson from his vacation. In a matter as scandalous as this Doubleday should act at once. If Doubleday does not act, there are more ways I can act than by suing. You are someone's secretary, and doubtless have little understanding of my access to the literary press. I have easy access, however; and I am familiar with the laws of libel. If you people insist on slow action, I will make a quick scandal out of it. I am one of the best-known poets, critics, and scholars now living.\n\nJohnson's assistant, rattled by talk of libel, asked another editor to intercede, who assured Winters that the matter was being taken very seriously; but he refused to be mollified. \"I will not wait for Williams to return from his junket in Europe. . . . Besides, there is nothing he can say, and he knows it.\" He demanded that Anchor Books redress his grievance, and if they didn't, he would \"activate the grapevine\" against Williams and drag his name through the mud.\n\nPyke Johnson, looking over this furious exchange that had taken place during his absence, considered what to do. He returned Winters' original three-page letter to his assistant and asked her to retype it, minus the personal attacks on Williams. Then, to accompany the redacted copy, he included a business-like memo to Williams, reducing Winters' fury to a problem that needed looking into. \"I arrived back from vacation this morning and found your nice note of July 22nd,\" he wrote Williams. \"Unfortunately, there was also on my desk some material that I bring to your attention most reluctantly, but also most urgently. You will find it enclosed in the form of excerpts from a long letter from Yvor Winters. . . . I am now writing him to say we cannot consider any action until we hear from you.\"\n\nWinters could accept that someone would plagiarize intellectual content from him\u2014his ego prepared him for that. But what galled him was the lack of attribution, which he believed was deliberate and typical of Williams. \"There is no question about Williams knowing my work,\" he wrote Johnson. \"Some years ago, my publisher taught at the University of Denver, and Williams was one of his students. Swallow introduced Williams to my work, and Williams has followed it closely ever since. I understand he has been teaching from it.\" Johnson chose not to share that allegation with Williams.\n\nIndeed, however, Williams' students did know of their professor's proclivity for borrowing. One of them, the poet Heather McHugh, who later became a MacArthur Fellow, wondered \"why a working novelist might occasionally lecture from verbatim hand-transcripts out of a standard text he never acknowledges.\" She recognized substantial quotations, complete with turns of phrase and rhetoric, from _Literary Criticism: A Short History_ by William Kurtz Wimsatt and Cleanth Brooks. \"At the time I felt a holy righteousness. . . . [I]f that's teaching, I thought indignantly, why even I could do it!\" But to Williams, it was a matter of priorities: he was a writer first and college instructor second. He had taken shortcuts since the beginning of his teaching career: from uncritically embracing Winters' theories about poetry, to piggybacking on Alan Swallow's Wyatt dissertation for his own on Fulke Greville, to compiling a poetry anthology incorporating Winters' scholarship.\n\nNor was it a matter of being forced to serve one master or the other. It was taken for granted that he would publish fiction\u2014he was the director of the creative writing program at Denver, after all\u2014and it would redound to the university's credit if he became well known. But the reality was that finishing a novel took him four or five years, and he would not take any more time away from his writing than necessary to teach. Unlike Professor St. Peter in one of his favorite Willa Cather novels, _The Professor's House_ , he would not say that he had \"done full justice to his university lectures, and at the same time carried on an engrossing piece of creative work.\" Still, his conscience was clear. Choosing between \"conflicting integrities,\" Williams said, \"that is, I think, essential drama; it is also essential life\u2014at least, essential civilized life. . . . Life forces us into compromise, and that has nothing to do with integrity. . . . Integrity is a private affair, essentially selfish.\"\n\nHis reply to Winters was of a gentleman caught in an error. \"I cannot tell you how miserable I am about this whole unhappy affair,\" he wrote, but he could not \"accept the implications of piracy and dishonesty.\" There was no way to avoid duplication among the greats of a particular era, although \"a large number of my selections do not correspond to your choices.\" And then, in a particularly telling passage of the long letter, he flew his true banner: he is a writer, first and foremost, making a living as a teacher:\n\nMy only motive for putting together this anthology was to make available some of the poems that you and I and others have admired. I do not think of myself as a critic or a scholar in the professional sense of those words, and I have no ambition to be thought of as such. I am primarily a novelist and secondarily a poet, though perhaps not a very good poet; but I am a teacher, and I put together the anthology as a service to my own students and to others who might not otherwise become acquainted with these poems.\n\nWithout admitting to guilt, other than to being influenced by Winters' seminal work on the English Renaissance, he offered to include \"in subsequent printings of the volume an explicit statement of my indebtedness to you and to others, in which I will also attempt to suggest that you are not to be held responsible for the distortions I may make to your or anyone else's ideas.\" He completed a draft of an acknowledgment page for the anthology's second printing, slated for September, paying respect to Winters, who had inspired the \"marked increase of critical interest\" in the period.\n\nWinters ignored the draft Williams sent him, and to Johnson, dismissed the offer of \"some kind of dust-throwing acknowledgement.\" In the meantime, Anchor Books got busy inserting slips into unshipped books explaining that the volume was based largely on Winters' work. As an extra gesture of goodwill, Johnson mailed Winters a gift: a set of recently published selections from Anchor Books' Seventeenth Century Series, plus an edited edition of _The Psalms of Sir Philip Sidney and the Countess of Pembroke_. \"I think that the editing of these volumes will come somewhat closer to meeting your standards,\" Johnson wrote to him. Several weeks passed and Johnson saw no more \"vituperative\" letters from Winters on his desk, a man with a \"monstrous ego,\" in his opinion, so he trusted that the matter was closed.\n\nTo Winters, however, it would never be closed; he wrote to friends that he would \"take care\" of Williams in due time. In _Forms of Discovery_ , published four years after Williams' anthology, Winters recounted the whole tale as a \"most interesting case,\" adding, archly, \"I mention Professor Williams, because I do not wish to give the impression that I am borrowing a large part of my book from him.\" Williams' anthology would be useful in classrooms, he admitted, but \"unfortunately, he often uses inferior versions of poems written by Wyatt and Ralegh.\" Disputation was not so much an art for Winters as it was a brawl with endless rounds until death sounded the final bell.\n\nNancy was surprised that John took it so hard. \"Yvor was a bit nuts, but that situation upset the living hell out of John,\" she said later. To have the person he most wanted to impress take his efforts as an insult, and worse, accuse him of plagiarism, was terrible\u2014in fact, beyond the exact reverse of his hopes, because his integrity became the issue. If he had written some ham-fisted criticism, or made a poor decision in his life as a teacher or administrator, it could be written off as a mistake. But Winters' attack implied that he had spent a long time in an endeavor that was intellectually dishonest, and that he had intended to get away with it.\n\nTwice now, Williams had been dismissed as an upstart, a pretender in the royal court of literature. His first major novel, _Butcher's Crossing_ , had been whipped out of town in the pages of the _New York Times_ as a pretentious western; and his _English Renaissance Poetry_ had been damned as arrogant by a famous critic. These humiliations could not be taken lightly. They were happening without the consolation that things would turn out in the long run, or that he would one day be vindicated. Readers of histories and biographies have the advantage of knowing the end of the story, but to the person living it, the darkness is all around. As Williams approached middle age, under the excuse that perhaps it was time he owned up to the limit of his abilities, he might have struck his colors and given up, believing that it's nobler to kill your dreams than to let someone else do it.\n\nIt's worth asking, then, why he was considering a third novel, this time set in the classical world. Was it because he was still casting around for a genre he could succeed in? Hadn't he found his niche yet, after all that time? When he was asked about this, his answer was simple: he liked the challenge; he enjoyed the adventure of testing himself each time in a new, imaginary world. \"I try never to repeat myself. . . . Why do it again, if you've done it once?\"\n\nWilliams completed his studies at the University of Oxford in mid-August 1963. Taking the train to Dover, he booked an overnight berth for the Channel crossing and continued on to Rome, eager to begin putting ideas on paper for a prospective novel about the emperor Augustus. For six weeks, he worked uninterrupted in a room at the Bellavista Milton on the Via di Porta Pinciana overlooking the Villa Borghese gardens. The decor was a bit garish and the wine overpriced, as if the establishment were trying to be worthy of its location two blocks from the fashionable Via Veneto, but the solitude delighted him.\n\n\"It's amazing what you can get done when you're alone,\" he wrote Rodell, \"and when you don't have desperate students breathing down your neck. I'm seeing the things I need to see for this Augustus novel, and I'm ahead of my schedule on the revision of the William Stoner novel.\" Regarding the latter, he felt certain, more than ever, that it was a solid piece of work, although the \"hardest thing I have ever done.\"\n\nWilliams believed in the Stoner book because it expressed his conviction that novels should \"imitate in form the natural world\"; or, as he put it another way, \"This happens, and then this happens, and then this happens.\" Time, the iron clock of the universe, goes in one direction, and the business of the novelist is to create \"the realized and presented history of a person, or persons, moving through sensibly experienced space and time, between the recognized intervals of birth and death.\" The closer one adhered, when writing a novel, to life as it's experienced by individuals day by day, he believed, the truer it would be. Joyce's _Ulysses_ and Woolf's _Mrs. Dalloway_ he admired for their technical virtuosity, but the sensibility of those works was intended to be poetic, and poems are about the \"chaos of experience,\" or sudden realized moments or impressions. This was inauthentic, solipsistic\u2014and, stylistically, \"a one-note samba,\" in one of his favorite phrases used in class, meaning that the effort is clever but ultimately uninteresting. Moreover, it expressed the author's personal truth, which may not be everyone's, or even a few persons'. The novel's strength was that it gave the novelist room to explore, to think in large ways about human nature and moral problems. It graced the author with opportunities to pause along the path of telling the story to observe the way people act, the choices they make, and thereby to illuminate\u2014not in a heavy-handed way, but with craft\u2014certain verities about life.\n\nCome the end of September, he boarded the SS _Constitution_ at Southampton for New York to resume his former life in Denver. The last he'd seen of Lonnie, she was on her way out the door in Oxford, after they'd been together for only three weeks. No doubt the tension in his marriage was rising into a wave that would break over him when he arrived home. \"I imagine by this time I'm an almost total stranger to the kids,\" he mused. His daughter Katherine would be starting high school soon; Pamela was in middle school, and Jonathan was still in elementary school.\n\n\"He came in late at night,\" Jonathan remembered, \"and we saw him the next morning, and he had been gone for like three months.\" At the breakfast table, the children asked about what he'd seen and done, but he didn't regale them with stories. Jonathan didn't expect that he would. \"You could go to him and tell him things and he'd be respectful and interact. But he would never come up to you and say: What did you do in school today? How was your day? What did you do today? It just never happened.\" Via the intuition that children develop about their parents, it was understood they were unhappy, which cast a pall over most things. Within days after his return, John and Lonnie began quarreling again. \"They always fought,\" Jonathan said. \"There were times when I remember huddling in the basement and hearing them fight\u2014about what, I have no clue what the fights were about.\"\n\nWhen at last Williams had had enough, he stormed out of the house, off to campus, or a bar, or in search of Nancy. At least he was in love with Nancy, who adored him. There was that to sustain him as he began the routines of the fall semester again\u2014teaching, attending department meetings, and reviewing applications to the creative writing program\u2014while in the background his third marriage was becoming increasingly hard for him to tolerate.\n\nAlso on his arrival back in Denver, there was a letter waiting for him from his brother-in-law, Butch, who was ensconced once again in Ajijic, footloose and writing full time. He had resigned from Winthrop College, and had taught creative writing briefly at the University of Southern California\u2014a \"pretty congenial place\"\u2014where they tried to get him to stay on. But it had never been his ambition to teach: it was the writing life for him, and so he and George Rae were back to being literary bums. \"How was it on the Oxford\/Rome axis?\" Butch asked. \"We had a wildly relaxing, wildly productive summer in Ajijic, during which time I got so much accomplished on the novel that I can have the mother in the mails before the year's end.\" The novel was _Week with No Friday_ , a marijuana- and booze-infused portrait of the expatriate life in Ajijic among writers and artists. \"The advance on the novel, if it's publishable, might get us another year. Therefore, \"operating under the belief that thinking beyond six or seven years in the thermonuclear age is pointless, we have seized the day.\n\n\"Bring us up to date on your own itinerary down life's highway.\"\n**CHAPTER THIRTEEN**\n\n_Stoner_\n\n_And though I may seem to take something away from Stoner in the end at his death, I don't really; I give him more than he has had before, and more than any of us ever gain\u2014his own identity_.\n\n\u2014JOHN WILLIAMS, 1966\n\nNews from his agent about _A Matter of Light_ \u2014renamed now _A Matter of Love_ in an effort to give it a fresh start\u2014was not encouraging. After a desultory period at the end of 1963 when a series of editors returned the manuscript to Marie Rodell, a response from Simon and Schuster in March confirmed what she had been warning Williams about from the beginning: the story of Professor Stoner was depressing. \"Several others here have now read the manuscript,\" she wrote him, \"and we're all in agreement that it is a book to be respected highly but that it has such a pale grey character that it would be most unlikely to earn its keep in hard covers and almost impossible to sell to a paperback house. . . . What a simpatico writer\u2014yet what a problem he presents.\"\n\nFalling down the ladder of large publishers, rung by rung, _A Matter of Love_ passed through the hands of Pyke Johnson as well, editor of the contentious poetry anthology, who said, \"I found it a very moving story, one that might have been told of several professors I met along the academic path, as well as people completely outside the Groves.\" But ultimately, Johnson concluded, it wasn't right for him.\n\nUntil now, Williams had been campaigning for his work with zeal, trying to put the sunniest light even on rejections. To Rodell, he speculated that perhaps the book was destined for a more \"literary house.\" It might be slow to find a home, but \"I still cannot convince myself that we are going to have an impossible time getting it placed. Whatever its 'commercial' possibilities, I believe finally that its quality will, if nothing else, shame someone into wanting to do it. I may be na\u00efve; but I cannot help believing that somewhere, someone will feel compelled to publish a good novel.\"\n\nHe kept up the good front, but within days of _A Matter of Love_ being characterized as having \"a pale grey character\" and being \"impossible to sell,\" he also received a dispiriting letter from the director of the University of Missouri Press, quoting an outside reader's opinion of his poetry collection, _The Shape of the Air_. \"The poems reflect his academic experience,\" the reader had decided. \"Most of the poems . . . lack the vitality which distinguishes the exciting poet from the hand of the craftsman, the passion of the poet is missing. . . . The imagery in the epigraphs is banal and the philosophical content, on which their merit might conceivably rest, is scarcely worthy of serious consideration.\"\n\nRemarks of that sort seemed to be telling him that he was an academic trying to become something he was not. Signs pointed to the advisability of dropping anchor in the harbor of academia and forgetting about the high seas of literature altogether. A memo from the dean, received the same day as the rejection about _The Shape of the Air_ , congratulated him on being promoted to full professor for the fall semester. This came on the heels of the university receiving a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to create a national literary quarterly, and Williams had been offered the position of editor. He would have the freedom to set the direction of the publication, solicit contributions, review submissions, and put the quarterly into the hands of readers around the country\u2014a far more influential role than having his verse published in little magazines.\n\nHis academic career, as opposed to his efforts as a novelist, had a wholeness and symmetry that reflected well on him. Here he was, director of the creative writing program, and soon to be editor of a small press quarterly\u2014very similar to Alan Swallow's achievements at that age. It had taken over fifteen years, but he had equaled or exceeded his mentor in most respects. And yet, it was practically guaranteed that very little would change in his professional life during the coming years: there would be classes to prepare for, students to advise, meetings to attend, dissertations to read, and then the lassitude of summers before it started all over again. By the time he was an old man, his adventures in fiction and poetry would seem, in retrospect, like things he had dabbled in, fond ideas and so on.\n\nPerhaps it was time to take stock. He was forty-two: the age at which Professor Stoner, Williams wrote, \"could see nothing before him that he wished to enjoy and little behind him that he cared to remember.\" After twenty years of trying to make a name for himself as a novelist, he was nowhere. \"In those days you could put literary Denver in a phone booth,\" said Joanne Greenberg, whose 1964 novel, _I Never Promised You a Rose Garden_ , would become an international best seller. \"And I met John at some literary event. I met him because he was this small, well-made, dapper guy\u2014drink in one hand, cigarette in the other\u2014holding forth. He was very theatrical. 'Who is that?' I asked. 'He writes Westerns,' somebody said.\"\n\nStudents who sought him out for advice found him occupying an untidy office down the hall from the English Department, which was still housed in a former dormitory. No framed awards hung from his walls indicating that anyone would be fortunate to have the benefit of his experience as novelist and poet. When he stayed late at night, he drank from a bottle of whiskey he kept in a desk drawer. A note from one of his graduate students expressed thanks for his help, but also sympathy for someone who was clearly discontented: \"Your class lectures were consistently and intensely stimulating. Your opinions, presented in your capacity as my adviser, in some cases saved me much time and energy in many extremely profitable pursuits in the academic field and the field of creative writing.\" The young man was readying a collection of poems for publication, starting out on the path that Williams had begun many years ago. \"In closing let me say that I am aware that, for various reasons, we never became friends. I am aware, too, that there is much anger, and bitterness, and even vehement contempt for what you see in the world. Nevertheless, I do hope that you also feel, for me, at least a modicum of the warm regard I feel for you.\"\n\nOne afternoon, Williams sat quietly at Nancy's house, preoccupied about something. He crushed his cigarette in a tray and exhaled a brooding cloud of smoke. \"I don't need to write novels,\" he said.\n\nShe was stunned by how dismissive he sounded. \"He was tough. If he said he might quit, he might. He was that type, he could just say, 'Okay, that's it,'\" she later said. \"But I didn't want him to stop\u2014writing meant everything to him and I was worried that if he quit, he would never be happy.\"\n\nAt 625 Madison Avenue, in the manic heart of \"Mad Men\" advertising agencies, Viking Press occupied a corner of the book world that authors dreamed about joining. On its list were writers who received splashy reviews in magazines that were bellwethers of new and exciting literature\u2014 _Harper's_ , _The Atlantic_ , the _Saturday Review_ , or _Time_ , for instance\u2014writers who were in the vanguard of a cultural shift in America, such as Saul Bellow, William S. Burroughs, Robert Coover, Ken Kesey, and Thomas Pynchon. The Viking catalog also included respected works of intellectual history and criticism by Hannah Arendt, Barbara Tuchman, and Lionel Trilling, as well as poetry by Phyllis McGinley, Marianne Moore, and Siegfried Sassoon.\n\nIf you were asked to meet with a Viking editor, you took the elevator up to the sixteenth floor, where the office doors were to the left, down the hall. As you entered, you had the impression of a private club. Recessed lights in the ceiling illuminated dark walnut bookcases, with book jackets displayed on the shelves like prints in an art gallery. The receptionist was seated behind a desk that resembled a three-sided pulpit made of the same dark wood; above her hung the company's nickel-plated logo: a Viking ship under full sail, designed by illustrator Rockwell Kent and chosen by the company's founder Harold Ginzburg as a symbol of enterprise, adventure, and exploration in publishing.\n\n\"Oh, Mr. Williams,\" the receptionist might say, \"you're expected,\" and you were invited to wait in one of the leather club chairs, opposite which were rows of black-and-white photographs mounted on the wall in silver frames: James Joyce, Graham Greene, John Steinbeck, Stefan Zweig, Sherwood Anderson\u2014authors from the early days. When you were told you could go in now, you followed a paneled corridor past the office of the founder's son, Thomas Ginzburg, a trim man with Mediterranean features whose suits and shirts were hand-tailored. The chairs in his office were covered in chintz; and, just for whimsy, he had a model train that ran. Although he had the final say on any manuscript an editor wanted to purchase, he relied on one of his best editors\u2014considered brilliant in fiction publishing: Corlies M. Smith.\n\n\"Cork,\" as his friends called him, was another patrician of the book world. He had attended the Episcopal Academy outside Philadelphia, a boys' school that was nearly as old as the United States itself. Tall and good-looking, he'd worked at Lippincott in Philadelphia after graduating from Yale in 1951. The editorial side of publishing at that time was the preserve of Ivy League graduates in tweed suits and button-down shirts\u2014a style Smith personally preferred because, as he said to a colleague, \"this is not about fashion.\" When he left Lippincott in 1963\u2014at one point he had threatened to resign if any of fourteen uses of \"screw\" and \"fuck\" were removed from Barbara Probst Solomon's _The Beat of Life_ \u2014he brought Thomas Pynchon with him to Viking.\n\nIn meetings, he expressed his opinions about authors and submissions in a collegial way to avoid giving the impression that he believed he had unerring instinct. But he was extraordinarily perceptive\u2014a good judge of what mattered, whether the title in question was destined to be hardback literary fiction or a trade paperback for the mass market. Once he got down to working with an author, his method was hands-on, or getting \"close-in.\" His edits were returned with reports referring to specific pages; and, if necessary, he would recommend getting together to discuss changes.\n\nIn June 1964, Smith received a manuscript from Marie Rodell, whom he had known since Lippincott days. It was _A Matter of Love_ by John Williams. The title was bland, he thought, but he settled in to give it a read.\n\nFrom the first pages, it was clear that Williams had written a novel that was, as he had intended, \"somewhat against the 'fashionable' novel.\" American fiction in the 1960s tended to declare heatedly, as Irving Howe complained, that \"something about the experience of our age is unique, a catastrophe without precedent.\" The story of Professor Stoner ran against that grain. It was strangely profound, despite its subject\u2014the life of an unremarkable man. It proceeded with a deliberate, unhurried step, almost at the stately pace of Greek drama, because, as Williams himself said, he wanted to \"hold the attention of the reader without resort to gimmicks and inventions,\" with a narrative \"moving primarily upon that level on which we are moved in life.\"\n\nFor his main character, William Stoner, Williams had looked to his colleague J. V. Cunningham. Cunningham was from a working-class background and had entered university life because an older man, Yvor Winters, had pointed out the way to him. Cunningham's first marriage, to the poet Barbara Gibbs\u2014called \"disastrous\" by one who knew him well\u2014had produced a daughter, Margie, and he had assumed custody of her.\n\nOn the first page of the novel, Williams begins at a point not often dared by writers: the story is already over, and the narrator is merely reporting the events that happened. He had tried it once before in _Splendid in Ashes_. But now, the unemotional tone, the understatement, dispenses with all attempts at literariness. \"William Stoner entered the University of Missouri as a freshman in the year 1910, at the age of nineteen. Eight years later, during the height of World War I, he received his Doctor of Philosophy degree and accepted an instructorship at the same University, where he taught until his death in 1956.\"\n\nThe hero's surname, \"Stoner,\" suggests the obdurate life he had led growing up with his parents as dirt farmers in Missouri, an existence of unbroken labor and silence. The longest speech he ever heard his father make occurs one night at the kitchen table; the subject is college. The older man repeats the county agent's remark that \"they got new ideas, ways of doing things they teach you at the University.\" Perhaps young Stoner should enroll in college and study agriculture. Left unsaid is the expectation that, as the couple's only child, he will return to run the farm.\n\nOnce enrolled at the University of Missouri, however, \"the required survey of English literature troubled and disquieted him in a way nothing had ever done before.\" He's startled awake by poetic language. A sonnet by Shakespeare, read aloud by his instructor, Professor Sloane, speaks to him across the span of three hundred years, and Stoner experiences a sense of existing, of being aware of himself:\n\nHe looked away from Sloane about the room. Light slanted from the windows and settled upon the faces of his fellow students, so that the illumination seemed to come from within them and go out against a dimness; a student blinked, and a thin shadow fell upon a cheek whose down had caught the sunlight. Stoner became aware that his fingers were unclenching their hard grip on his desk-top. He turned his hands about under his gaze, marveling at their brownness, at the intricate way the nails fit into his blunt finger-ends; he thought he could feel the blood flowing invisibly through the tiny veins and arteries, throbbing delicately and precariously from his fingertips through his body.\n\nUntil that moment, Stoner has lived enveloped by the insensate world of nature. But language makes it possible for him to reach new consciousness. Words permit reasoning, which can be used to concretize elusive qualities of life. To make real _futility_ , Williams describes the home where Stoner grew up: \"The floors [of the house] were of unpainted plank, unevenly spaced and cracking with age, up through which dust steadily seeped and was swept back each day by Stoner's mother.\" The image is mythic in its power to express, like the task of Sisyphus, the terror of endlessness. The psychological depth Williams had tried to achieve in _Nothing But the Night_ , and the forcefulness that eludes him in writing verse, he invokes to tremendous, moving effect in _Stoner_. It's as if he has taken a carpenter's plane to the solipsistic, useless overwriting of _Nothing But the Night_. He \"strips the narrative of its rhetoric,\" in Hilton Als' phrase, and shaves down each sentence to Flaubertian exactness.\n\nStoner switches his major to English literature without telling his parents, and informs them when they arrive on campus to see him graduate that he will not be returning with them to the farm. They receive his news with the same stoical acceptance as they would the fact that inadequate rainfall that season has killed the fields. They are not people of words. He \"watched his father's face, which received those words as a stone receives the repeated blows of a fist. . . . [His mother] was breathing heavily, her face twisted as if in pain, and her closed fists were pressed against her cheeks.\" His decision not to return has put them under a sentence condemning them to work without the benefit of his help and his \"new ideas,\" contrary to what the county agent promised, for the rest of their lives.\n\nStoner receives his PhD in English literature in 1918, the year he meets Edith Bostwick, the daughter of a local banker. From the outset, it's clear that their romance is flawed. Stoner's idealized expectations about love are taken from books. In his courses, \"Tristan, Iseult the fair, walked before him; Paolo and Francesca whirled in the glowing dark; Helen and bright Paris, their faces bitter with consequence, rose from the gloom.\" These are only counterfeits of love that a mature couple might discard in time. But what's fatal to Bill Stoner and Edith Bostwick's relationship is that they lack a shared, personal language, the intimate \"little language\" of lovers, as Jonathan Swift called it. Their inarticulateness is painful:\n\n\"It was a very nice reception,\" Edith said faintly. \"I thought everyone was very nice.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, of course,\" Stoner said. \"I meant . . .\" He did not go on. Edith was silent.\n\nHe said, \"I understand you and your aunt will be going to Europe in a little while.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said.\n\n\"Europe . . .\" He shook his head. \"You must be very excited.\"\n\nShe nodded reluctantly.\n\n\"Where will you go? I mean\u2014what places?\" . . .\n\nStoner was silent for a moment.\n\nHe attempts to corner her into talking; and then suddenly, all in a rush, she begins \"to tell him about herself, as he had asked her to do. He wanted to tell her to stop, to comfort her, to touch her. He did not move or speak.\" She continues on and on, mechanically relating a litany of facts about herself, deposing everything about her life because, as we will come to understand, she feels contempt for sincerity, for love, for everything that's weak or vulnerable. Her talk is obliging noise. She's a disappointed romantic, and carries on the courtship with an imperceptible sneer.\n\nWilliams' portrait of Edith has been criticized as misogynistic. But he implies that she has been a victim, and the blame belongs to an abusive man, her father. \"'They were very close,' Edith's mother said mysteriously. 'Much closer than they seemed.'\" On his wedding night, Stoner \"put his hand upon [Edith] and felt beneath the thin cloth of her nightgown the flesh he had longed for. He moved his hand upon her; she did not stir; her frown deepened.\" After intercourse, she hurries into the bathroom and vomits. Much later, on the day of her father's funeral, Edith returns to her parents' home after the service, to the bedroom she had as a girl, and divides her personal items into two piles: one is for gifts and notes from school friends and relatives, and the other is for what \"her father had given her and of things with which he had been directly or indirectly connected.\" Everything from him\u2014dolls, clothing, pictures\u2014she smashes, pounds, or burns in the fireplace, \"methodically, expressionlessly.\" This exorcism only partly succeeds. After the ritual, she goes to the opposite pole, beginning her life again, this time as an artsy, free-spirited, unconventional woman. The effect is pathetic: \"she seemed happy, though perhaps a bit desperately so.\"\n\nThe marriage will be unhappy, Stoner realizes, because they are fundamentally antagonistic. Edith Bostwick is winter; he, a former farmer, is summer. Their union is impossible, unnatural even. \"In her white dress she was like a cold light coming into the room.\" Her face \"was like a mask, expressionless and white.\" When the couple moves to a house near campus because Edith demands it, she \"wanted it white, and he had to put three coats on so that the dark green would not show through,\" as though burying their relationship under snow. For two months, she is wildly sexual, waiting \"crouched in the semidarkness,\" like a predator. But there is no tenderness; and her \"eyes were wide and staring,\" as if sex were an assault. Her strange behavior stops immediately when she becomes pregnant. After months of sickness, she delivers a baby girl, Grace, with whom Stoner \"falls instantly in love\"; but for a year, Edith acts troubled and upset when she tries to hold her infant daughter in her arms.\n\nAbout that time, a new instructor joins the English Department named Hollis N. Lomax, a specialist in nineteenth-century literature. Holding a PhD from Harvard, he delays his appearance until the first department meeting. Then he enters, a figure from Gothic Romance:\n\nSomeone whispered, \"It's Lomax,\" and the sound was sharp and audible through the room.\n\nHe had come through the door, closed it, and had advanced a few steps beyond the threshold, where he now stood. He was a man barely over five feet in height, and his body was grotesquely misshapen. A small hump raised his left shoulder to his neck, and his left arm hung laxly at his side. His upper body was heavy and curved, so that he appeared to be always struggling for balance; his legs were thin, and he walked with a hitch in his stiff right leg. For several moments he stood with his blond head bent downward, as if he were inspecting his highly polished black shoes and the sharp crease of his black trousers. Then he lifted his head and shot his right arm out, exposing a stiff white length of cuff with gold links; there was a cigarette in his long pale fingers. He took a deep drag, inhaled, and expelled the smoke in a thin stream. And then they could see his face.\n\nIt was the face of a matinee idol.\n\nLong ago, John Ed Williams, the teenaged poet of Wichita Falls, had been dazzled by matinee idol Ronald Colman, and had taken him for the epitome of the Romantic hero. But in the character of Lomax, Williams parodies the sentimentality of Romanticism for teaching that feelings can be relied on as a guide to truth. \"I am Lomax,\" the visitor intones, after a theatrical pause, in a \"deep and rich\" voice\u2014a customary thing to say, but meant to seem profound because it was delivered melodramatically. There is an air of charlatanism about Lomax. For Professor Stoner, whose field is logical thought and the poetry of the classically influenced English Renaissance, his antithesis has arrived.\n\nLomax avoids his colleagues, although he is \"ironically pleasant\" to them. His classes are popular because he performs: he trades on the cult of personality. And then, on an unusually cold night in September\u2014Edith-weather, in other words\u2014Lomax surprises everyone by attending a house-warming party at the Stoners' home. Getting quite drunk, he stays till almost dawn, talking about his loneliness, his inadequacies, and how literature had been a refuge. Before he leaves, he gives Edith a chaste kiss on the lips, and whispers something to her, as if they understand one another. The next day, Stoner tries to follow up with overtures of friendship; but Lomax\u2014threatened by how his drunkenness made him drop his Byronic mask of alienation and self-sufficiency\u2014snubs him \"with an irony that was like cold anger.\" Lomax's resentment never lessens; he becomes half of the ancient Fairchild-Ramsay feud at the University of Missouri. Probably because Fairchild limped, Williams unconsciously wrote \"Fairchild\" sometimes in his manuscript instead of \"Lomax.\"\n\nStoner carries on, a conscientious but not inspiring teacher. Despite his love of language, he pulls back uncertainly from conveying his passion for it, as if that would be admitting too much. He publishes a book in his field, awed by his temerity at daring to make a bid for immortality. When he holds it in his hands, it seems \"delicate and alive, like a child.\" His affectionate relationship with his daughter, Grace, six years old now, fulfills him, too. The simplicity of his love for her, his instincts as a father, lead him to believe \"that it might be possible for him to become a good teacher.\"\n\nBut Edith cannot live comfortably without conflict. Like her complement, Lomax, she is histrionic, a born thespian, because drama gives her a role. She resents the feeling of calm between Stoner and Grace. After her absence following her father's death, when she returns home, Edith says to her daughter, \"'Gracie, honey,' . . . in a voice that seemed to [her husband] to be strained and brittle, 'did you miss your mommy? Did you think she was never coming back?'\" Surprised that such a frightening thought had never occurred to Grace, Edith determines to give her the education about family relationships that Stoner is failing to give. One evening, when Grace and her father are in his study, \"laughing together, senselessly, as if they both were children,\" Edith enters and tells Grace not to disturb her father. Confused, Grace leaves the room. The \"enormity\" of his wife's \"surprise attack\" suddenly becomes clear to Stoner. From now on, Edith will hold Grace hostage in a never-ending game of making her complicit in hurting her father. Wearily, he surrenders to his wife's stratagems, and concedes his happiness at home. \"There are wars and defeats and victories of the human race that are not military and that are not recorded in the annals of history,\" Williams writes. But in another contest, this one in the English Department, Stoner realizes he cannot stand by.\n\nOne of Lomax's doctoral students, Charles Walker, comes to Stoner to ask a favor. His area is Romantic poetry, and he's a younger version of his adviser: his left hand hangs \"stiffly at his side, and his left foot dragged as he walked.\" He wants Stoner's permission to enroll in an overloaded, and challenging, seminar on the influence of the Latin tradition on English literature. Professor Lomax has assured him he can handle the work. Stoner listens and decides to give this impulsive young man what he wants.\n\nOn the first day of class, Walker is late. Then he interrupts with questions for the sake of drawing attention to himself. His remarks don't stem from curiosity; he wants to demonstrate that Romantic poetry, \" _real_ poetry,\" has no need of a classical perspective. After class, Stoner seeks reassurance from Lomax that Walker can indeed do the work. Lomax extolls his prot\u00e9g\u00e9's brilliance, adding, with \"cheerful malevolence, 'As you may have noticed, he is a cripple.'\" The insinuation is that Walker should be given extra consideration; and if Stoner doesn't agree, Lomax will take it personally. Thus Lomax has brushed aside the question of Walker's intellectual ability and made _feelings_ the issue.\n\nWalker's dependably off-the-point remarks continue in class, and when it becomes clear that his classmates regard him as a nuisance, he expresses \"outrage and resentment.\" The last straw, however, is an audacious stunt he tries to pull off that makes a mockery of academic study. He pretends to be reading his final paper aloud to the class, when he's really only extemporizing. In a sad imitation of Lomax's fervent style, he makes a rebuttal to a well-researched and thoughtful paper presented earlier by a student named Katherine Driscoll, whose genuine scholarship has earned Stoner's gratitude and respect. Walker's unserious response shows contempt for both him and Driscoll. Stoner gives him an F, to which Walker warns, \"You have not heard the last of this.\"\n\nThe confrontation comes, as it did between professors Fairchild and Ramsay, during Walker's preliminary oral examination\u2014with Stoner, Lomax (now the interim department chair), and two other academics at the table. It's clear that Lomax has coached his candidate, whose ignorance is appalling, but Stoner will not let the travesty get by. As a scholar, it's his responsibility to defend the profession, whose primary aim is to elucidate truth through knowledge and reasoning. Predictably, when Stoner refuses to agree to giving Walker a \"pass\" on the exam, Lomax accuses him of \"holding incipiently prejudiced feelings\" against Walker. But Stoner stands his ground\u2014at the cost of his career, as it turns out. A corrupt compromise, handed down from higher in the administration, allows Walker to take his oral preliminaries again, this time with a committee selected by the new English Department chairman, Hollis Lomax. Edith laughs at her husband's principles: \"Honestly, things are so important to you. What _difference_ could it make?\" When Stoner receives his teaching schedule for the new term, Lomax has assigned him courses appropriate for a beginning instructor.\n\nFollowing this defeat, Williams releases Stoner into a love affair with graduate student Katherine Driscoll; it's a release in the sense that love frees him to learn about what he is capable of. Williams emphasized the need for characters to have a moral identity that is not fixed, but constantly redefining itself, as a way of illustrating the complexity of people's relationships. This is not an argument that art should be moral: it was a practical consideration Williams had learned as an author for developing the identity of characters striving against an indifferent world.\n\nSome of Williams' favorite examples came from Henry James. (He once surprised one of his graduate students by bringing her a stack of James novels. \"Never mind what they tell you in class\u2014just read and study these. You have to learn it on your own.\") Williams subscribed to James' moral realism, where the \"imagination of loving\"\u2014the phrase used in _The Portrait of a Lady_ \u2014creates circumstances of passion involving moral choices the character can explore.\n\nAlthough the affair between Stoner and Katherine Driscoll becomes known, \"what surprised them both was that it did not seem to matter. No one refused to speak to them; no one gave them black looks; they were not made to suffer by the world they had feared. They began to believe that they could live in the place they had thought to be inimical to their love, and live there with some dignity and ease.\" However, running against society's strictures has consequences, or, as Williams liked to say, \"You pay your money and you take your choice, and you find at last that you can't have it both ways.\" Chairman Hollis Lomax is prepared to use the affair as an excuse to ruin their academic careers. Stoner is tenured and middle-aged, but Katherine is twenty years younger. For her sake, Stoner breaks off the relationship, and she quietly leaves town. He adjusts himself to accepting loneliness as a condition of his life. \"Stoner does endure too much, he accepts too much, and he doesn't fight enough,\" Williams wrote a friend. \"But if these are vices, they are vices that are merely the obverse of certain virtues\u2014virtues that allow him to endure in one world [his profession] at the expense of his happiness in another [his marriage].\"\n\nThe years pass, and after learning he has cancer, Stoner retires from teaching. Edith regards his illness as a tiresome inconvenience. Grace, who comes to say goodbye, has become a passive, colorless person; she drinks because she feels rejected. In the final moments of his life, Stoner gazes out the window of his sickbed on a summer afternoon, and then \"a sense of his own identity came upon him with a sudden force, and he felt the power of it. He was himself, and he knew what he had been.\" Williams, who never knew his father, who exaggerated his adventures and created a rather fey persona of the _artiste_ to cover his insecurities, gives Stoner the gift of self-knowledge, without the interfering fog of moral expectations or a Christian redemption. As his hero gently tells Katherine, when their love affair must end, \"We have come out of this, at least, with ourselves. We know that we are\u2014what we are.\"\n\nCork Smith at Viking offered a contract for _A Matter of Love_ in mid-July 1964. He wasn't crazy about the title (\"Unfortunately, I have no brilliant suggestions\"), so in the ensuing months, after a three-way correspondence between Smith, Marie Rodell, and Williams, they settled on _Stoner_ instead. \"I couldn't be more pleased with [Viking],\" Williams wrote to Rodell. \"Their first list is excellent and never so large as to be unmanageable. On the basis of all I know about the books they publish and seem to like I probably could not have chosen a house that would have pleased me better.\"\n\nIt was the beginning of a series of good things happening to him. Alan Swallow accepted a collection of his poems and brought them out under the title _The Necessary Lie_ as part of the press's Verb Poetry Series; Williams' anthology, _English Renaissance Poetry_ (with the acknowledgment to Winters added), was a hit among college instructors, as he had predicted, and went into a second edition.\n\nIn April, _Stoner_ appeared, lightly reviewed. Williams went to New York for an autographing party hosted by Viking and did a few interviews. Two strange things happened, and had Williams been thin-skinned, or superstitious, he might have taken offense. A limousine picked him up at his hotel for a talk show on radio. As he got in, \"Chuckles the Clown\" was sitting in the rear seat, on his way to the same radio program. He was in full circus regalia: a small man with a red rubber nose, black fright wig, huge white ruff, big shoes, and a baggy red-and-white polka-dotted suit made of silk. Williams regarded his companion's costume and thought to himself, \"But this is radio.\" He was chauffeured next to a circus-themed television show, hosted by \"a fat person named Stubby Kaye,\" which turned out to be a Saturday kiddie show called _Shenanigans_. \"I can't seem to get away from clowns,\" he mentioned dryly to Smith.\n\nBy June, sales of _Stoner_ stood at 1,700, less than half of Butch Marsh's _Week with No Friday_ about artists living a bacchanalian life in Mexico, which had been published the month before _Stoner_. \"The book is moving, but slowly,\" Cork Smith admitted. \"This in no way diminishes our feelings about the novel. You were right and we were right.\"\n\nThen, nearly a year after _Stoner_ 's release, in February 1966, a review by Irving Howe in the _New Republic_ hailed it as an overlooked discovery:\n\nGiven the quantity of fiction published in this country each year, it seems unavoidable that most novels should be ignored and that among these a few should nonetheless be works of distinction. _Stoner_ , a book that received very little notice upon its appearance several months ago, is, I think, such a work: serious, beautiful and affecting. . . . Mr. Williams writes with discipline and strength: he is devoted to the sentence as a form, and free from the allure of imagery. . . . I think there should be a few thousand people in this country who will find pleasure in the book.\n\nThe day after the review appeared, Williams arrived early at the English Department office dressed in his best. Howe's praise had come late, but it was reason to celebrate. He knew that a few of his colleagues subscribed to the _New Republic_ , so he made himself available in the outer office beside the faculty mailboxes. All day he sat in the reception area opposite the secretary at her desk, drinking coffee and smoking, as his fellow instructors walked past, to and from class. A few congratulated him, but most said nothing. A friend in the department, Robert Pawlowski, wasn't surprised. \"Most knew that great jealousy lived in a number of his colleagues and he stoically suffered them,\" Pawlowski later said. At five o'clock, when the halls had emptied out, Williams went into his office and closed the door behind him.\n\nThe review in the _New Republic_ didn't make much of a difference in sales. Cork Smith mailed out thirty thousand flyers to high school English teachers, hoping they would make _Stoner_ assigned reading. But that didn't improve the numbers, either.\nPART IV\n\n_Augustus_\n**CHAPTER FOURTEEN**\n\nBread Loaf and \"Up on the Hill\"\n\n_I would dearly love to find a kind of colleague with less than the rather staggering total of twenty-five years of service to the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. . . . There are things in_ Stoner _that make me think you might be such a person_.\n\n\u2014WILLIAM M. SLOANE TO JOHN WILLIAMS, 1965\n\nNancy didn't know many \"Lonnie people,\" nor did she want to know them. That part of John's life was his business and she trusted him to take care of it. She had acquiesced to his desire not to flaunt their relationship out of respect for Lonnie and the children. Among his friends, Williams was straightforward about having two households\u2014to Nancy's youngest child, he was her mother's friend, \"John Worms,\" but other than that, the professor and his mistress shared an unspoken bargain about the outside world and keeping it out. That included Alan and Mae Swallow.\n\nFrom what Nancy gathered, Alan had been largely responsible for John's career. John and Lonnie had met while working for Swallow Press. And after they married, the Swallows visited them a few times in Columbia, Missouri. Since then, for going on fifteen years, the two couples had been regulars out for dinner in Denver.\n\nAlan had slipped from the Denver scene somewhat, because of a traffic accident. Cruising noisily down the streets of Denver on his Indian motorcycle, he'd swerved to miss a turning car and caught his right leg on the handle of the passenger door. There had been a chance he would lose it up to the knee; instead, the surgeon reconnected the shinbone with a steel pin. Still, his foot flailed as he walked. To cope with the pain, he drank and \"worked like two men,\" as a friend said, to continue mailing out an average of fifty thousand books a year, in addition to publishing seventy-five new titles. Six months after the motorcycle crash, he collapsed in the living room on Christmas morning from a heart attack. From his bed he wrote letters to author friends, apologizing for having a body that couldn't keep up with him.\n\nAdded to the physical strain, though, was Swallow's spiritual isolation. The academic community in Denver had gradually forgotten him after he resigned in 1954 over the affair with a trustee's wife. At first, he had enjoyed the days spent humming along to the radio in the garage, chewing on a cigar, and corresponding with authors and booksellers, regaling them in multiple-page letters about his prospects. And it was good to see the boxes of finished books, smelling of fresh ink, delivered by a truck backing into his driveway. A delivery meant at least a week of late nights spent wrapping orders, individually or in parcels, and making sure to slip a handwritten invoice inside each one. Stacks of paperwork to be sorted sat on top of the file cabinets.\n\nSwallow Press truly absorbed him, but he missed the old days of noisy autographing parties at his home\u2014he didn't know whom to invite any longer, apart from old friends. Being stricken from the faculty mailing list meant he was out of the loop when it came to special lectures, social events, and English Department matters. He was just a \"townie\" now. While he'd been director of the creative writing program, publisher of the University of Denver Press, and owner-publisher of Swallow Press, there had been a wonderful synergy that put him at the center of everything he cared about.\n\nHis frustration over his estrangement surfaced in a reply to John Williams in March 1963 about some poetry Williams had submitted. Addressing his erstwhile student in the tone of a teacher, Swallow scolded Williams for being too easily distracted and not following through on his work. \"There are some good poems here, nicely done on real subject matter. But on the whole, I was disappointed. Too many poems seem to me to lack enough subject or theme to become interesting and test the accomplishment of versification.\" He chided him for continuing to devote energy to fiction. \"It seems possible that . . . in the last ten years or so, you have so concentrated your thought on fiction that the poetic concern has not blossomed as much as it would have otherwise.\"\n\nIn the meantime, Saturdays were sale days at the garage on York Street. In April 1966, Alan once again wrestled the folding tables into position for displays of discounted books\u2014ones that hadn't sold or were spoiled for some reason, with the prices written in pencil on the title page. The walk-in trade wasn't brisk\u2014mainly graduate students and people who stopped by to browse\u2014but he could do paperwork while the shop was open. He assumed his place at a card table near the front with an adding machine at his elbow for checkout. He saw a woman coming up the drive. It was Nancy.\n\nThere was no one else around, only the two of them, and after saying hello, Nancy walked slowly around the tables, her fingertips finding covers of books lying on their backs. She chose a few, holding them in the crook of her arm and pressing them against her sweater, until she was carrying five or six poetry and essay books. Alan rose and came to where she was at the far end of the garage. He stood by expectantly. She glanced up at him and offered the books for checkout. Instead, he tossed them on the table and grabbed her by the shoulders.\n\n\"Suddenly he slammed me against the wall and pressed himself against me,\" Nancy later said in an interview years later. \"I've never been so scared. He was a barrel-chested guy\u2014not tall, but solid. And there was nothing I could do. I kept saying, 'No, Alan, don't!' and he was groping. I'd not been flirting. I'm not a flirt. I said, 'No, Alan,' enough times that he just as suddenly backed off.\"\n\nShe hurried back to her car, her hands shaking as she tried to unlock door. In the interview, she said, \"Alan was probably thinking, 'This is John's whore,' because he was a friend of Lonnie's. I don't know. He could have killed me.\"\n\nShe drove away wondering whether she should tell John about what had happened. At first she thought she wouldn't, but she was too upset. She went to the apartment he kept near campus and told him everything. He left her there to wait and was gone an hour.\n\n\"And that was the end. He never spoke to Alan again,\" she said. \"After all that nurturing, and everything that Alan meant to John. I kept asking myself, 'Did I do anything? No, I just wanted to look at books.'\"\n\nCome June, John looked forward to being on his own for a few weeks once Lonnie and the children departed for Mexico to visit Uncle Butch and Aunt George Rae. He hadn't seen his sister and brother-in-law for twelve years, and he'd wrangled an invitation as part of a summer itinerary that would give him maximum time to do what he wanted. First, he needed to put the third issue of the _Denver Quarterly_ to bed; then, at the end of July, he would fly down to Mexico for a couple of weeks with his family in Ajijic. Finally, he'd be off to the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in Vermont for most of August.\n\nButch was in fine fettle when John arrived. _Week with No Fridays_ was selling well\u2014unlike _Stoner_ , which had fallen off the edge of the earth after the first few weeks. In fact, Butch's publisher had taken out a big advertisement in the _New York Times_. Butch had half a dozen photographs taken for publicity\u2014an expat American writer living the sweet life\u2014his sports coat thrown nonchalantly over one shoulder as he strolled around Ajijic. While John was visiting, they talked about Butch's next novel, which would be set in San Francisco, and the published short stories from little magazines he was going to pitch as a collection. John was all for it, and he reciprocated by talking about his next project: a novel about power, consisting of correspondence, he was thinking, between Roman senators, generals, and certain family members who benefited or suffered from the rise of Augustus.\n\nIt was to his credit that he never begrudged his brother-in-law's incremental successes\u2014partly out of loyalty to George Rae, who adored Butch\u2014but also because John was wholly focused on his own work. There were too many authors, living and dead, to envy. He was striving for respect as a novelist, and it didn't take anything from him to wish his brother-in-law well. Then, after a couple of weeks spent being dad and husband in Ajijic\u2014the kids' complaints about being bored got on his nerves\u2014Williams flew back to Denver and into Nancy's arms before continuing on to the Bread Loaf Conference in Vermont.\n\nHe'd been invited to Bread Loaf the year before, unfortunately too late for an instructorship for that session. But William M. Sloane, an editor and fantasy writer who helped run the event, made it clear that Williams was on the \"must invite\" list. \"I would dearly love to find a kind of colleague with less than the rather staggering total of twenty-five years of service to the Bread Loaf Writers Conference,\" he joked, referring to his own tenure there since World War II, \"so that some of what I believe in about this conference can be handed along to someone else who might possibly care very much about it after a year or two of experience. There are things in _Stoner_ that make me think you might be such a person.\" Williams accepted a position teaching poetry and fiction; the fee was an honorarium\u2014a few hundred dollars\u2014but the prestige of teaching at a conference reckoned to be the best in the country meant a lot to a writer in mid-career.\n\nHe wished Nancy could accompany him, but she had children and a large vegetable garden that was just coming into season. The strain of trying to have everything he wanted, to meet all of his commitments, personal and professional, was getting to him. \"I don't know whether or not I told you about my summer; it's a bitch,\" he wrote to an acquaintance. \"I had hoped to get some work done on my new novel, but the prospects look highly unlikely. . . . We don't need money\u2014we need time.\" In August 1966, he flew to New York and hitched a ride with the wife of a Bread Loafer instructor and her friend. Together they drove up through Concord, New Hampshire, and then northwest into central Vermont, to an upland valley shaped like a diamond in the Green Mountains.\n\nIt was midafternoon when they arrived, the day before the start of the conference, and the grounds were nearly deserted. A few attendees were registering at the rambling, turn-of-the-century Bread Loaf Inn, a gift from a local philanthropist to Middlebury College along with thirty thousand acres of timber forest. Smaller buildings\u2014cottages, a barn, a library\u2014were within walking distance, giving the place the appearance of a streetless village seated on an expanse of grass, dappled with old spreading trees. He was surprised to find the setting so bucolic. It was located \"some ten or fifteen miles from Middlebury, the nearest town of any consequence,\" he later wrote. \"It is a land-locked island of a wilderness so soft that it seems almost contrived. A dozen or so buildings\u2014from tiny cottages to spacious three-story houses\u2014are scattered randomly upon many acres of gently rolling fields, and in the near distance Bread Loaf Mountain lies squat upon the horizon.\"\n\nMiddlebury College had convened the first summer school session here in 1920. It was then called the Bread Loaf School of English and offered graduate-level study in English and American literature. Many of the attendees were teachers. Robert Frost, who lived in nearby South Shaftesbury, took an interest because he dreamed of owning a farm that would attract writers annually to a literary summer camp. He joined the first faculty of invited guests during the summer in 1922. Eventually, the two weeks remaining after the official end of summer school became the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, devoted exclusively to creative writing. And for almost thirty years since then, Frost had been its guiding spirit: Frost, the poet of the life and landscape of New England whose flinty personality made younger writers nervous. Then, in 1963, the first \"Frostless summer\" after a brief period of interim directors, he passed the baton to his heir apparent, the poet John Ciardi.\n\nCiardi had attended Bread Loaf before World War II and almost every year thereafter beginning in 1947, making him \"the conference's anchor in teaching poetry as surely as his deep baritone found a place in the evening sing-alongs,\" wrote David Haward Bain in his history of Bread Loaf, _Whose Woods These Are_. Ciardi did have one weakness, however\u2014his \"utter (sometimes dismaying) lack of modesty\" about his financial success, despite coming from a poor Italian neighborhood in Boston's North End neighborhood. Now the poetry editor of the _Saturday Review_ and host of _Accent_ , a weekly television magazine program, said he was the first poet in America to own a pink Cadillac DeVille. The car, his proudest possession, was parked outside the fine old Bread Loaf Inn the afternoon Williams checked in.\n\nCiardi handpicked his faculty. As an editor of the _Saturday Review_ , he had definite ideas about who belonged at Bread Loaf: primarily middle-aged white males who were part of the literary establishment and given to looking like Oxford dons, with sports jackets and briar pipes. Seymour Epstein, who didn't have a college degree, thought he had misheard when Ciardi said, cheerily, \"We'll have to have you up on the hill next summer.\" Epstein smiled and nodded, thinking he meant, \"We'll have you up to dinner sometime.\" But Epstein was typical of the kind of Bread Loaf instructor Ciardi was looking for: bright and broadly accepted. Epstein had just published _Leah_ , a vivid description of midcentury Manhattan through the eyes of a woman searching for love. Having been tapped by Ciardi himself, he accepted the invitation to come up to \"the hill\" as a new instructor that summer of 1966, the same as Williams. There was only one woman on staff that year: a children's book editor.\n\nJohn unpacked his suitcase, hung up his clothes in a closet that was \"as big as many a bedroom,\" and then went downstairs for a walk \"into the amber softness of the late Vermont afternoon.\" Drinks were available at Treman cottage, reserved for faculty, and he headed in that direction.\n\nDan Wakefield, a freelance journalist and author of _Revolt in the South_ , a 1961 collection of reports on the civil rights movement, had never heard of John Williams as he came through the door of the cottage. He later described him as a \"short, wiry, intense man with black hair, a sharp beard, and glasses,\" recalling that \"a fellow staff member identified him as the author of _Stoner_ , 'a novel that was supposed to be terrific.'\" Williams opened a beer and went over to a group making small talk to join the conversation. Within minutes, he and Wakefield got into a nasty argument over the merits of a minor political figure. The atmosphere in the room spoiled, Williams returned to his room and went to bed early, wondering \"not for the first time nor the last time in my life why I was where I was.\"\n\nAt breakfast the next morning, Ciardi, wearing a tweed jacket that seemed to billow on his huge, pear-shaped frame, welcomed the staff and students. His mission, he said, was to abide by Frost's \"first principle,\" as he called it, \"the center of the Bread Loaf idea: let them come together; let the writers, and the teachers, and the would-be writers, the hopeful and the hopeless come together; let good writers lead their discussion and set the terms of it; and let the talk be of writing from inside the writing process.\" Wakefield, glancing at _The Crumb_ , the daily conference newsletter placed each morning beside everyone's plate, saw that Williams was giving a reading later, and he decided to attend\u2014\"only from a sense of noblesse oblige, tinged with curiosity.\"\n\nHe took a seat at the appointed time, waiting for the presenter to begin. A few more Bread Loafers ambled in. Then, for twenty minutes, Williams read from _Stoner_ in his deep, rumbling voice, trained for radio broadcasts that went out into the gigantic Texas night, and \"the passages read were so eloquent, so moving in their understated passion,\" Wakefield said, \"that I rushed out after the lecture, bought the book, and spent the rest of the day reading it.\" That evening, seeing his adversary, the \"short, wiry, intense man,\" nursing a drink alone at Treman cottage, Wakefield went over and extended his hand. \"Look,\" he said, \"I don't give a _shit_ about politics.\" The two men remained friends for the rest of Williams' life.\n\nThe Bread Loaf Conference was a respite and a kind of safe harbor for Williams. In the English Department at Denver, he was a bit of an oddball, a raconteur at parties, an academic who wrote novels. But transported to the foot of Bread Loaf Mountain, he was admired. \"I was in awe of John,\" said one of the students years later. \"Deep voice, chain smoker, very intense. He would give a thoughtful answer about the weather. Rock-like, stone-like face, and then suddenly he would break into a big smile. He was gracious, but he said what he thought. He was surprised that people treated him as a true novelist and not an academic.\"\n\nThat fall, too, Alan Swallow attended a symposium on historical fiction in Pullman, Washington. Anyone encountering him there wouldn't have guessed that he was anything other than in good health. Novelist Frederick Manfred shook hands with him warmly. \"His leg had at last healed and he was walking around again like a young man. His face had once more the glow of health. He was lively and happy and full of gentle witticisms,\" he remembered. \"We all had a great time together. We were like a bunch of rancher brothers who, after looking for breaks in the fence all day, meet at dusk and sit around the campfire telling stories.\"\n\nReturning home, Swallow plunged back into the pile of Swallow Press work that was waiting. On Thanksgiving morning 1966, Mae woke up early to start breakfast. Hearing the motor of the electric typewriter whirring in the basement, she assumed that Alan had stayed up all night, and she took him down a cup of coffee. He was seated at his desk, bent forward with his head resting on the typewriter like it was a steel pillow, dead at fifty-one from a heart attack.\n**CHAPTER FIFTEEN**\n\nThe Good Guys\n\n_Well, I cleaned out my office, and guess what? I found a dead student_.\n\n\u2014JOHN WILLIAMS\n\n\"It never rains but it pours,\" Williams wrote merrily to his Bread Loaf friend Seymour Epstein in February 1967. \"And since you mention it, I _will_ tell you about my triumphs, my successes, my hopes, my dreams, my fears.\" He would be leaving in grand style on an ocean liner in May to research _Augustus_ , courtesy of a grant. He would return at summer's end for Bread Loaf, then retreat to his mountain cabin in Pine on sabbatical. Come the first of the year, he would begin as writer-in-residence at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Hence, he would be gone from the University of Denver for an entire year. Sounding a little bemused by this rush of opportunities, he wrote to Epstein, \"It is a strange new world.\"\n\nIt was hard to believe that just two years earlier, _Stoner_ had come and gone with only Howe's belated review in the _New Republic_ praising it. The following year, 1966, he wrote to another friend, seemed to Williams \"the worst year of my life, in some ways, as far as time is concerned,\" because teaching and editing the _Denver Quarterly_ had kept him from working on his new novel about Rome. Now, suddenly, he was feeling a measure of success. Unexpectedly, \"for me at least,\" he wrote Epstein, \" _Stoner_ has paid off handsomely,\" meaning that the novel had played a role in getting him the grant. \"Now, I should have finished the _Augustus_ novel by the summer of 1968.\" But he was going to need a replacement to take his classes, and asked Epstein, who accepted his offer of a temporary position in Denver's creative writing program.\n\nThe Augustus novel, as he imagined it, would depict Rome and the life of the emperor through imagined letters and journal entries. Major figures of the era would be put in conversation and conflict with one another: Julius Caesar, Marcus Agrippa, Maecenas, Cicero, Brutus, Mark Antony, Cleopatra, Strabo, Nicolaus of Damascus, Horace, Ovid, Virgil, and Augustus' daughter Julia. The structure would be \"webbed,\" he said. That is, it would \"not be straightforwardly chronological, but will cut back and forth in time, getting at Augustus's character from many different angles and points of view,\" using the novelist's art to illustrate the evolution of Octavian from a mild-mannered young man to Caesar Augustus, ruler of the Western world. \"He will become what he will become,\" says his tutor, the Greek Stoic Athenodorus, \"out of the force of his person and the accident of his fate.\"\n\nBut Williams would not try to describe the pageantry of banner-waving Roman legions or ships burning on the Ionian Sea. Too much of that would be a distraction from his main theme, which is how \"force of person\" meets the grinding forces of circumstance to forge an identity. His method of showing Augustus' development was his favorite: the _bildungsroman_ , where the journey is away from security toward self-formation. In _Butcher's Crossing_ , Will Anderson goes West to test his notions of himself against the world; in _Stoner_ , the farm boy Bill Stoner has an epiphany over a sonnet that sets the direction of his life. Octavian is still a teenager when the catastrophic news reaches him that his uncle, Julius Caesar, has been murdered. His young friends study him for a sign of what he will do, how he will react. \"For a long time we watched him, a slight boyish figure walking on the deserted field, moving slowly, this way and that, as if trying to discover a way to go.\"\n\nAnd for the second time, as he had in _Stoner_ , Williams would turn to the pain caused by a father-daughter relationship that has failed. He detected in Augustus' behavior toward his only daughter and biological child, Julia, \"some mystical identification between [her] and Rome; to the one he gave ethical training, education, and love; to the other he gave laws, a sense of order, and the dedication of his immense talent for ruling.\" When she is eleven, Augustus takes Julia's education and development into his own hands, and as she grows, he confides matters to her that he would trust to few others.\n\nDespite his carefulness, however, Julia defies him with public licentiousness that is politically dangerous. Macrobius records Augustus' remark: \"There are two wayward daughters that I have to put up with, the Roman commonwealth and Julia.\" For the sake of keeping order, he exiles her and her mother to an island. Five years later, she is allowed to return to the mainland, but her father never forgives her betrayal, or how she had placed pleasure above duty. \"As we know now, and as her father sensed then,\" Williams said, \"Rome went the way of Julia, not the way of Augustus.\"\n\nThat Williams would be concerned about the pain of being estranged from a child\u2014deeply enough to make it a theme in two novels\u2014would have surprised most of those who knew him. He preferred not to talk about personal matters. Colleagues and friends didn't know much about his war experiences, for instance, outside of a few anecdotes he repeated until they were threadbare. And although he and his fellow instructor Gerald Chapman were both raised in North Texas during the Depression, the coincidence never inspired Williams to talk about growing up in Wichita Falls. \"I think for John, that was the furthest topic of interest,\" Chapman said.\n\nBut about his eldest child, Katherine, he was uncharacteristically forthcoming. He exercised full bragging rights as a father, crowing about her successes at school, what she said about a book she was reading, and so on. How much he loved her was apparent to everyone in his circle. To him, a father's break with his child was one of the most traumatic things he could conceive of\u2014perhaps he drew on feelings about his own disappeared father, John Jewell. Katherine was a projection of him, part of his legacy. As a child, she realized her father's approval was somehow tied to writing. At seven, she begged not to have to write a thank-you note to Marie Rodell for a gift because she was afraid it wouldn't be good enough. By the time she was an adolescent, she regaled him at the dinner table with what was going on in her English class. John and Lonnie's middle child, Pamela, resented how her sister steered conversations to what their father preferred to discuss\u2014books, authors, ideas. \"My father was a snob,\" she said bitterly. The youngest, Jonathan, who was interested in mechanical things, also felt left out. \"I remember sitting around the dinner table and Kathy and my father would be talking about academic stuff. I got bored with it. It really never interested me at all. I think he resented that a little, because I wasn't following his path.\"\n\nIn May, Williams prepared to sail from New York on the brand new SS _France_ , the biggest ocean liner in the world, for a two-month stay in Europe. On a Saturday evening, friends arrived at his room on the promenade deck to see him off, among them Cork Smith, who related to Marie Rodell that the drinking and merry-making was \"notable.\" A week later, the ship arrived in Le Havre, and Williams caught a train to Stuttgart, where he purchased, factory-fresh, a maroon Mercedes-Benz 230 four-door sedan: front-wheel drive, six cylinders, four-speed manual transmission, radial tires, and a retracting sunroof. Tooling through the Alps on his way to Milan and thence to Rome, he cut the figure of a man in his prime. He registered again at the Bellavista Milton. The location had proved lucky for working on the final draft of _Stoner_ four years before; now he could get down to the business of planning _Augustus_.\n\nIn the early stages of _Butcher's Crossing_ and _Stoner_ , it had surprised him how much casting a spell of verisimilitude in fiction depends on fact. A novel about buffalo hunting is historical beyond dispute, and he had deeply researched the western frontier. But he had to do almost as much research about the first half of the twentieth century in Missouri for _Stoner_. What would the salary have been of a professor in the 1920s? Would private cars have been common in a small town? The category \"historical novel\" was so all-inclusive that he could see \"no difference between the novel of history and the novel of the near present.\" When he lectured about his work, he sometimes emphasized this point by quoting the Belgian novelist Marguerite Yourcenar, the author of a novel about the late Roman Empire, the _Memoirs of Hadrian_ (1951): \"Those who put the historical novel in a category apart are forgetting that what every novelist does is only to interpret, by means of the techniques which his period affords, a certain number of past events; his memories, whether personal or impersonal, are all woven of the same stuff of history itself. The work of Proust is a reconstruction of a lost past quite as much as is _War and Peace_.\"\n\nWilliams undergirded his new novel, although set two thousand years in the past, with facts. To feed a Roman army of sixty thousand men for three months, he calculated, it would take three hundred barrels of olive oil, three hundred tons of grain, one hundred tons of dried fish, fifty tons of cheese, a thousand casks of wine, and sundry other items. To cover them with warm cloaks in the chilly forests of Gaul would take a quarter of a million yards of heavy wool. But he was careful to avoid \"antiquarianism\"\u2014clogging the text with picayune details\u2014which carries the risk of lulling the author into thinking \"that history has created his characters, and that he need do no more than to accede to history, and to repeat and embellish the record, with whatever accuracy he chooses.\"\n\nHe wanted his characters to push forward, out from the factual background, to have the quality of living in their own present, grappling with conflicts between public and private life, between barbarism and civilization, between duty and love. \"The difficulty of writing a historical novel is in the history,\" he said. \"You and your readers know what has happened. So I had a technical challenge in creating a sense of discovery in what happened to the characters.\" The consequences of decisions characters make, they can only guess at, not knowing the future. Williams has Julius Caesar, only weeks before his assassination, write to his adopted son, Augustus, saying that his mind is troubled about his place in history, despite all that he has achieved. \"I have conquered the world, and none of it is secure. I have shown liberty to the people, and they flee it as if it were a disease; I despise those whom I can trust, and love those best who would most quickly betray me. And I do not know where we are going, though I lead a nation to its destiny.\" This is showing \"a way of thinking, the life of the mind,\" in Yvor Winters' phrase, and Williams learned it from studying the methods of the English Renaissance poets.\n\nUnlike those poets, however, Williams does not give his Romans comfort from religious belief. About the soul, gods, and spirituality in general, he expressed little interest, personally or in fiction, as if the question were settled for him. \"I knew he was an atheist and he knew I was a practicing Jew,\" said Joanne Greenberg. \"He once said, 'You're an idiot, but you have good instincts.' John was not a believer in any way, shape or form.\" One of his graduate students in the early 1970s, who later became a Catholic nun, had \"the sense that John thought salvation was not available to him.\" As she got to know him better as her adviser for her dissertation, she discovered \"he knew a lot about religious life. He treated me and talked with me as if he understood. But he couldn't believe. Perhaps his experiences in the war had something to do with that.\"\n\nWilliams wasn't against religion or conflicted about it; for him, the black universe was eyeless, uninhabited. As Augustus says in the final pages of the novel, \"I have come to believe that in the life of every man, late or soon, there is a moment when he knows beyond whatever else he might understand, and whether he can articulate the knowledge or not, the terrifying fact that he is alone, and separate, and that he can be no other than the poor thing that is himself.\"\n\nHoled up at the Bellavista Milton in Rome, Williams alternated working and sightseeing: one day at his desk, fortified with a pot of coffee, and capped by a bottle of wine that evening on the hotel terrace; the next day, driving to nearby locations that would play a part in the new novel. Longer excursions took him around the edges of the Mediterranean. \"I wanted to experience the quality of the air,\" he later said. \"I went to a large number of places where the Roman Empire extended. I indulged myself in a leisurely, long, meditative look at the places about which I would be writing\u2014Turkey, Yugoslavia\u2014which was Macedonia in the Roman Empire\u2014and the Greek Isles.\"\n\nBy the end of July, he had finished outlining most of the novel and written chapter summaries. He made arrangements to ship his car to New York so it would be waiting when he arrived. Once home in Denver, he began the process of looking into a larger house for the family, and then in August he rushed off to Bread Loaf to teach at the 1967 session. Back again in September, he went up into the foothills of the Rockies to his cabin near the town of Pine in a hard-to-find spot named Sphinx Park. As autumn turned to winter, he could imagine from the windows of his study that the deep, snow-covered conifer forests cleaving to the slopes were the Teutoburg Forest, where the Gauls lay in ambush for the unsuspecting commander Publius Quinctilius Varus and his legions.\n\nButch Marsh tapped out a three-page, stream-of-consciousness letter to John\u2014with a pitcher of daiquiris at his elbow\u2014the gist of which was that he was in mid-career but not where he expected to be at this point. _Week with No Friday_ had gone into paperback and was now spinning around on vertical metal book racks in bus stations and drugstores, but his publisher, Harper and Row, had rejected his second novel, the one set in San Francisco, and he was broke again.\n\nFor more than twenty years, since getting out of the Army Air Corps in 1945, Butch had been writing at white heat\u2014stories, poems, novels\u2014figuring that making it as a full-time author was like playing horses at the racetrack: you spread your bets. Maybe something that took a long time to write wouldn't sell, but a story dashed out in a day might hit the jackpot. Now he was burning out: he was never more than a few hundred bucks ahead of being broke. Much as he hated to say it, he was considering teaching in the United States again.\n\nEver since John and Butch had begun corresponding, the brothers-in-law had been arguing a point: not about who was the better writer, but over the issue of teaching and writing. Butch taught as a stopgap, although he was good at it. Everywhere he'd been on a faculty\u2014Winthrop College, the University of Iowa, the University of Southern California\u2014he had received high marks and compliments. But he couldn't get any writing done in the meantime.\n\nJohn didn't see the two occupations as mutually exclusive. \"There's no conflict between the roles,\" he tried convincing Butch, \"really, except the inevitable one of time, time to do your best in both roles, each of which is rather demanding. In many ways, each role supports the other: as a teacher, I am paid to think about and discuss with others those concerns that are most important to me as a novelist; as a novelist, I can bring some authority to bear on what I have to say about literature.\"\n\nMaybe Butch's dilemma was really just a matter of too few choices, he suggested. \"The freedom one thinks one finds in Mexico can be a kind of prison; that is to say, though one is free to make choices there, the number of choices possible is fairly limited.\" He encouraged Butch to mail his r\u00e9sum\u00e9 to fifty universities, at least. If he was invited to interview, it was almost certain the job was his, \"unless you pee on the floor or wear too much rouge.\" There was no disgrace in teaching; it \"will help you as a writer, and it is a decent life.\"\n\nButch replied that he would think about it. He had a title anyway for the story collection he was putting together\u2014 _Beachhead in Bohemia_.\n\nIn January 1968, Williams got ready to depart for Smith College to take up a position as writer-in-residence. The family had just finished moving into a housing development in the Denver suburb of Aurora. He had been a distant father, but even with his marriage to Lonnie uncertain, he did his best to provide for her and the children. He had purchased a lot on a cul-de-sac in Aurora for a split-level, four-bedroom home that would have two fireplaces and three baths. Jonathan, fascinated as he pored over the blueprints showing the house's wiring and ventilation systems, considered the privilege of being involved \"a very big deal.\" As John was packing his belongings in the Mercedes for the two-thousand-mile trip, a letter arrived from John Ciardi inviting him to return to Bread Loaf again for a third summer. Williams dashed off a reply saying he would, of course, adding, \"The New Year hasn't been that goddamn happy\"\u2014referring indirectly to friction with Lonnie. But August was months away, and in the meantime, Williams was due at Smith.\n\nWilliams took a leisurely few days to make the drive. The college had offered him an apartment in Northampton that was on the first floor of a grand, turn-of-the-century home on Bedford Terrace. He could walk through the backyard to reach the campus on the street behind. \"I've only been here a few days,\" he reported to Wakefield, \"but it appears that I'm actually going to be able to get some work done. Which will be a novelty, given the last several months.\" He liked the ambience of Northampton, a small New England town, founded by seventeenth-century English colonists, \"but the girls seem to be so goddam _young_ ; I have been remarkably chaste and aloof all winter, and nary a girl has pressed a grape in my mouth.\" By the end of February he had completed the first chapter of _Augustus_ , and by mid-March, he sensed he had passed \"the magic point beyond which it will be all right.\"\n\nHe wrote home fairly regularly, too, but when Jonathan asked his mother what Dad had said, her reply at one point was, \"No, you can't read this one.\" He knew his parents were unhappy, and overhearing a conversation between his mother and a close friend of hers\u2014the wife of an English professor\u2014about divorce worried him. He called his father for an update.\n\n\"Hello?\" a woman answered. He hung up, thinking he had the wrong number. He dialed again.\n\n\"Yes, hello?\" It was Nancy, whom he'd never met, but whose voice he recognized later. Until then, he hadn't known there was a woman other than his mother in his father's life.\n\nWhen John returned in May from Smith College, he moved in with Nancy; several nights a week he spent staying over in Aurora with the children. Lonnie wrote on envelopes addressed to him, \"Doesn't live here anymore.\"\n\n\"I don't think we were in that house for more than a year before we moved into a condominium instead and Dad saw us there,\" Jonathan said. \"No, I'm sure we weren't.\"\n\nThe August 1968 session of Bread Loaf crackled with dissent. The earlier part of the year had seen the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy; civil rights demonstrations overlapped with anti\u2013Vietnam War protests. The little summer camp for writing was not immune to feelings of restlessness and impatience with authority. Williams was a member of a subset of staffers who called themselves the Good Guys: Dan Wakefield; the poet Maxine Kumin; Miller Williams and Robert Pack, also poets; the magazine journalist Brock Brower, and the novelist Harry Crews. They were a hard-drinking clique, and not everyone looked kindly on their revels, although the Beatnik-bohemian atmosphere at the conference had been growing stronger since the early 1960s. But nothing was going to cramp the Good Guys' style, and as far as their nightly inebriation was concerned, they had the support of Ciardi, who was of the opinion that \"it is simply impossible to gather writers, editors, agents, etc. without alcohol.\" The older heads were not going to accommodate the complaints of counterculture-types attending Frost's \"literary summer camp.\"\n\nThree weeks before the start of the session, Williams had received a memo addressed to the staff from William Sloane in which he tried to prepare instructors for a change of attitude among their students. Beginning the conference with \"the old [Bernard] De Voto approach,\" of delivering a lecture about theory, \"no longer impresses the young who approach writing with the belief that the reader owes them a hearing and that the reader is supposed to absorb the story or the material in such a manner and way as the artistic sensibilities of the writer determine.\" In other words, the reader should have to work harder to understand the author's meaning, instead of the author trying to court or please the reader. \"Fiction is in trouble because everybody thinks it is no longer necessary to regard readers as a volunteer audience but a captive one and this is contrary to nature and fact.\"\n\nWilliams believed he knew exactly what the problem was. \"Anyone who could afford a ballpoint pen or a typewriter was allowed to think of himself as a poet or a novelist; talent and craft were suspect, more often than not described as 'elitist,' a curse-word of the period; and literacy was thought by many to be a species of corruption, a loss of innocence or a kind of damnation.\" He was schooled in New Criticism, which emphasizes the formal properties of literature, and the idea that self-expression automatically deserved respect, regardless of its merits, was absolutely anathema to him.\n\nHowever, he was right that the term \"elitist\" was used to object to many things perceived as undemocratic, including how the staff and attendees were treated as separate but equal. Why was dinner delayed until the instructors had finished their cocktails at Treman cottage? Why were the instructors seated at their own high table in the dining hall?\n\nCiardi, in his sonorous, baritone voice\u2014like a captain in command speaking to a wayward crew\u2014made it plain that he didn't want to hear any more grumbling about differences in rank. When one of the instructors wanted to know why Ciardi had refused his request to invite a student for a drink at Treman, the director shot him a warning look. \"Don't get too near a psychic buzz saw,\" he said darkly. He was blunt with the administrators of Middlebury College, who had heard rumors of discontent. Ciardi dismissed it as bellyaching. Bread Loaf, he said, was \"intense, rapid, informal, and more ego-driven, in most cases, than scholarly. Throw a faculty member to one of the dining room tables with conference members and he would be devoured. Insist on such a policy and half the staff would refuse to come back.\"\n\nPrivately, some wondered if that might not be such a bad thing.\n\nThe patriarchy of Bread Loaf was typical of academe, and the arts, for most of the twentieth century. The composition of the faculty at Bread Loaf closely resembled the full-time faculty of the Department of English at the University of Denver: a dozen white, middle-aged men\u2014about a third of them World War II veterans\u2014and one or two women, depending on the year. At Denver in 1968, a female graduate student, pursuing a master's degree in English literature, smiled when her favorite instructor said, \"Well, Sally, you're only a girl, but you're the best we've got.\" Sally Boland, who later cofounded the women's studies program and chaired the English Department at a small private university, later thought about his remark. \"The amazing thing, now I look back on it, is not what he said to me, but rather what I said to myself, which was: 'Maybe if I can learn to think more like a man, I'll do better.'\"\n\nOver the years, John Williams had contributed to building Denver's English Department and its creative writing program, both of which were uncontestably male and white. Seymour Epstein, after a year of filling in for him while he was on sabbatical, was welcomed to the club, so to speak, with a permanent position in 1969. For several years after that, they drove out to Bread Loaf together. \"Nice not to have the wives along,\" Williams said to him, sweeping along the interstate in his sports car. \"Now we don't have to talk dirty!\" Around three or four in the afternoon, it was \"as though a light came on,\" Epstein said, and they pulled over in search of a bar because Williams was in need of a drink.\n\nThere was camaraderie, a bond between buddies in the department who, despite some cultural differences, were from the same American phylum. Former faculty members of the Denver English Department in the 1960s recall it as a period of harmony, a decade when a kind of _esprit de corps_ guided the direction of things\u2014a \"smooth unity,\" as the instructor and biographer Robert Richardson characterized the times. The connection between men like them\u2014raised during the Depression, tempered by the war years, influenced by mass culture in the 1950s\u2014was very close when it came to interests, ambitions, and what they could expect in life.\n\nWilliams felt easiest around men and colleagues who enjoyed a good laugh and bumped along well together. His candid description in a letter accompanying a recommendation for an instructor hints at the kind of person who matched the disposition of the department: \"I think I should tell you that he was an exceedingly good undergraduate teacher; how well he might do in graduate courses, I'm just not sure. At least he might do an adequate job, and he might very well do better. . . . He's not a 'swinger' like we were in the old days, but he is in no sense prudish, stuffy, or whatever. He's easy to get along with, does not have the kind of neurotic ego that we often find among our peers.\"\n\nA newcomer to the department in September 1969, Peggy McIntosh\u2014one of only two women on the English faculty\u2014saw Williams _in situ_ in the environment he helped create as he walked the halls between classes, decked out in his ascot and sports jacket, and entering debates about Vietnam by pointing out, \"Now your Chinese\u2014as I learned when I was over there in '44 . . .\" McIntosh was young, had been raised in New Jersey, and was a graduate of Radcliffe and Harvard. Her days as a leading feminist\u2014and author of a famous essay that introduced the terms \"white privilege\" and \"male privilege\" into cultural criticism\u2014were still some years off. She recalled how her arrival in Denver was regarded as an imposition:\n\nI was this Anglo blonde\u2014short, semi-pretty girl, looking like a girl with my hair in a bun, and I imagined that I just provoked the hell out of John Williams. I imagine he just couldn't stand it that somebody who looked like me and who was interested in Emily Dickinson had come into the department. He never gave me the time of day. He was not interested in conversation with me. Never said anything supportive to me. I was afraid of him. He was so dour, and resentful of women coming into what had been men's territory, that I avoided him. He was one of those who felt, as many men now feel, that the world is closing in on them, with all these \"women and minorities\"\u2014an illogical phrase\u2014[taking] the place that they were raised to think is rightfully theirs. And I think he felt threatened by the federal government putting pressure on college administrations to hire women.\n\nIt was true that the largely male citadel of academe in the 1960s felt blitzed by feminist forces. Robert Richardson's wife at the time remembered her then husband's disgust that a woman had been chosen over him for a position at Harvard. \"They _had_ to hire a woman, that's all,\" he had said.\n\nThe bombardment from the Left was also aimed at the canon of English and American literature, which Williams was determined to answer with salvos of his own. On that score he wouldn't yield. One of his younger colleagues found his counterattack bracing. \"To put it mildly,\" he later wrote, \"Williams had Olympian standards in judging fiction. One could mention virtually any well-known novelist and Williams' reaction would be the same. 'An awfully nice guy,' he'd say, suggesting that he knew everyone worth knowing.\"\n\nIf Williams went out of his way to cold-shoulder McIntosh, it was because he resented federal rules about equality in hiring, which he perceived as wrongheaded and politically motivated\u2014an incursion to be resisted. They were a band of brothers in the department, and of generally one mind about what to teach and how to teach it. For his part, according to McIntosh, he thought she \"mothered\" her students. McIntosh thought, \"He didn't give a damn about his.\" Perhaps he knew she was listening the day he wandered into the English Department office and announced, \"Well, I cleaned out my office, and guess what? I found a dead student.\"\n\nWilliams held the same convictions about the importance of keeping high and low culture separate. From his office window at the University of Denver, he looked out and saw evidence that \"the arrows of the barbarians,\" in his words, were raining down. He was not apolitical; but teach-ins about social justice on the lawn outside struck him as not part of the mission of the university. He worried that English departments were choosing inferior works for their syllabi, too, and teaching too much literary theory, \"whereas the whole point of the novel is the experience of reading the novel. Standards have been declared extraliterary.\"\n\nEverywhere the intellectual life was imperiled, as he saw it. Beyond the University of Denver campus, certain neighborhoods, such as \"Desolation Row,\" consisting of two blocks of head shops and hippie-related stores on East Colfax Avenue, had become hippie enclaves. Williams disliked the counterculture. It placed emotion higher than reason by venerating Thoreau, Whitman, Emerson, transcendentalism, Brook Farm, arts and crafts, and communes. The issues and the times were different, but the slogan among the young, \"If it feels good, do it,\" caught the essential spirit. At Stanford University, Winters was refusing to participate in creative writing courses any longer because he deplored student attitudes. Wallace Stegner had resigned in disgust as director of the Stanford program because Tom Wolfe's book _The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test_ had made Ken Kesey ( _One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest_ ) and his Merry Pranksters synonymous with the university.\n\nWilliams was not against modern literature\u2014the purpose of the _Denver Quarterly_ , which he founded and edited, was to explore the idea of the modern in original fiction and verse. But like his intellectual heroes, Winters and J. V. Cunningham, he was alarmed by how quickly new fiction, especially experimental fiction, had been embraced by college English departments. Higher education should be teaching \"approved tradition of the elders,\" as Cunningham put it, for the sake of grounding students in essential texts. Modernism was too heady, too sophisticated, and too likely to be imitated by students. As for everything published after World War II\u2014Susan Sontag, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, G\u00fcnter Grass, Richard Brautigan\u2014that was the kind of new writing one discussed at a party over a beer, or read in _The New Yorker_ , in Cunningham's opinion, and Williams echoed it. \"The university should be an insulation against the specious kinds of values that are always in the world,\" Williams maintained. \"A kind of protection against them. . . . Once a university becomes what universities often say they are\u2014a reflection of the will of the community, or something like that\u2014well, it's dead. The university more often than not ought to be _opposed_ to the aims of the community, the aims of the world around it.\"\n\nThis was not only the principle he stood behind as an academic: it was also his creed as a novelist. At a party in Denver one night, Williams listened to a hippie artisan explain how he ran his jewelry business. The key to success, the young man said, was to \"psych out the market\"\u2014figure out what kind of jewelry and art people were into\u2014and then make what the public wanted. Williams pointed his finger at the young man and enunciated slowly to make sure he was understood: \"No, you are wrong. That is not what you do, as an artist. You figure out what the thing is you most want and need to do, and you do it. You don't try to 'please the public.' You do your best.\"\n\nAt least Williams could turn away from his office window and think about his work on _Augustus_. The ancient voices he was invoking through fiction had endured for two thousand years, which testified to the greatness of what they had to say; by comparison, student takeovers, riots, and peace demonstrations would become a parenthesis in history.\n\nEven so, the golden days of the Good Guys at Bread Loaf were numbered\u2014two more summers at most\u2014and the authority of the \"war generation\" would come to an end. In a photograph taken during the 1970 session, director Ciardi\u2014large, graying, bespectacled\u2014is seen arguing with a long-haired young man who looks resentful. The issue could have been the war in Vietnam, but actually there was no one on the faculty who was defending it. Instead, the \"rabble-rousing,\" as Ciardi called it, stemmed from differences of opinion about the relationship between politics and art, and the responsibility of an artist.\n\nBut Ciardi wanted none of that invading Bread Loaf on his watch. Transient problems of the world must not come to Middlebury. \"I feel,\" he said, \"I am trustee for a number of ghosts.\"\n**CHAPTER SIXTEEN**\n\n\"Long Life to the Emperor!\"\n\n_The world is not a poem_.\n\n\u2014JOHN WILLIAMS, _AUGUSTUS_\n\nAfter twenty years of marriage, John and Lonnie Williams divorced in January 1969. They had shared the new house for less than a year; now John was living permanently at his apartment, and the house was too large for Lonnie and their three children. She found a condominium in Denver six miles north of the University of Denver campus, near the Metropolitan State College, where she had been hired as an instructor. John came over for dinner two nights a week to check on the children. He paid child support. Tight-lipped, as usual, about his personal affairs, however, he didn't tell Nancy how much it was, and she didn't ask. \"He had a checking account I never saw,\" she later said. \"I made a point of not knowing.\"\n\nNancy had been living in a small house in the Park Hill neighborhood that she had purchased after moving out of her parents' home a few years earlier, near Denver's East High School, where she taught English. She put it up for sale, and she and John started looking for a home of their own. She had toyed on and off with the idea of leaving Denver and starting afresh, but John refused to consider moving away from his children, perhaps thinking of his own childhood. \"And I realized,\" Nancy said, \"Would I stay with someone who would do that?\"\n\nIn March 1970, they chose a home located on a quarter-acre of land at the end of South Madison Street, ten blocks from campus. John liked the \"great amount of room in the house itself,\" and he liked how the property was landscaped\u2014with \"fantastic plantings,\" he told Marie Rodell. He described \"a couple of spruces and pines that go up thirty or forty feet,\" adding, \"I'll send you a photo, when I have time to make one.\" The backyard was big enough for a garden, and he paced off a plot that was twenty by sixty feet. That summer, he planted tomatoes and other vegetables, along with a pumpkin vine for a neighbor child who said he always wanted \"the biggest one,\" but without pesticides, because his grandfather, a farmer, hadn't used them.\n\nIn December, after a few months in the house, he and Nancy married, and John's transition from one family to another was complete. He now had a role in the lives of Nancy's three children. For her part, Nancy felt that Pamela and Kathy Williams, his daughters, resented her. \"To the girls, I was the wicked stepmother,\" she said. \"I took him away from their mother.\"\n\nThe large garden and house spoke to a part of Williams that liked appearing consequential, someone with roots who knew what he was all about. Parked in the driveway was the imported Mercedes, a similar declaration. He would drive it for the rest of his life, another twenty years, until it became a fixture in Denver, synonymous with John Williams, novelist and professor of literature. And he amended the history of his life to fit the image. When questions of decorum came up, he spoke seriously of an inbred southern code he abided by because he was from Texas\u2014a better biography than growing up poor on a dirt farm in the shadow of oil rigs.\n\nIt was a carefully constructed identity, a presentation. Nancy understood its importance when he told her, \"In high school, I was Ronald Colman\"\u2014not \"I _thought_ I was.\" The ascots he tucked under his shirt collars, the fine wool jackets, and the pleated trousers were suitable attire for courting respect. Nancy noticed he was especially careful about his appearance when meeting strangers for the first time, and suspected this \"outer John\" was a cover-up for shyness. Other women, too, noticed how careful he was about his demeanor. He walked gracefully, reminding one woman who knew him at the time \"of the way men from India move: skinny Indian men, loping. It was different from other men. He wasn't jerky.\" Joanne Greenberg remembered him at a party crossing his legs at the ankles, and lowering himself slowly to a cushion on the floor, \"almost like he was making a bow. Almost feminine.\" Friends said he seemed happiest when he was playing chef in his own kitchen, whipping up his best dishes for dinner guests\u2014soups, stews, chili, biscuits\u2014and beaming at the compliments. Once, when he was seated at someone else's table, at the mention of dessert he announced dramatically, \"I make a brilliant mousse!\" unaware of the pun and provoking an outburst of laughter.\n\nOn campus, his preoccupation with himself could be overbearing at times, but he was proud of belonging to the community of scholars, to the academy, and being a novelist besides. He would never consider throwing it over for the obscure life of the artist in the garret. He must have the certainty of making a living and the automatic status that came with being a tenured professor. \"I sometimes hear people, writers, say, 'I will not sell out,' meaning for money,\" he told an interviewer. \"And I always ask them if they've had any offers lately.\" The fact that he had a beautiful new home and a lovely bride was proof to him that he'd lost nothing by combining the academic life and writing. He felt like he was at the top of his game:\n\nIf I thought that the academic life in itself, was bad for my writing, then I'd quit. . . . [I]t has become one of the many platitudinous ideas that certain kinds of writers throw about nowadays: the academy is the death of creativity, the enemy of poetry, the corrupter of poets, and so forth. . . . And I don't like whiners, either; some of the poets and novelists that keep muttering about the academy remind me of the boy who would run away from home, if only dad would loan him the station wagon.\n\nMeanwhile, work went well on _Augustus_. On days when he didn't have to teach, Williams liked to get up early and be in his study by eight o'clock. He preferred Nancy to be home when he was writing. Occasionally he would get up from his typewriter to see what she was doing, or call out, \"Are you there?\" She kept disruptions at bay, answering the phone and saying that her husband wasn't available. \"I would try to keep his work time inviolate,\" she said. Sometimes she would see him outside, standing in the garden, not looking at anything in particular, and she would think, \"He's stuck on something.\" He would rather work out a passage silently in his head than make a run at it and have to revise\u2014although he would revise, if necessary, to sharpen the effects. \"Since I plan carefully,\" he wrote, \"I am not faced with the problem of major reorganization after a first draft is completed. . . . Though it seems to be so, this is not a mysterious process; it is simply the result of a long period of concentration and work.\"\n\nHe broke for lunch, by which time he usually had finished a page. Two or three pages in a single morning were a triumph. The rest of the afternoon he spent planning for the next day's work. Then, promptly at five, he stopped and went into the kitchen and poured himself a drink and lit a cigarette before ambling over to the sofa with his glass to watch television. He often told Nancy he might just as well have been a carpenter or a plumber. Writing was a job.\n\nThings weren't as rosy for Butch. Running out of money, he had reluctantly taken John's advice and gone job-hunting. North Texas State University had invited him for an interview. As a candidate for a position in the English Department, he didn't have a PhD. But with stories in more than seventy periodicals, including _Antioch Review_ , _Prairie Schooner_ , _Northwest Review_ , _Yale Review_ , _Esquire_ , _Playboy_ , and _Saturday Evening Post_ , he clearly he was the genuine article, a real writer coming in out of the rain. North Texas State hired him. He and George Rae left Mexico and moved into a prim, whitewashed apartment building called Coral Isles on a side street in Denton. For four semesters and two sessions of summer school in 1968\u20131970, he met his classes, graded papers, and attended faculty meetings. Since he never did anything by halves, he didn't have time to write anything publishable while he was teaching.\n\nAll that looked to change when he and George Rae returned to Mexico, but he was not in the best of shape by then. Butch's heart had been giving him trouble. He was a bit thickset at forty-eight, but not overweight, with large, freckled hands he cupped around a match while lighting a cigarette against the night breezes off Lake Chapalupa. In the collection of stories he was preparing, _Beachhead in Bohemia_ , published posthumously, there was one about a man in his forties who feels twinges in his chest: \"If pain hit when he was dozing, he would awaken instantly because it was the left side. And even though the pain was in the wrong location, all that his lulled mind could initially report was terror on his left. It was humiliating to be braced in a constant cringe.\" Butch was glad to be back in the sweet life of writing full-time again, but the pressure was on. He'd gone stale creatively and his inventory of salable stories was low. He was drinking a lot in Ajijic\u2014George was, too\u2014but it seemed to be the only way he could calm down after another day at the typewriter. As he filled his glass, his hand trembled from too much nicotine.\n\nGeorge Rae insisted they make an appointment with a specialist in Guadalajara, the nearest large city. A Dr. Rivera checked him over and admitted him for observation to Hospital Angeles Del Carmen, a brand new and modern facility, just off the office plaza in the center of town. As he was resting in his room for further tests, Butch died from a heart attack on May 27, 1970. The death certificate issued by the American consulate a few days later identified Willard N. Marsh as a vacationing retiree, not as a writer, whose last known address was Denton, Texas.\n\nGeorge couldn't remain in Ajijic without him. \"I'm moving back to San Miguel de Allende,\" she wrote John. \"I've gotten a little apartment at the Quinta Loreto where Willard and I lived before in 1967 and '68. Ajijic has just become too dismal for me. It's too full of old retired people who read nothing, see nothing, and do nothing but drink. I didn't mind it when I had Willard, but without him, I just can't take it. If I stay around such people much longer, I'm afraid I'll become just like them\u2014or go mad.\"\n\nShe saw to it that he was interred in the Ajijic municipal cemetery. Then, two years later, a real estate developer cut through the grounds with a street, naming it De Las Flores and desecrating many graves. One of those that disappeared was the last resting place of Willard \"Butch\" Marsh, novelist, short story writer, and former jazzman.\n\nAbout the time of his brother-in-law's death, Williams was reminded again of how ephemeral a writer's work can be, when he discovered that _Stoner_ had gone out of print after only a year. His publisher hadn't notified him, either\u2014a surprising oversight by his usually careful editor, Cork Smith. The novel's sales had never been robust, but the discourtesy bothered him. It was dismissive, similar to how _Butcher's Crossing_ had been lumped in with westerns. He mentioned his frustration to Dan Wakefield, his fellow instructor at Bread Loaf.\n\nAs a favor, Wakefield mounted a campaign to get _Stoner_ reissued by asking some notable authors and college instructors to write statements endorsing the idea, which he would then forward to Marie Rodell as a friendly petition. Excerpts from their remarks could also serve as blurbs on the cover of a reissue. The one submitted by the poet Miller Williams spoke for many: \" _Stoner_? Funny you should ask. Sad that you should have to. . . . I have one copy, which is the only one I've been able to find. It has been read not only by my wife and me, but nine other people whose names I can't recall at the moment. . . . There is no doubt in my mind but that _Stoner_ would have the wide reputation it deserves as an American classic if it were possible for readers to buy the book.\"\n\nMerrily, Wakefield collected the statements of support\u2014\"I got a beautiful response,\" he told John\u2014and added his own cover letter to Rodell, whom he'd never met. It began: \"A number of us who are admirers of John Williams' novel _Stoner_ have been disturbed to find it out of print.\" He sent photocopies off to her, and the originals to Williams, feeling the pleasure that comes from doing a good deed.\n\nRodell was offended at being told her business. \"Dear Mr. Wakefield,\" she replied, \"Thank you for your letter of October first and its enclosures.\" She only wished, she added archly, that the book's advocates had concentrated more on Stoner's literary values, and less on how they couldn't get copies for their college classrooms. Although she didn't say so, she had inferred from receiving a handful of unsolicited requests to reprint _Stoner_ from \"distinguished writers and teachers\" that Williams had been complaining about her. The damage seemed to be spreading when she also received a note from the publishing entrepreneur Seymour Lawrence, who said he'd heard from Wakefield that John Williams' new novel about Augustus Caesar might be available. Could he read the manuscript? It wasn't available, Rodell informed him curtly\u2014it was already under contract to Viking: \"I'm sorry you were misinformed.\"\n\nWilliams stepped in and apologized on behalf of his friends. He had been reading aloud from the manuscript of _Augustus_ during workshop sessions at Bread Loaf, he explained, and there \"are many people who have seemed excited about the novel\u2014staff members, visitors, etc.\u2014and it has occasioned some talk.\" Thus, he accepted some of the blame; he was just doing his job as a good client.\n\nAs it turned out, Wakefield's crusade did help. In January 1971, another publisher, a small paperback house, reissued _Stoner_. Rodell thanked Wakefield for the letters he had so \"diligently collected\" and assured him that the editor who bought the book \"has become as confirmed a 'Stonerite' as you or I.\"\n\nAt the end of the term in May 1972, John and Nancy drove to Mexico to check on George Rae. She was living in Ajijic again, part-owner of a discotheque, of all things, and dating Ted Cogswell, the science fiction and fantasy writer who had struck up a friendship with the Marshes years earlier. Nancy knew him not at all, and she was not impressed. In fact, she found him rather frightening. \"When George and Ted were together they were drunk a good part of the time,\" she said. \"She'd be completely stone drunk. . . . She stayed at our house. Ted would come over and see her.\"\n\nTed liked to ride around Ajijic on his motorcycle wearing a Mickey Mouse costume, complete with the bulbous head, big ears, and imbecilic cartoon expression. Driving around drunk one day, he stopped by the Williams' apartment looking for George Rae. Nancy was alone. For some reason, he had a knife and showed it to her. Then he forgot about it and roared away on the motorcycle, leaving the knife on top of the refrigerator. When John returned, Nancy insisted that Ted not be allowed in the house again.\n\nApart from George's taste in boyfriends, Nancy was curious about the bond between her and John. Although they were only half-siblings, she noticed they were strikingly alike\u2014they had same petite size and pale coloring, and a similar style of speaking\u2014as alike as \"two peas in a pod.\" And if John seemed\u2014as someone had said about him, \"gnomish,\" with his goatee, deep voice, and penetrating blue eyes\u2014George Rae seemed like a pixie. They had the same theatrical air. In fact, when George Rae talked about how she wanted to get back into theater eventually, John's rough teasing and dismissiveness carried a tone of envy. After all, it had been his ambition before it was hers.\n\nNancy and John returned to Denver in midsummer, and a few months later, George Rae and Ted married in San Miguel de Allende. The Williamses didn't attend; but a young American writer witnessed the event and the wild send-off that followed:\n\nLike everyone else in the wedding party at the Episcopalian church, including the priest, George Rae was an atheist. The ceremony was followed by the wettest reception I've ever attended, and that was followed by Ted and George getting into her Jeep and heading for their honeymoon suite in Puerto Vallarta. An hour later the reception was winding down when the Jeep came roaring back, stopping between the plaza and the police station for Ted to shove his screaming, cursing bride out on the cobblestones, where bride and groom were immediately arrested for being drunk and very disorderly. Placed in separate cells, Ted made a pillow out of his boots and went to sleep on the thin mattress of the cell's wooden cot. George propped her mattress against her cell's door, set it on fire, and screamed bloody murder until the cops turned them loose at dawn to continue on their honeymoon.\n\nSomeone snapped a picture of the pair on their wedding day, standing on a second-floor balcony, wearing matching leather safari jackets like adventurers. Ted is making a face, with one arm around George Rae and flipping the camera the finger with the other.\n\nThat summer, the axe fell on John Ciardi as director of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Complaints from attendees and a few younger instructors continued to reach the Middlebury College administration. The antagonism was partly generational and ego-driven; Ciardi bristled at talk of deposing the older heads and their lordly \"maestro system.\" Defiantly, he typed a letter of resignation and submitted it, undated, to the president of Middlebury, adding, \"When you want it to be time, just fill in the date and I'll be gone.\" It was time. The president called his bluff and accepted his resignation. Ciardi would be given the 1972 session as his last to run.\n\nThe new director would be Robert Pack, also one of the Good Guys, but Pack was determined to recruit fresh blood. The criteria for choosing the staff would not depend on personal friendship or amiability, or how long they had been \"up on the hill.\" They would have to be good teachers and demonstrate respect for beginning writers, both published and unpublished. John Williams had the requisite qualifications. \"I was very fond of John,\" Pack said. \"He was a good teacher, a good raconteur, and charming, but he had a drinking problem.\" And that was the deciding factor\u2014he was not among those invited back after 1972 for what would have been his seventh year.\n\nIt might appear that too much emphasis is being placed on alcohol abuse, as it affected John Williams and his circle of friends. He himself expressed contempt for \"lushes.\" \"John had a sixth sense about who was one,\" according to Dan Wakefield; as though compared to _that_ guy, he didn't have a problem. \"He didn't slur his words, or wobble when he walked. He didn't show that he was drunk,\" said Wakefield.\n\nNo one can say when the culture of hard drinking became associated with writing, but liquor and literature seemed to go together: five American authors who won the Nobel Prize during the postwar era were alcoholics\u2014Sinclair Lewis, Eugene O'Neill, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, and John Steinbeck. A character in O'Neill's _Long Day's Journey into Night_ rhapsodizes by quoting Baudelaire: \"Be always drunken. Nothing else matters: that is the only question. If you would not feel the horrible burden of Time weighing on your shoulders and crushing you to the earth, be drunken continually.\" A conviction that drinking was somehow tied to the seer's gift\u2014a sign of being in touch with the gods, a spur to prophecy\u2014drew many willing young artists into the stumbling ranks of drunks during those years. Wakefield said it was an expectation: \"We were told by other, older writers that if you're going to be a serious writer, you have to be a serious drinker.\" Williams said as much to a young graduate student, a woman who came to his office to discuss her stories with him. \"He opened a desk drawer and poured a shot of Wild Turkey into a glass,\" she reported. \"'If you don't have a drink, you aren't a serious writer.' It seemed like a test and I took it.\"\n\nPeople in publishing took it for granted, too, that booze and the making of books went hand in hand, with potentially unfortunate results for Williams when he submitted the finished manuscript of _Augustus_ to Cork Smith in the spring of 1972.\n\n_Augustus_ had taken nearly seven years to complete, and he was confident that it was \"really a very good novel,\" predicting to Cork Smith, tongue-in-cheek, \"that it might have a good chance to do well on the market, despite that fact.\" Having read the early sections as they came in, Smith agreed with Marie Rodell that it was \"one hell of a book and should be exactly as John Williams wants it.\" And Smith made a brilliant suggestion about formatting. He recommended omitting numbered chapters\u2014they seemed too modern. Instead, there should be Book 1, Book 2, Book 3, and an Epilogue. Williams concurred immediately, because it also fit with how he had broken the story into three sections, almost like three acts. He was glad the manuscript was in the hands of an editor who understood the spirit of the novel.\n\nAnd then, suddenly, two months after Williams submitted the final draft, Smith stepped down from Viking. He was being furloughed home from the office indefinitely. His alcoholism was out of control, and the publisher, Thomas Ginzburg, had given him the choice of either drying out or losing his job. It would be up to Ginzburg to decide when, or if, he was ready to return; in the meantime, Smith told Williams, he was going to be \"standing back and taking a longish look at myself.\"\n\nThe news upset Williams. Smith had championed _Stoner_ from the beginning, and he'd midwifed _Augustus_ right up to the point of publication. Now, who would step forward, and who could be trusted to do right by the new book all the way to market? As it turned out, the manuscript went to Alan D. Williams, a skilled and versatile editor whose gifts included the ability to establish a good rapport with authors across various genres. His \"open-sensibility,\" as a fellow editor called it, made him approach a work submitted to him with respect; it was doubly lucky for John that _Augustus_ went to him, because he was well versed in classical literature. Under his guidance, Robert Fagles' translations of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ later became standards.\n\nWhile John was waiting for his new editor to read _Augustus_ for the first time (\"I hope you have read the novel; I hope you liked it,\" he told Alan Williams), Rodell let him know that Curtis Publishing, owner of a line of inexpensive paperbacks, wanted to reprint _Butcher's Crossing_. The novel had been out of print for ten years; reprinting it would at least guarantee a second chance. Plus, Williams stood to make a little money from the advance. But \"the real stumbler,\" she cautioned, was that the sales staff insisted on marketing it as a western, because \"it has to be described as something!\" they said.\n\nWilliams absolutely refused. He'd rather the book not come out at all. Then Rodell received a similar offer from Popular Books\u2014same advance, same approach: _Butcher's Crossing_ would be advertised as a paperback western. And again, he refused, even though his career as a novelist currently was at a standstill. It had been almost twenty-five years since his first novel had appeared, _Nothing But the Night_ , which he disavowed as beginner's work. Next, _Stoner_ had barely made a ripple when it dropped into the pond of forgotten books. But allowing _Butcher's Crossing_ to be reprinted and advertised as a western might permanently label him a second-rate writer. The enjoyment of being able to say he had a novel in print wasn't compensation enough for the blow to his self-respect. He could only hope that _Augustus_ , when it was published, would be his vindication.\n\nCork Smith's leave of absence didn't affect the march of _Augustus_ toward publication, after all. \"LONG LIFE TO THE EMPEROR!\" Rodell telegrammed Williams when it appeared in late 1972. The reviews were more widespread, more flattering, and in much greater number than for either of his two previous books. Orville Prescott, the principal reviewer for the _New York Times_ , sent a personal note: \"I think it ranks with Thornton Wilder's _The Ides of March_ as a work of literature and I know it is truer to the facts of Roman history.\" J. V. Cunningham, ever the classicist, in addition to telling Williams it was an \"astonishing book,\" complimented him on \"the observance of decorum in style.\"\n\nAs was John's custom each time he had a new novel out, he took up a prominent spot in the English Department office, where he sat all day smoking and drinking coffee, expecting that some of his colleagues would congratulate him. He waited, making small talk with people coming in to pick up their mail or take a break between classes. The hours passed pleasantly enough, but nothing was said to him about the book. And finally, as the weak December light coming in through the windows began to fade, he went down the nearly empty hallway to his office and closed the door.\nPART V\n\n_The Sleep of Reason_\n**AN OLD ACTOR TO HIS AUDIENCE**\n\nJOHN WILLIAMS\n\n_Ford Maddox Ford: 1873\u20131939_\n\n_Sirs, I address you out of age, my voice_\n\n_Gone slack and hoarse, who stood before you once_\n\n_With some grace and carriage. Ah, time . ._.\n\n_The face that once was marble now_\n\n_Is flesh. Motion is impure, and we_\n\n_Must move, although we break. The voice that was_\n\n_Your master is your servant now, reminding you_\n\n_Of its ancient art that once cast up_\n\n_A substance that could move you out of time_ ,\n\n_Our mortal blemish. And you\u2014the wise and foolish_\n\n_Who listen to an old man's wheezing voice\u2014_\n\n_Suffered your destruction like a pleasure_\n\n_Scarcely to be borne, desiring to be deceived_\n\n_Out of the falsehood of your time and place_.\n\n_But now I am old, am old, and suppliant_\n\n_To your most gracious whim. We are the relics_\n\n_Of our ruined past\u2014although I see you now_\n\n_As if you were not changed, as if you were_\n\n_As I created you once long ago_\n\n_Out of the pride and arrogance_\n\n_Of my spent youth. To whom do I speak, if not_\n\n_Myself? If not my own, whose faces stare_\n\n_At me? Had you given me laurel once_ ,\n\n_I would have worn it most carelessly_\n\n_And spoken my echoing lines in its despite_.\n\n_But now this pate is bald; bald pates have need_\n\n_Of bay, for warmth and show. I ask_\n\n_Your kindness now, and ask forbearance of_\n\n_These loosening years; they make men foolish_ ,\n\n_Who were never wise. I stand before you_ ,\n\n_Stripped of years, a beggar_.\n\n_And yet a supplicant_ ,\n\n_I would remind you, who has given service_\n\n_To you all. Out of these creaking boards_\n\n_I once created worlds that you could not conceive_\n\n_And peopled them with what you might have been_ ,\n\n_Showing a fairer image of yourself_\n\n_Than you would dare to dream, and given you_\n\n_Some instant plucked from time that was your own_.\n\n_From your deep heart's most lonely need, I have_\n\n_Dissembled shadows that became your selves_\n\n_And let them stroll as if they were alive_\n\n_In the Roman ruins of your northern fields_.\n**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN**\n\n\"How Can Such a Son of a Bitch Have Such Talent?\"\n\n_Ah life, that amateur performance_.\n\n\u2014JOHN WILLIAMS\n\nOn April 11, 1973, the _New York Times_ carried a story about controversy in the book world. \"In an unprecedented display of public disagreement, the 1973 National Book Award judges announced yesterday that they had split the fiction prize between John Barth's _Chimera_ and John Williams' _Augustus_.\" This had never happened before in the organization's twenty-four-year existence. But lately, nothing seemed immune from dissent. The week before the announcement, the _Saturday Review_ had predicted that literary politics would decide the fiction prize because the judges fell into two camps: postmodernists (literary critic and historian Leslie A. Fielder, along with essayist and novelist William Gass), and traditionalists (Evan S. Connell, philosophical novelist Walker Percy, and book critic Jonathan Yardley).\n\nThe magazine was right about the likelihood of disagreement: the meeting was \"noisy and argumentative,\" according to the _Times_. The previous year, the historian and journalist Garry Wills had walked out of his committee's meeting when he refused to endorse his fellow judges' choice of the hippie bible, _The Whole EarthCatalog_, as the contemporary affairs winner. And now, as the judges in different categories adjourned, not only was the award for fiction split, but also the one for the best history. This had never happened before, either.\n\nHowever, as the book reviewer Jonathan Yardley, a courtly young man from North Carolina, stepped up on the dais in the Biltmore Grand Ballroom in New York to announce the winners, he tried to convey that nothing could have been more natural than a tie. The novels, _Chimera_ and _Augustus_ , he said, were both books of \"uncommon quality . . . similar in subject matter[,] but . . . represent dissimilar approaches to the writing of fiction.\" _Chimera_ was about transforming myth into reality; _Augustus_ brought the violent times of imperial Rome to life. Consequently, Barth and Williams would each get half the award money: $500 apiece (which wasn't much more than each of the judges had been paid to read the books). No explanation was given as to why there were two history prizes.\n\nThe double deadlock wrecked the organization\u2014not immediately, the big awards ceremony would still go forward\u2014but in the coming weeks. With the publicity value of an author winning cut in half, publishers protested by withdrawing their financial support. No more free books for the judges to read, or luncheons, hotels, transportation, and all the rest. The National Book Committee was forced to disband, and it was not until two years later, when a caretaker administrator for the organization \"begged\" prospective judges not to split awards, that the contest resumed.\n\nIn the meantime, news that John Williams had won a major literary award arrived in Denver \"on little cat feet,\" as Joanne Greenberg put it, thinking of Carl Sandburg's poem \"Fog.\" Despite the fact that Williams was the first and only Coloradan ever to receive the National Book Award, the _Denver Post_ , the largest newspaper in the state, failed to send a reporter to get his reaction. Likewise, in the English Department, there was no, as one instructor put it, \"ecumenical coming together in celebration of John.\" Instead, there was a lot of headshaking behind closed doors. \"Oh my God,\" one English professor later said, \"if he was difficult to live with before!\" Some of it was envy, but Williams' colleagues knew that receiving the laurels for fiction would mean that he would now be delivering his growly pronouncements about literature with even greater authority; the little genie wrapped in cigarette smoke would never go back into the brass lamp.\n\nThe editor of the university alumni magazine wasn't glad to hear the news, either. Normally, a faculty member receiving a national honor was tailor-made for encouraging alums to donate more to the endowment; over the years, however, the editor had tried to avoid Professor Williams. He was impossible. She disapproved of his romantic affairs, and of the way he missed class because he was hung over. She passed the assignment to a newcomer on the staff, a graduate student in history, Carol DeBoer-Rolloff, who later became a biographer and a professor at Brown (as Carol DeBoer-Langworthy).\n\nCarol didn't know Williams, but she had heard of him. \"A lot of people talked about John on campus,\" she said. \"People liked to gossip about him. He was considered outrageous.\" When she knocked on his office door for their appointment, she opened it gingerly, not sure what kind of person she would find inside. The room was long and narrow\u2014a rabbit hole that smelled of smoke and coffee, with sloppily arranged books on shelves and cardboard boxes on the floor. Seated at a desk was a dark-haired man with a head that seemed too big for his body. He looked up at her with enormous blue eyes that swam behind a pair of thick, black-framed glasses. His face was heavily lined. \"This guy is a philanderer?\" was her first thought. He invited her to take the only chair available. In the middle of his desk, jutting like a rock from a tide pool of papers, was a large, dark gray typewriter.\n\nThe interview went smoothly, though he enjoyed talking about books more than he did describing his past. In between remarks, he coughed loudly as he pulled on his cigarette, or had to stop to clear his throat before continuing. Most experimental novels, he said, seemed dreadfully stale and forced, and they were always better the first time around. It was so much easier dealing with theories of fiction, political issues, and so forth than with relationships\u2014that was the problem with the current state of fiction.\n\n\"What do you plan to talk about in your speech at the National Book Awards?\" she asked.\n\nHis relaxed manner changed suddenly as he leaned forward. \"A defense of the goddamn novel,\" he said.\n\nThe Williamses' visit to New York City for the ceremony was triumphant. They checked into the forty-seven-story Waldorf Astoria Hotel, known for its striking Art Deco design, lavish dinner parties, galas, and international conferences. The next morning a photojournalist arrived at their suite to take pictures of John for _Time_ magazine. Then they went to lunch with Marie Rodell, where John resisted the temptation to start drinking too early. He could wait. Cork Smith, back at Viking part-time, had provided him with an itinerary that included a \"Boozerama\" at the Tavern on the Green in Central Park after the awards, followed by late-evening drinks and a buffet at publisher Thomas Ginzburg's apartment on Madison Avenue.\n\nAt the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts that evening, hundreds of people from the publishing industry attended a reception, where, among other things, Williams was introduced to his co-winner, John Barth, for the first time. Called \"Jack\"\u2014a bald, serious-looking man with sideburns down to his jaw\u2014Barth was a professor of English at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Only a few years younger than Williams, he had been nominated twice before for the National Book Award. His newest novel, _Chimera_ , was a fabulist, highly theoretical work, not Williams' cup of tea at all. But asked by a reporter about the controversy over splitting the award, they were in the mood to be good sports. If anything, they said, the decision demonstrated that fiction was alive and well, and that literature was roomy enough to accommodate the novel in many forms. Later, on the stage for the program, they sat together. When Williams' turn came to speak, he chose the high road; instead of launching into \"a defense of the goddamn novel,\" he expressed his deep pleasure at being selected and predicted a ringing future for fiction. \"My friend Brock Brower, whose novel _The Late Great Creature_ was one of the nominees for this award,\" he remarked, \"is said to have said, 'Listen, there's only one stable institution in this country. It's not Princeton . . . it's not marriage, it's the novel.'\"\n\nWhen he arrived home in Denver, there was a warm letter from Barth, who was glad that what might have been a \"sticky situation turned out to be really a delightful one.\"\n\nUntil now, John Williams had been a kind of extra or chorus member on the literary scene, a spear-carrier in the opera of American fiction, who played his part and then the dusty curtain fell down. So it had been for _Nothing But the Night_ , _Butcher's Crossing_ , and _Stoner_ , all three of which had come and gone with barely a tip of the hat from the public. Also, his success with poetry had been modest. A small magazine would accept a few stanzas occasionally\u2014but even his publisher, Viking, had returned a sheaf of his poems, only a month after the National Book Awards, with an apologetic note saying they preferred younger poets whose work was more experimental.\n\nNothing, however, could take away the significance of receiving a major literary award for _Augustus_ \u2014it proclaimed his rightful place in the annals of contemporary novelists. It was a vindication, and it seemed to him that he was now entitled to extra consideration from the university. After all, over the course of nearly twenty years, he had taught, edited the _Denver Quarterly_ , directed the creative writing program, and published literary criticism. These duties weren't out of the ordinary for an academic, of course; but his stature as a novelist added luster to the institution as a whole, and especially the English Department. He deserved a raise, or a bonus\u2014at the very least, more time to write. And, not coincidentally, two weeks after receiving the National Book Award, Brandeis University in Boston had invited him as a visiting professor for two semesters, beginning in September of that year, 1973. He would have the privilege of selecting his students and limiting the enrollment to \"numbers agreeable\" to him. The time to act on his prerogatives was clearly now\u2014he was in demand\u2014and he went off to see his department chairman, Gerald Chapman, to make his case.\n\nChapman was not surprised by Williams' visit; he had been expecting it. Williams asked to be relieved of some of his duties; he wanted a lighter schedule, such as having the spring quarter off, so he could begin his summer early. And Chapman appreciated how important it was to John that he be treated with extra consideration.\n\nBut as Chapman listened to Williams' requests for privileges that were unusual, he knew he'd have to draw the line. The English Department was small, and special treatment was impossible to give. The opportunity to teach for Brandeis could be arranged; but as for needing time to write and so on, Chapman said, \"We all have our problems.\" Williams left in a rage, complaining bitterly about high-handed \"Har-VARD-ians\" treating him like a peon. And it wasn't just the English Department. He had also approached the campus library about depositing his papers there, but they weren't interested; Nancy blamed \"some prude who didn't approve of John's reputation.\" His publisher reported \"sales resistance\" from Denver bookstores about carrying _Augustus_. \"What have you been doing and what have you not been doing that you should have been doing?\" Rodell asked him.\n\nThe offer from Brandeis had come at a good time, and it had the effect of sending John away for a cooling-off period. Arriving in Boston in the late summer of 1973, he and Nancy had the good luck to find an apartment around the corner from Dan Wakefield. Cunningham was still teaching at Brandeis, and that friendship was renewed, too. Nothing would please Williams more than if guest-teaching at Brandeis turned into a permanent position. And to increase the likelihood of that happening, he planned to present himself a little differently.\n\nIn the English Department at Denver, he had been adamant that experimental and modernist poets were not yet part of the canon, and had argued against creating new courses that would start with T. S. Eliot\u2014the disease-bringer in the corruption of poetry, in his opinion. By comparison to the older poets, most of the modernists, he insisted, fell short. But at Brandeis, he offered two courses in fiction that were, for him, quite a departure from his traditionalist stance about teaching the greats. During the fall semester, he taught \"Modern Fiction: Form and Theory,\" covering major European and American novelists during the first half of the twentieth century; and then in the spring, he tried out \"Contemporary Criticism and the Contemporary Novel,\" with readings from Lionel Trilling, Leslie Fiedler, Richard Poirier, and the Marxist literary historian Gy\u00f6rgy Luk\u00e1cs. The novels assigned were by Thomas Pynchon, Alain Robbe-Grillet, John Barth, Jorge Luis Borges, and several others. He was well thought of there, but his audition as an instructor didn't bring about an offer to join the faculty.\n\nTexas, on the other hand, embraced him as a native son. After winding up his work at Brandeis, he and Nancy went to Houston, where he received the Texas Institute of Letters award for fiction, given to authors who resided in the state or who had spent their formative years in Texas. Following the ceremony, they returned by way of Wichita Falls to see the farm where John had spent his childhood. It was still there, and had hardly changed in forty years. There stood the barn where he had slaughtered his first pig; behind the house were the acres where his grandfather had planted vegetables. Looking around, he talked about spending every moment he could outdoors, just to get away. \"I remember feeling sorry for my parents,\" he said to Nancy, \"because they had no privacy\" living with his grandparents. From this little farm, he had found his way to becoming a professor and the winner of the National Book Award. But instead of being praised for his literary achievement, he felt resented at Denver. They turned toward home.\n\nWilliams' students became accustomed to him appearing at the last minute for his nine o'clock class, his hair, combed straight back, still wet from showering to shake off the previous night's drinking. \"That damn metabolism of yours that need forego nothing,\" Ciardi had once said admiringly. One of Williams' doctoral dissertation students wasn't so sure. \"It was a terrible assault on his body,\" he said years later. And according to one of his seminar students, his health was \"very tenuous\": \"Sometimes in class it would almost bring him to his knees. He was very frail. He smoked heavily and would be coughing.\" The high altitude, the raw winters in Denver from October to April, and the effort of dealing with deep snows on their property\u2014the last house on a dead-end street\u2014were becoming too much for him.\n\nAt parties, Williams became boorish while drunk and could be tiresome. \"He wanted to come over and sit next to you and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah at you,\" said one of the English professors. Another colleague tried to be philosophical. \"How can such a son of a bitch be such a great writer? Well, he'll piss on all our graves, that's for sure.\" At times it seemed inconceivable that John Williams, the man getting insensible with bourbon in the corner, could also be the author of _Stoner_ or _Augustus_ , novels of almost magisterial restraint and control. Joanne Greenberg attributed his contradictions to a secret that he beat down by drinking\u2014that it was hard for him to act tough, to pretend that he couldn't care less what people thought. \"John's admiration of the Romans and Augustus was what he wanted to be. The reticence, the capacity to endure pain, the somewhat cynical approach to life. But he was too sensitive for that.\"\n\nHis students learned to accept that Professor Williams was moody. Normally, he was quiet and straightforward. If a student in his poetry-writing seminar presented a piece that wasn't very good, reading it aloud for criticism, he would listen, \"gravely,\" one former student recalled, \"and then, without remotely condemning it, open up the conversation to what the rest of us thought. It was a most civilized occasion.\" But he could also be testy, uncompromising, and miserly with praise. \"Anything other than the obvious to add, Mr. Weaver?\" he inquired of another student, who was constantly raising his hand. Sometimes, he could be entertaining, reading verse aloud or reciting it in his deep, sepulchral voice. It was also known that he wouldn't object to a student bringing a jug of wine to pass around at his late-afternoon seminars, and then a Johnsonian atmosphere of rambling conversation replaced the assigned readings. Warmed by the wine, when the breezes of storytelling were running high in him, Williams would invite the class to join him at the tavern down the street. \"You repaired to the Stadium Inn and it was wonderful to be with this unassailable figure!,\" said a former student. Williams liked a good bull session and would retell favorite anecdotes about books and authors until it grew dark and long past dinner. His office desk disappeared under a mound of papers: applications to the graduate program, requests from students asking for updates on their work, and correspondence. His replies often began with the same regret: \"I apologize for the delay in responding\" (six weeks); \"I am sorry to be so long answering your letter\" (three months). He delegated the editorial side of the _Denver Quarterly_ , but when his overworked assistant demanded to be paid, and the college administration refused his request, Williams' volunteer quit. A student from Stanford University, Baine Kerr, who came to see him about the creative writing program, was taken aback by the appearance of his office. \"It was a disaster,\" he said. \"Books piled everywhere. Eight or ten stained coffee cups and papers scattered all around.\" Kerr was thinking about transferring to Denver, and his initial impression, based on the work environment of the program's director, at least, wasn't favorable. \"But when he started talking about writing,\" Kerr said, \"I wanted to be a part of what he was offering.\"\n\nWilliams' dilatoriness about attending to the creative writing program eventually caught up with him. An advisee of his, a candidate for a doctorate who resided in Canada, had been mailing chapters of his novel to him for review. As the weeks passed, the envelopes landed on the white drift of unopened mail atop Williams' desk. Hearing nothing, the student submitted his finished manuscript in fulfillment of part of the requirement for the degree. On his dissertation committee was Seymour Epstein, who realized\u2014after he located the novel in Williams' slush pile and read it\u2014that its inexperienced author hadn't received any guidance, and now his manuscript was completely unacceptable. Furious, Epstein made phone calls up and down the line in the College of Arts and Sciences to figure out what to do. A compromise was reached whereby the candidate would substitute his short stories as a collection, with a preface to fulfill the requirement. In the nick of time, a hastily agreed upon solution saved the day; otherwise, the reputation of the whole creative writing program, and the value of a PhD from it, could have been jeopardized. As of 1975, Williams was no longer director of the program.\n\nThat year, too, his agent Marie Rodell died. He had become very close to her over the years, stopping in New York City when he could to take her out to lunch. They signed their letters \"Love,\" to one another, and John, despite the disaster of _Butcher's Crossing_ , had trusted her implicitly. For him, she was synonymous with his career as a published author\u2014from his cautious beginnings to winning the National Book Award. Her assistant Frances Collin took over the agency, but it wasn't the same, of course. The two events coming close together\u2014Marie's death and being relieved of the creative writing program\u2014left him feeling disconnected, restless.\n\nOne afternoon, while he was serving on an oral examination committee, a small but telling incident occurred. Williams was one of four instructors present to listen to a student in English literature who would be defending a dissertation on fabulism in short stories, using _Don Quixote_ as a bridge between fantasy and realism. Eager to impress, the candidate took the full forty-five minutes to make his presentation, answering at length every question he was asked. Slowly, the sky began to darken outside, and it looked as if that Colorado was about to have one of its late spring rains mixed with snow. The wind rose and the budding trees swayed. Then the blue-gray clouds thrashed the window with a downpour that made the glass rattle.\n\nWithout a word, Williams got up from his chair and went to look the storm, while the voice of the student droned on behind him. To no one but himself, but overheard by everyone in the room, Williams said quietly, \"Oh, my tomatoes . . .\"\n**CHAPTER EIGHTEEN**\n\nIn Extremis\n\n_What I saw was the work\u2014the hours and hours. So much of his life was dedicated to the work_.\n\n\u2014NANCY WILLIAMS\n\nHaving a famous author on the faculty who was unhappy, and vocal about it, presented the University of Denver with a problem, which it solved with a grand gesture. Effective at the beginning of the school year in 1976, Williams occupied an endowed chair. He would only have to teach two quarters each academic year, for three years, and have every third quarter off. John and Nancy began using those ten weeks to visit, first, the Gulf Coast of Texas, then Portugal; several times they circled back to Key West, as if they were experimenting with flyways they would use later as migrating birds to a safe place where John could work on his fourth novel. Of their peregrinations to various locations for the sake of John's health, and his peace of mind, it seemed at last that Key West would suit them the best.\n\nNevertheless, there was gossip in the English Department office about Professor Williams taking off for Florida whenever he pleased\u2014further evidence, said some knowingly, that the National Book Award had conferred a specialness on him and he was taking advantage of it. His old friend Seymour Epstein said that Williams had become \"insufferable,\" and he was not alone in thinking so. His advisees either had to accept that he would be away for long periods, or, as some did, switch advisers.\n\nIgnoring the complaints, Williams went forward with his plans to relocate. With their children now grown or in college, John and Nancy began moving sideways into semi-retirement. They sold the big house on Madison Street in Denver and moved into a condominium on Pearl Street, where John could stay when he taught during the spring and fall. In Key West, they purchased a small white frame house on the corner of Florida and Duncan Streets, where they \"spent about six months remodeling, refurbishing, furnishing, cursing, and so forth,\" as John put it in a letter to his friend Fred Inglis. He put colored spotlights at the foot of the palm trees shining up into the leaves to catch the Caribbean feel; Nancy noted to a friend, \"it is _de rigueur_ here to display a number of exotics in tubs arranged cordially on the patio, if you have a patio,\" which they did, made of mossy brick. When John thought of what it would be like having to return to campus and put up with the pettiness\u2014to say nothing of the effect of pollution and cold on his lungs\u2014he began to dread the idea. \"There are no more than two or three other people that I give a damn about seeing back there,\" he told Inglis.\n\nThe verdant little town perched on the flat, fish-shaped island of white sand held strong and agreeable associations for John. It was here that he had arrived shortly after the war, because it was both familiar and exotic. Key West had represented a new beginning in those days as he was finishing his first novel, a time when several roads had been open to him. He might have continued as a news announcer, using his near-perfect voice and delivery to build a career in radio; or he might have taken George Smart's advice and enrolled at the University of Alabama, and then applied for a spot in Hudson Strode's fiction workshop. He also might never have left the island, and become a denizen of the beach-and-town scene, spending his days on a stool at the bar in a local taproom, drinking and telling anyone would who listen how he had an idea for a book.\n\nKey West felt like a homecoming for John for another reason, too; it was a \"winter repository of some very good writers, who are also very good friends,\" he wrote to Inglis. The Williamses stayed for a month at John Ciardi's new three-bedroom bungalow on Windsor Lane, partly because the corpulent poet with the air-conditioned Cadillac was always eager to show off his wealth. \"It's you I love,\" Nancy would say to him, \"not your money!\" The two men reminisced, ho-ho-hoing about Bread Loaf days, as she languished in the heat, but \"John sweats and is happy,\" she said.\n\nDan Wakefield came down from Boston hoping to interview John for _Ploughshares_ , but Williams wouldn't hear of it until they had drunk deep in the waters of the laid-back life in Key West. Wakefield eventually got his interview, which he published in _Ploughshares_ :\n\nFor three days he managed to avoid [the interview] altogether, as he took me around to some of the bars, beaches, and restaurants of the island, dropping in on old friends like the poets Richard Wilbur and John Ciardi, meeting his new friend and Key West neighbor Peter Taylor, the short story writer, going to a party at poet James Merrill's house, drinking wine and talking and eating the Conch Chowder that is the local specialty and John has now added to his culinary repertoire, a favorite right up there with his Texas Jailhouse Chili.\n\nThe working title of Williams' new novel was _The Sleep of Reason_ , taken from an epigraph by Francisco Goya: \"The sleep of reason brings forth monsters.\" The setting is Washington, DC, during the Nixon years. The central figure is Paul Mathews, in his middle fifties, a senior curator of the paintings in a small but distinguished Washington museum. As a nineteen-year-old corporal during World War II, he had been captured by the Japanese in Burma and held prisoner for several months. It was a period he tries not to think about.\n\n_The Sleep of Reason_ opens on a day when Mathews is trying to establish the authenticity of a painting that has just arrived at the museum, _Peter at the Tomb of the Resurrected Christ_ by the great Paduan painter of the Quattrocento, Andrea Mantega. To Mathews, something about it is indefinably wrong, but he can't put his finger on it. His mind is further made uneasy by the unexpected appearance of a man he knew at the time of his capture: former Office of Strategic Services captain Dave Parker, now a rather seedy and defeated-looking operative for the intelligence community. Parker hints that he wants something from his former subordinate. Memory and the long-ago past in art and history have suddenly overlapped, and the question of authenticity\u2014what is true and what isn't\u2014becomes the theme of the novel.\n\nWhen Baine Kerr, the young man transferring from Stanford who had been enchanted by Williams' passion for writing, went out deep-sea fishing with his instructor one night, Williams talked about the novel\u2014\"its aesthetics, and his hope that this would be his masterpiece.\" Usually, he was reticent about personal things, but on the fishing boat with Kerr, he talked about his childhood years and his parents' poverty, and the hurt he'd felt over the Winters affair, especially because he had tried to promote the work of Winters' wife, Janet Lewis. Back at the house, he read aloud a chapter from his new work, his rhythmic, rumbling voice accentuating the cadence of the sentences. It was memorable, Kerr thought\u2014it was an honor to be treated as an equal. \"It was a friendship,\" said Kerr's wife at the time, Cindy, \"with literature at its center.\"\n\nDisturbing, though, was how Williams' drinking was affecting his behavior. A few years earlier, Kerr had thought nothing of his instructor pouring a glass for himself from the wine jug at seminars, or accompanying his students to the Stadium Inn for a bull session, with pitchers of beer circling the table. But he was not prepared for the \"vehemence of his views and his verbal violence\" when he was dead drunk. Saddest of all, some of his rage was directed at Nancy. He would become repetitive, and when she tried to correct him on some point, he would lash out, calling her profane names and telling her to shut up. Kerr vacillated between admonishing his old instructor in his own house or holding his tongue. \"It was very excruciating at times\u2014to be at the dinner table and hear that,\" he said. \"You wanted to protect and defend Nancy from abuse, but I didn't know how to do that. Why did she take it? Nancy devoutly believed in his genius. She had an understanding of the dark places where that came from\u2014his war experiences, and his childhood.\" Looking on, Cindy concluded that Nancy's devotion to her husband\u2014normally a \"sweet man, never given to ridiculing others\"\u2014stemmed from her belief that he would leave a legacy, and it was up to her to stick by him.\n\nA few weeks after the Kerrs returned to Denver, Williams fired off a letter to the English Department excoriating them for daring to amend the curriculum to include form and theory classes with a modern emphasis while he was out of touch in Florida. But having thrown his lightning bolt to no effect, he once again withdrew into silence. He had more important things to think about. The literature committee at Yaddo, the four-hundred-acre artist colony in upstate New York, had invited him to stay as their guest from the next May through September, or for as long as he liked during that time. The contrast seemed symbolic\u2014the annoyance of academic politics versus spending months in the company of fellow writers and artists.\n\nBut first he would have to attend to a health problem. During a check-up for his emphysema, an X-ray showed the presence of a dark spot on his right lung.\n\nGiven Williams' history of smoking, his physician said the abnormality was almost certainly cancerous. A flexible probe sent painfully into the bottom third of his lung was unable to retrieve tissue for a biopsy, so he was scheduled for an operation to remove \"a wedge,\" his doctor called it. Williams preferred to have the procedure done in Denver.\n\nNancy had been through a similar health issue earlier, and their support of one another at times like this was unsparing. Following an operation to remove a melanoma, her incision had become infected and she had experienced toxic shock syndrome. During the three and a half weeks she remained in the hospital, John canceled classes and asked friends to help with the children, who were still at home then. Waking up from time to time in her hospital bed, she would look over at the chair by the window and he would be there. \"John never left my side,\" she said.\n\nAdmitted to Denver's Presbyterian\u2013St. Luke's Medical Center, Williams sat propped up in bed, wearing a bright blue bathrobe and looking oddly out of uniform without a sports jacket and trousers. His large eyes took in everything from behind his black-framed glasses with an expression of mild boredom and resignation. A few hours later, after the procedure, he was wheeled back into his room. The small nodule in his lung wasn't cancerous, it turned out; but now, he told Fred Inglis, \"I have a nice scar like a saber wound that violates my fair white body.\" He was given the usual advice to stop smoking (which he ignored), and was told to spend as little time in Denver as possible\u2014Key West was a better climate (advice he gladly took). And, the doctor said, it would take a few months to recover his energy (it took a year).\n\nHe spent the first half of 1980 resting, on medical leave from the university. During that time, he and Nancy paid a visit to Boston and Dan Wakefield. Wakefield had assumed that after Williams' lung operation, he would have given up chain smoking, but he hadn't. \"John would take a puff, then have a paroxysm of coughing, then squirt some medication down his throat, then take another puff, and on and on through the afternoon and night. The next morning the house smelled like gas. I went out to the Public Garden clenching my pipe in my teeth but not smoking and threw away my pipe in a big garbage can and never smoked again. It was like shock treatment.\"\n\nIn July, Williams arrived in upstate New York for a two-month stay at Yaddo to work on _The Sleep of Reason_. \"There is no rule against looking for inspiration,\" said the retreat's welcoming booklet, \"but Yaddo cannot guarantee that anyone will find it.\" The writing went slowly\u2014a handful of sentences before noon. He killed time after lunch by sitting next to the pool in an open shirt and silk scarf, smoking and thinking. A swimmer asked him one afternoon if he was John Williams, who wrote _Stoner_. \"So you read it!\" he said affably. As 4:00 p.m. approached, he ambled over to the Great Hall, invariably the first to arrive for cocktails before dinner. Above the fireplace where he liked to stand was a glass mosaic depicting a phoenix. He reached for the bottle of Scotch on the hospitality table and waited for others to arrive. Once, the _New Yorker_ artist Roxie Munro encountered him on his way to cocktail hour and asked him how his day went. \"Great!,\" he said. \"I wrote eight perfect sentences.\" Weekends, he went to the famous racetrack nearby to watch the horses run. He sat on the porch of the clubhouse, where drinks would stay cool in the shade all day.\n\nThe John Williams who entered the classroom in the early 1980s pulled behind him a small silver oxygen tank on wheels. He used the clear mask attachment, which he held in one hand, alternating between inhaling through it and then taking a drag from a burning cigarette. Like the radio operator he had been during World War II on supply planes in Burma, he puffed away instinctively. Seated at his desk in the classroom, he spoke, smoked, and took a breath of oxygen in a rhythm, the way he had at thirty thousand feet flying over the Himalayas.\n\nWilliams was on the glide path now, finding enjoyment in serving as an example of a thrice-published novelist in the role of master to his pupils. \"He tended to teach anecdotally; he told wonderful stories that evoked, vividly, the writers, their craft, and their circle,\" said one former student. With _The Sleep of Reason_ stalled at one hundred pages, nostalgia, for Williams, was overtaking inspiration. There was no hurry to finish the manuscript, in any case; Corlies Smith, his longtime editor at Viking, had left to become editorial director at Ticknor and Fields, and his much younger replacement, Amanda Vaill, had a cordial relationship with him, but that was all.\n\nFinally, circumstances seemed to indicate that 1985 would be a good year for him to retire. He was sixty-three; he wasn't the head or editor of anything any longer, and he didn't want the responsibility. Although he hadn't published a novel for thirteen years, he was honored by the Academy of Arts and Letters, which inducted him as a member and awarded him $5,000. (Ciardi hinted to the secretary of the academy, \"He is delighted, of course, and would like to announce the award in Denver papers as a sort of crown on his career there.\") He also received a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship, worth $25,000, to continue writing _The Sleep of Reason_. To help him clear out his office, he hired a local book dealer to take what he wanted from the shelves.\n\nThen, just as he was preparing to return to Key West, he received a phone call from out of the past. His second wife, Yvonne, was in town, and she wanted to see him.\n\nYvonne was now in her late fifties, and looking much younger than the gentleman pulling the oxygen canister behind him who entered the Cruise Room of Denver's Oxford Hotel, casting a fishy eye around the establishment in search of her. The hotel had been a flophouse when John and Yvonne were living together in Denver; now it was the swankiest accommodation of its kind in the city and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. John made his way over to Yvonne's table and eased into the seat opposite her. There was a young woman beside her he didn't recognize. Yvonne introduced her to John as her daughter Gale.\n\nAfter their divorce in February 1949, Yvonne had married Douglas Woolf, in March. She had now been his wife and untiring supporter for over twenty years. The pattern of their life together had been set the autumn before that, in 1948, when she had fled Denver to meet him in Tucson, Arizona, where, to put food on the table, they had sold plastic housewares door-to-door in the withering heat. Douglas Woolf was an itinerant, and a loner who believed in a semi-mystical way that his surname was part of his character. Yvonne was one of those persons born to be the sidekick, intercessor, friend, and lover of someone who might be a genius. She was tough to an amazing degree.\n\nThey had traveled around the West like gypsies. Douglas would take temporary jobs that required no commitment other than to show up: migrant farm worker, ice cream seller, beer and hot dog vendor at baseball games, egg man delivering off a truck; Yvonne worked as a bookkeeper, clerk, or product demonstrator in department stores. When they got enough cash, they would throw it all over and take to the woods or the desert with their two girls and camp out\u2014blankets spread over tree branches for shade, or bedding down in ghost towns. Using the car as his workplace, he wrote and published two novels about escaping the bourgeois life from the perspective of the footloose hero, _Wall to Wall_ and _Fade Out_ , and a short story collection, _Signs of a Migrant Worrier_.\n\nBut Douglas was an alcoholic, and Yvonne had left him in the late 1960s. She was in Denver to attend a conference as part of her job with the federal bankruptcy courts and thought she'd say hello to John.\n\n\"I have another daughter besides Gale,\" she said. \"Gale was born in 1949.\"\n\nJohn blushed. \"What month, 1949?\"\n\nThis moment was Yvonne's true reason for the reunion. \"Let's have a little fun with him,\" she had said to her daughter, as they watched her former husband make his way to the table.\n\nBefore she answered John's question, she paused, as if counting from September 1948 when she'd left him. \"Hmm, October.\"\n\nThey could see him doing the arithmetic in his head. And then, \"Oh, certainly\u2014I see.\"\n\nWith Denver behind him, Williams returned to the island, \"out of the snow and smog and into the warmth and air.\" The university had offered him an honorary degree, but his response had been, \"How much?\" In other words, could the award translate into money, to help him get on with his writing? In any case, no award of any kind was forthcoming, and Williams interpreted it as another example of being snubbed.\n\nKey West was becoming an even better place for the community of writers now. The annual Key West Literary Seminar\u2014four days of readings, conversations, lectures, panel discussions, and parties\u2014held its first conference in 1983, and Ciardi persuaded Williams to serve on the faculty for the following year. He posed on the beach for a group photo, beaming among the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winners\u2014quite an auspicious start for a new event\u2014and exactly the kind of thing, he joked, that he meant to get away from in retirement.\n\nBut he had come to the party too late, in a way. You needed to be young, or at least healthy, to really enjoy the place. And Williams was neither. He needed hospital services periodically because of his bad lungs; moreover, the sea-level mugginess was oppressive, especially when he was hung over. Key West couldn't offer him what he needed professionally, either. There was no large library, no big bookstore.\n\nNancy began to have similar complaints. In Denver, she had been the director of the Rocky Mountain Women's Institute, and Key West, which was becoming more commercialized and touristy, left her bored. \"I was just hanging out for a year,\" she said. \"It was awful. The small island gets smaller.\" To move again, though, seemed unthinkable after purchasing a home and fixing it up. They had only been settled for less than two winters. Even if they decided to relocate, they couldn't decide where they would be better off.\n\nThe monotony was broken by an invitation from the poet Miller Williams, asking John to deliver a series of lectures at the University of Arkansas. There would also be a few old friends from Bread Loaf on the program\u2014a partial convening of the Good Guys. And if that weren't reason enough to visit Fayetteville, Miller wanted to discuss something else. As director of the University of Arkansas Press, he was interested in bringing _Butcher's Crossing_ and _Stoner_ back into print.\n\nWith alacrity, John accepted.\n\nFayetteville is located in the Ozarks in a forested region of highlands, plateaus, rivers, and lakes covering much of the southern half of Missouri and an extensive portion of northwestern and north central Arkansas. The winter weather is mild and generally dry. When the rain stops in midsummer, the high heat begins. Eight hundred miles northwest, within an easy two-day drive, is Denver.\n\nNancy found the university town of forty thousand \"old and [with] a beauty and character of its own, not grand but rather pretty and nice.\" As an experiment, she and her husband began looking for a house to rent, and they found one available from John Clellon Holmes, founder of the creative writing program there. Holmes' semiautobiographical novel from 1952, _Go_ , had been the first to depict the restlessness, disillusionment, and drug-charged lives of the Beats.\n\nAlthough Holmes had only just turned sixty, he was on his last legs\u2014an alcoholic who was returning to New England where he had been raised to spend what would be the last two years of his life. Allen Ginsburg's long, declamatory poem _Howl_ , which alludes to _Go_ , begins with the line \"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,\" and Holmes' journals, which he intended to publish, were filled with tales of self-destruction.\n\nBut now he had become a portly, grandfatherly-looking man with glasses. He and his wife, Shirley, showed their visitors the property. It was near the center of town and the university campus, an older home across from a small park with four bedrooms, two baths, and a fireplace. Holmes took them down into the basement and gave the furnace a derogatory kick, saying it didn't work very well. The house didn't have insulation, and the heating bills during the winter would be higher than the monthly rent. But the Williamses, having spent a good part of their lives in Denver, thought they could use the fireplace to take the chill off.\n\nThey signed a lease for their \"little gray home in the Ozarks,\" as Nancy called it, in 1985 and began the arduous business of moving from Key West fifteen hundred miles away. Fayetteville had a \"full complement of medical specialists,\" a research-grade library on campus, and the built-in advantage of a few old friends in town. It seemed perfect. And the University of Arkansas had indeed decided to reprint _Stoner_ and _Butcher's Crossing_ , long out of print, which would be instrumental, though Williams wouldn't live to see it, in creating renewed interest in his work. \"So I seem to be returning to where I began, with a smallish press,\" John noted with satisfaction. \"I'm just as pleased; it has a nice symmetry.\" By early spring, they were settled in the new house, and spending most mornings having their first cups of coffee in bed, until the ancient furnace bestirred itself to heat the rooms.\n\nNear the end of Williams' finest novel, _Stoner_ , the University of Missouri English Department gives a farewell dinner, a grave affair, which tired and ill Professor William Stoner attends. Some of Williams' former colleagues at the University of Denver thought he should have received more recognition at the end of his career. He was, after all, the most famous person in the English Department\u2014the first Colorado author to have won the National Book Award. He had taught for almost thirty years and had been a major figure in adding creative writing to the academy. A junior instructor, remembering how grateful he had been for Williams' encouragement when he had first arrived in Denver, set out to coordinate \"A Celebration of John Williams\" for a Saturday in March 1986. The event would pay tribute to his body of work with a symposium; Nancy later liked to call it \"John Day.\"\n\nTo anchor the event, John Ciardi was invited. He planned to deliver the keynote as part of a six-city speaking tour, beginning with a group of librarians in Topeka, Kansas, who were paying him a large fee. He needed a wheelchair to make his connecting flights at the airport. But it became too much effort, and he couldn't make it back to Denver. \"What good is [the money] to a dead man?\" he wrote to his biographer, Edward M. Cefelli. \"I just don't have Sgt. Ciardi's resilience these days\u2014nor the bastard's legs.\" He canceled his appearance at \"John Day,\" and three days later he died of a heart attack at home.\n\nRichard Yates, however, did arrive. He would be a panelist for the symposium. Yates, the author of postwar novels such as _Revolutionary Road_ and _The Easter Parade_ , about the struggles of his generation to adjust to domestic life and peace, was America's \"least famous great writer,\" according to _Esquire_. For ten years he had been living in cockroach-infested apartments, checking himself into the Boston veterans' hospital when he thought he was going mad. Because his reputation preceded him, he was put under the supervision of Williams' former graduate student James Clark, who later said he'd been told \"'to keep him company' and 'out of trouble,' which I took to mean 'relatively sober.'\"\n\nThat evening, Williams arrived at the Denver Public Library to begin a reading of a chapter from his unfinished novel, _The Sleep of Reason_. Before an audience of a hundred or so, he came up to the front of the room, wheeling his oxygen tank behind him although his breathing had been better than usual recently, and took a seat at the high table so he could be seen. Yates, who had gotten drunk at dinner, started to cause a disturbance; Clark had to quiet him before Williams could begin.\n\n\"I'm going to read from a novel that's in progress,\" he said\u2014Chapter 2, because it was \"self-contained,\" he told the audience. He'd been working on the story for ten years, in fact, possibly more. \"My energies are not what they once were.\" It had been difficult for him to make progress. When he went into his study, he might work, or he might try lubricating the muse with a drink. He had completed one hundred pages or so\u2014not much more than what he had in hand when his former student Baine Kerr had listened to him read an excerpt in Key West several years before.\n\nFor the next forty minutes, he read his selection slowly, in his warm, dark voice, never varying or stumbling. He'd been over and over it, hundreds of times. But there's something missing in _The Sleep of Reason_ , the story of art museum curator Paul Mathews. There's a tone of weariness. Chapter 2, the one Williams read aloud, proceeds at an even pace as Mathews recalls a mysterious mission he participated in as a nineteen-year-old corporal\u2014he was to deliver a briefcase of secret information to a jungle location in Burma. But there is no sense of inevitability, no urgency about events. The details are vivid, drawn as they are from the author's experiences. And, strange as it may sound, perhaps that's the problem. Williams had an aversion to writing about himself. He told Nancy, \"Fiction and autobiography don't go together in any sensible way. I bore myself when it's about me.\" Careful of the persona he maintained as a man of letters, he seems reluctant to drag himself, as the narrator, back into the jungle muck. He'd been alluding to his stretch in the Army Air Corps at Sookerating for years. He'd talked and talked about it, and embellished his experiences a bit. But, as he said in an interview, \"it's difficult to lie when you write a novel.\" His integrity wouldn't allow it, drinking wouldn't inspire it, and so _The Sleep of Reason_ refused to be written.\n\nGeorge Rae's second husband, Ted Cogswell, died in 1987. They were living in Pennsylvania when he passed away, and \"the idea of another cold, cloudy, snowy winter alone here is more than I can bear,\" she wrote to the Williamses. \"So I'm thinking of heading down toward south Texas when I unload the house.\" Or maybe Mexico, but she was afraid to be alone there. John said she should come to Fayetteville and be near them. When she arrived, it was clear that heavy drinking had affected her. She told Nancy she could understand what the birds were saying. She wanted to try acting again.\n\nUnfinished business bothered John, too. \"I need to ask a favor of you,\" he wrote to his agent Frances Collin in 1989 when he was sixty-seven, \"but the asking needs a little background.\" His textbook anthology, _English Renaissance Poetry_ , published in 1963, had become a classic in classrooms during the ten years it had been in print. He pointed out that \"a book can sell only a few hundred copies and still be an 'important' literary text.\" It had been allowed to go out of print, and he was trying to get an answer from the publisher about how to have the rights revert to him. His letters had gone unanswered. The University of Arkansas Press wanted to reprint it. \"There is some urgency involved,\" he wrote. The problem of rights was taken care of easily; but by involving himself in the matter, he felt he was working, urging on the writing career that, by this time, was over. During a return visit to Key West, he added \"OLD?!! Humbug! Nonsense! Young whippersnappers!!\" to the bottom of a postcard to his Denver friends. He and Nancy were vacationing with his daughter Kathy, a PhD in literature now and a college professor.\n\nThat was the last time John would be there.\n\nMedication was giving him strange dreams. He dreamed that he and Nancy were staying in a casino. They needed money. A friend had told him that playing \"the one-armed bandit\"\u2014the slot machines\u2014would be a good investment. Their investment would pay 10 percent regularly. But he couldn't leave his room to go down to the game room, so he asked Nancy to go instead. She tried, but she lost all the money and came back to him for more. He woke up worried.\n\nHe fell in 1992 and required a long hospital stay. To be near the university hospital, John and Nancy moved into the smallest house they'd ever owned. As John had grown weaker and less able to negotiate the features of larger homes\u2014stairs, high cabinets, and so on\u2014they had moved several times within Fayetteville, trying to find a floor plan that would accommodate him. His world had become more and more circumscribed, and they were now in their third house in less than ten years.\n\nIn January 1994, George Rae stopped by to check on John and found him lying on the floor like he was asleep. Nancy agreed it was time for him to receive hospice care in his bedroom. A visiting nurse assigned to him insisted that he get all the morphine he wanted. If he was having a good day, Nancy called some of his friends, including Miller Williams from his Bread Loaf days, and told them to bring over beer and sandwiches. They sat by his bed talking about sports.\n\nJohn said to Nancy, \"I never expected to live this long.\" She sat beside him.\n\n\"We said goodbye a hundred times,\" Nancy said. \"He'd be lying there, and it was so hard to breathe. He'd say it was almost not worth it. But I would hear that word 'almost.'\"\n\nHe died of respiratory failure on March 3, 1994, at the age of seventy-two.\n**EPILOGUE**\n\nJohn Williams Redux\n\nObituaries about John Williams seemed more interested in how the National Book Award was split for the first time in its history in the year he received it for _Augustus_ , 1973, and the \"unusual display of public disagreement among the judges,\" than in what his works had contributed to American literature. Perhaps it was because his novels were out of joint with the times and mid-twentieth-century literature in general.\n\nNone of his three major works\u2014 _Butcher's Crossing_ , _Stoner_ , or _Augustus_ \u2014held a mirror up to present-day society the way the struggles of Saul Bellow's _Herzog_ did, or James Baldwin's short story collection about race, _Going to Meet the Man_ , both of which were being talked about in 1965, the year _Stoner_ appeared. That year, too, while readers pored over Alex Haley's _The Autobiography of Malcolm X_ , Alabama state troopers had clubbed civil rights marchers to their knees in Selma; riots had broken out in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts, and the first American combat troops arrived in Vietnam. Williams' stories about a buffalo hunt, an undistinguished professor, and a Roman emperor seemed almost belligerently indifferent to what was going on. Thus his uniqueness, which might have distinguished him in other, less restive times, became the millstone that sank him.\n\nEvery decade or so, the name \"John Williams\" and _Stoner_ would reemerge, the way a summer drought sometimes reveals a forgotten edifice standing on the bottom of an ancient lake. People had heard a rumor of it, and there it was again\u2014intriguing, puzzling, a curiosity from the past. In 1973, C. P. Snow had asked about _Stoner_ in the _Financial Times_ , \"Why isn't this book famous?\" In 1981, Dan Wakefield had combined an overview of Williams' career as an author with an interview of him in the literary quarterly _Ploughshares_. Morris Dickstein, a literary and cultural historian, devoted a 2007 _New York Times_ article, \"The Inner Lives of Men,\" to _Stoner_ , acclaiming it as \"the perfect novel.\" Then somehow, by a process that was \"mysterious, even alchemical,\" said a commentator on National Public Radio, _Stoner_ rose from the depths to become a best seller in Europe by 2013.\n\nBut there was more to it than that. The process of resurrecting _Stoner_ , and thereby John Williams, was by no means a matter of magic; it started as a result of conversations between people who love books.\n\nCrawford Doyle Booksellers, on a stretch of Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side of New York\u2014a neighborhood near the Metropolitan Museum of Art that used to be replete with independent bookshops\u2014has survived the slow incursion of boutiques, art galleries, and caf\u00e9s on the block since 1995. The street-level shop has a mix of rare and contemporary books in the window and a bargain bin outside. Past the door, it has the book-walled coziness of a floor-to-ceiling private library with an up and downstairs. The husband and wife owners, Judith Crawford and John Doyle, are handsellers\u2014bibliophiles who act as guides for customers hunting for something. To a woman who inquired about a nonfiction study of the Paris sewer system, Judith replied, \"Which one are you looking for? There were two published in English, and I could get you the one by Harvard's Professor Reid within the week.\"\n\nOne day at the shop in the early 2000s, Doyle happened to mention to Edwin Frank, editor of the _New York Review of Books_ Classics series, that he couldn't carry enough copies of _Stoner_ , a title he liked to recommend. Perhaps the publishing side of the _Review_ should consider adding it to their selected series of overlooked titles. Doyle and his wife had done well with the _Review_ 's curated collection of titles by Georges Simenon, Jessica Mitford, Nikolai Gogol, Stefan Zweig, and many others.\n\nFrank reached Nancy Williams through one of John's former students. From her, he learned that the University of Arkansas Press had reprinted _Stoner_ in 1993. He bought up their surplus stock and reissued _Stoner_ in 2006 under the _New York Review of Books_ Classics imprint.\n\nA book reissued with a spanking new cover is a little like wearing a new suit to the office: it gets attention. Frank's tight, handsome-looking edition of _Stoner_ , graced by American realist painter Thomas Eakins' _The Thinker, Portrait of Louis H. Kenton_ , caught the asceticism of the story; Irish novelist John McGahern's introduction redoubled the effect by informing readers that the novel ahead was \"about work, the hard unyielding work of the farms; the work of living within a destructive marriage and bringing up a daughter with patient mutability in a poisoned household; the work of teaching literature to mostly unresponsive students. How Williams manages to dramatize this almost impossible material is itself a small miracle.\"\n\nFrank was a bit disappointed when sales equaled about what they were when Viking published it in 1965\u2014a few thousand copies. Admittedly, he said, \"It's not an easy book to pitch\u2014a midcentury, midwestern novel about a man who is a medievalist and whose life is a failure.\" It was Morris Dickstein's praise in the _New York Times_ the following year gave the _New York Review of Books_ edition \"a jump and got it going,\" Frank said.\n\nMeanwhile, French novelist Anna Gavalda had read Colum McCann's list in the _Guardian_ of his favorite top ten novels, with _Stoner_ in first place. \"I have bought at least fifty copies of it in the past few years, using it as a gift for friends,\" McCann wrote. \"It is universally adored by writers and readers alike.\"\n\nGavalda purchased a copy in English, and she wished at the end that she had written it herself. Stoner's \"rectitude, his intelligence, his finesse, his tenderness. I didn't warm up to him, I fell in love with him. I like men who don't talk a lot, but who are attentive to the slightest detail.\" She persuaded her publisher, Le Dilettante, to license the French rights in 2007. But attempts to find a satisfactory translator brought her around to \"what I already knew, that William Stoner\u2014it was me, and it was up to me to stick to it.\" The task of rendering the novel into French\u2014\"I took liberties so that it would be as beautiful in my language as it is in his\"\u2014would take several years while she continued with her own writing. When it was released in 2011, the French edition of _Stoner_ became a best seller.\n\nEven before the French edition, however, Gavalda's attention to the work sparked interest elsewhere in Europe. In Spain, Tito Exp\u00f3sito, at Ediciones Baile del Sol, read an interview with Gavalda and decided, \"if she liked this novel, and I liked Gavalda, then surely I would also like _Stoner_.\" In 2009, the first translation of _Stoner_ in Europe appeared in Spanish; and then in February 2012, Elido Fazi of Fazi Editore published the first Italian edition. The Fazi edition drew critical acclaim in the Italian newspaper _Corriere della Sera_ by Paolo Giordano, a winner of Italy's most prestigious literary award, the Strega Prize, along with praise by Irene Bignardi in the Italian newspaper _La Repubblica_ ; Mario Fortunato in a weekly magazine, _L'Espresso_ ; Roberto Bertinetti in the business newspaper _Il Sole 24 Ore_ ; and Niccol\u00f2 Ammaniti, winner of the 2007 Strega Prize. A new word entered the world of books and publishing: \"Stonermania.\" Although the phenomenon began as a word-of-mouth recommendation from readers, it wasn't long before the character of William Stoner also began appearing in articles and discussions not strictly about the novel, but on the theme of the importance in a person's life of rectitude and incorruptibility.\n\nBut strangely, readers in the United States still seemed resistant to _Stoner_. During one of his regular visits to New York, Oscar van Gelderen of Lebowski Publishers in Amsterdam heard that some of the younger editors at HarperCollins were reading it for their own pleasure. Van Gelderen purchased a copy at a bookshop, went to his hotel, and read the book in one sitting. Despite the story being \"spectacularly unspectacular,\" he was surprised by how good it was. \"Stoner is a teacher. And then he dies. Well, let's hope the author is very good-looking,\" he thought, \"and in his or her mid-thirties to help sell that kind of story,\" which wasn't the case, of course. There would be no talk shows, no promotional brainstorming with the author because, as Van Gelderen was later informed, John Williams had been dead for twenty years.\n\nBut the novel was being read in Europe, and becoming popular in Italy, France, and Israel, even if Williams wasn't being honored in his own land. Consequently, after acquiring the rights, Van Gelderen became, as he put it, a \"Jehovah's Witness for _Stoner_.\" Lebowski Publishers placed it as the lead title in their September 2012 catalog, gave the book a strong, iconic cover, and sent galleys to booksellers that summer accompanied by a printed \"love letter\" about the novel from the publisher. It was the start of a six-month-long campaign, Van Gelderen said, \"from door to door, from one bookseller to the next, from one journalist to the next,\" to reintroduce a forty-seven-year-old book as though it were a new, contemporary piece of hot fiction. Salespeople were instructed to ask booksellers for blurbs, to get them involved, and to offer customers a money-back guarantee. Customers did come back\u2014not because they were dissatisfied, but to buy another copy. \"I wanted booksellers to feel proud that they were up on the latest\u2014give them a reason to say to customers, 'Listen, this is something special.'\" Van Gelderen posted the eye-catching cover of a gray-bearded older man against a jet-black background close to four hundred times on Facebook and Twitter.\n\nAfter six months, by March 2013, _Stoner_ was the best-selling book in the Netherlands, and it remained at the top of the list for five weeks in a row\u2014an unprecedented record for a \"lost classic.\" Van Gelderen continued to promote the book at the April London Book Fair. Sales of the book were so striking that journalists in the United States, at _The Millions_ , and _Publishers Weekly_ , for example, wrote about the success in Holland, which kick-started more reviews and _Stoner_ articles in the United Kingdom and the United States.\n\nClara Nelson, who was then with Penguin Random House in the United Kingdom, seeing that sales for the Dutch edition were taking off\u2014two hundred thousand copies\u2014decided to adapt Lebowski's approach of intense exposure, but keep the spotlight trained on _Stoner_ even longer. \"We aimed to do a piece of publicity every week for a year in the United Kingdom national press,\" part of which included giving Williams \"a voice again through champions in the literary community.\" During the campaign, reviews by Julian Barnes and Bret Easton Ellis, along the lines of \"upon first looking into Williams' _Stoner_ ,\" had a domino effect of persuading journalists that they ought to find out what all the fuss was about. Bryan Appleyard, a nonfiction author and reviewer, said in the _Sunday Times_ , \"This is the story of the greatest novel you have never read. I can be confident you have never read it because so few people have. In recent weeks, I have come across academics specializing in American literature who have never even heard of it. Yet it is, without question, one of the great novels in English of the twentieth century. It's certainly the most surprising.\" Ian McEwan echoed the same opinion on BBC Radio in June, telling his listeners that if they were readers who kept up on the latest books everyone was talking about, here was one that may have gotten past them.\n\nWaterstones named it Book of the Year in 2013, by which time rights had been sold in twenty-one countries\u2014including China\u2014and by riding the best-seller lists in Germany, France, Israel, Holland, and the United Kingdom, _Stoner_ 's success encouraged some publishers to bring out _Butcher's Crossing_ and _Augustus_ as well.\n\nEdwin Frank at New York Review Books has a theory about why _Stoner_ , in particular, is embraced in Europe, more so than in the United States. \"I think it's of an era that occurred _before_ its publication,\" he said. \"There's an existentialist edge to it, and I would point that out to European publishers, because I was confident that _Stoner_ would find a European audience for that reason. It's an American book like an Edward Hopper painting. It has that long-shadowed, lonely feeling. Loneliness is a big part of twentieth-century fiction. You might put _Stoner_ in the company of _The Plague_ , _The Stranger_ , and other enduring, existentialist books of that era.\" Cristina Marino, who obtained the book for Fazi Editore, believes that Italians don't share the optimism of Americans. \"We are more accepting of human failings, of people being fragile.\"\n\nFrank believes that _Stoner_ 's slow rise in popularity in the United States has been largely a word-of-mouth phenomenon\u2014proof of the fundamental importance of readers recommending and discussing books, especially at a time when social media promotes flash fiction, listicles, videos and pictures, and nonliterary discourse. \"It's a book about a person who loves books, and published at a time when people feel passionately that they need to defend the precincts of book culture,\" he said.\n\nFrom the last page of the novel, when Professor Stoner is dying:\n\nHe opened the book; and as he did so it became not his own. He let his fingers riffle through the pages and felt a tingling, as if those pages were alive. The tingling came through his fingers and coursed through his flesh and bone; he was minutely aware of it, and he waited until it contained him, until the old excitement that was like terror fixed him where he lay. The sunlight, passing his window, shone upon the page, and he could not see what was written there. The fingers loosened, and the book they had held moved slowly and then swiftly across the still body and fell into the silence of the room.\nAcknowledgments\n\nWilliams' papers at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, are deep and detailed. They contain extensive personal and official correspondence, notes and manuscripts of all the novels, official documents, photocopies of newspaper clippings, printed materials, essays on Williams' work, interviews, photographs, and a scrapbook. Papers belonging to some of his literary friends are available elsewhere\u2014including Yvor Winters, Alan Swallow, and J. V. Cunningham, at Stanford University, the University of Syracuse, and the University of Chicago, respectively. Papers belonging to a few of Williams' colleagues can be found at the University of Denver.\n\nSpecial thanks go to Jim Clark, the Red River Historical Society; Lindsay M. Morecraft, Special Collections, University of Iowa Archives; the University of Arkansas Special Collections Library; Geoffrey Stark, Reading Room supervisor, Special Collections, University of Arkansas; Halley Grogan, Texas State Library and Archives Commission; Katherine Crowe, curator, Special Collections and Archives, University of Denver; Mark A. Greene, director, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming; Giana Ricci, Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives; Lita Watson, Wichita County Historical Commission; Chloe Morse-Harding, Robert D. Farber University Archives and Special Collections, Brandeis University; David K. Frasier, the Lilly Library, Indiana University; Becky Morrison, Wichita Falls Public Library; and Laura Russo, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University. Tony Burton, literary historian of American writers in Mexico, was most helpful.\n\nWilliams' friends, colleagues, fellow authors, former students, and family members who graciously made themselves available for interviews include Michelle Latiolais, Cindy Carlisle, David Milofsky, Joe Nigg, Robert Richardson, Robert Pack, Dan Wakefield, Sherman Leavenworth, Sandra Cordon, Martin and Joyce Shoemaker, Jim Clark, Angela Ball, Brock Bower, Anne Marie Candido, Victor Castellani, David Haward Bain, Steve Wiegenstein, Doug Devaux, Gerald Chapman, R. H. Epstein, Thomas E. Kennedy, Miriam Epstein, Nancy Esterlin, Gale Woolf, Ben Kilpea, Eric Gould, Joanne Greenberg, Steve Heller, Fred Inglis, Jean James, Baine P. Kerr, Carol DeBoer-Langworthy, Nancy L. Easterlin, Heather McHugh, Jonathan Williams, Pamela Williams, Katherine Williams, Peggy McIntosh, David Milofsky, Roxie Munro, Edward M. Cifelli, Sherry Christie, Mike Dabrishus, David Myers, David Nemec, Jay Neugeboren, Joe Nigg, Robert Pawlowski, Alan Prendergast, Burton Raffel, Bin Ramke, Elizabeth Richardson, Florence Roberts, Joan Saalfeld, Amanda Vaill, Gordon Weaver, Michael White, Geary Hobson, Timothy Steele, Marc Yacht, Sandra Braman, William Giraldi, and William Zaranka.\n\nMatthew Carter, William Zaranka, Robert T. Tally, and Gerald Chapman generously made time to read the manuscript or answer questions related to it. Deb Stone uncovered documents and public records that had eluded discovery; Linda Justice transcribed interviews with lightning speed; graduate students Isobel Strobing at Boston University, and J. Edward Shockley at Midwestern State University (formerly Hardin Junior College), assisted in research.\n\nAt Folio Literary Management, Molly Jaffa and Jeff Kleinman, my agent, were the keys to connecting with Oscar van Gelderen at Lebowski Publishers and my perceptive, encouraging editor Stijn de Vries.\n\nFrances Collin, friend and partner to John Williams' agent Marie Rodell, and Collin's associate, Sarah Yake, spurred the creation of this book immensely by sharing materials and correspondence from their files. Their belief in this biography never wavered and led directly to its publication. Elido Fazi and Valentina Bortolamedi of Fazi Editore, Cristina Marino of Rizzoli, Edwin Frank of New York Review Books, Patricia Reimann of DTV Literature, Netta Gurevitch of Yedioth Books, Tito Exp\u00f3sito of Ediciones Baile del Sol, Frances MacMillan of Random House UK, Clara Nelson of Michael O'Mara Books, Claude Tarr\u00e8ne of Le Dilettante, novelist and translator Anna Gavalda, and Oscar van Gelderen graciously retraced their steps in explaining how they rediscovered _Stoner_.\n\nNancy Williams spent several days answering questions about her late husband and sharing her memories. Without her, much of her late husband's past would have been lost forever.\nNotes\n\n**PART I. _NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT_**\n\nChapter One. He Comes from Texas\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 10, 2014.\n\n. Williams' marriage, his second, to Yvonne Elyse Stone, State of California, Certificate of Registry of Marriage, #26401, September 2, 1947.\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 10, 2014.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Dedication to George Rae Williams by her husband, Willard Marsh, in _Week with No Friday_ (New York: Harper and Row, 1965).\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 10, 2014.\n\n. John Williams, _Stoner_ (New York: New York Review Books, 2006).\n\n. Dan Wakefield, \"John Williams, Plain Writer,\" _Ploughshares_ 7, nos. 3\u20134 (Fall\/Winter 1981): 15.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Frank Gruber, _Zane Grey: A Biography_ (Mattituck, NY: Amereon, 1969), 213.\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 10, 2014. Nancy said, \"Things began to make sense to John after that about his family.\"\n\n. Wakefield, \"John Williams, Plain Writer,\" 15.\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 10, 2014.\n\n. Ibid. The description of slaughtering the pig is based on common practice.\n\n. John Williams, _Butcher's Crossing_ (New York: New York Review Books, 2007).\n\nChapter Two. \"Ho, Ho! Wasn't I the Character Then?\"\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 9, 2014.\n\n. John Williams, \"The 'Western': Definition of the Myth,\" _The Nation_ 43, no. 17 (November 18, 1961).\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 9, 2014.\n\n. The scene fades to black and the words appear: \"I am the resurrection and the life\"\u2014an example of Hollywood hitting the audience over the head and pitching the film to churchgoers who might not approve of movies. The novel ends differently.\n\n. Dan Wakefield, \"John Williams, Plain Writer,\" _Ploughshares_ 7, nos. 3\u20134 (Fall\/Winter 1981).\n\n. Note from an interview conducted by Jody McCall with Williams, apparently for a local newspaper. Williams Papers, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville (Williams Papers hereafter), Series 10 (Interviews), Box 27, Folders 9\u201310.\n\n. Brian Wooley, \"An Interview with John Williams,\" _Denver Quarterly_ (Winter 1986): 13.\n\n. Wakefield, \"John Williams, Plain Writer,\" 15.\n\n. \"These Books Not Really Over His Head,\" _Wichita Daily Times_ , March 6, 1938.\n\n. Bin Ramke, interview, October 7, 2014. Ramke was a colleague of Williams' at the University of Denver.\n\n. \"Young Wichitan Accidentally Shot,\" _Wichita Daily Times_ , June 30, 1940.\n\n. McCall notes, Williams Papers.\n\n. Wooley, \"Interview with John Williams,\" 30.\n\n. Wakefield, \"John Williams, Plain Writer,\" 15.\n\n. Ibid., 18.\n\n. Newsom and Coleman had landed parts for the summer at the county playhouse in Suffern, NY. Vesta Kelling, \"Actors Take a Busman's Holiday\u2014And Act!,\" _Evening Independent_ , July 12, 1941, 6, 9. Newsom became a Hollywood writer; Coleman's interest in theater trailed off during the war.\n\n. \"Playgoers Await Unique 'Our Town,'\" _Wichita Daily Times_ , December 8, 1940.\n\n. Wooley, \"Interview with John Williams,\" 15.\n\n. Michael Shannon, \"The History of KDNT Radio in Denton, Texas, Part I: 1938\u201346,\" Dallas\u2013Fort Worth Radio & Television History, n.d., dfwretroplex.com.\n\n. Martin (Alyeene's nephew) and Joyce Shoemaker, interview, June 4, 2015.\n\n. \"Miss Bryan, Mr. Williams Married Methodist Church,\" _Hood County Tablet_ , April 9, 1942.\n\n. Ibid.\n\nChapter Three. Rough Draft\n\n. \"Mechanics Still Are Wanted by Air Corps,\" _Lubbock Morning Avalanche_ , September 26, 1942.\n\n. Dan Wakefield, \"John Williams, Plain Writer,\" _Ploughshares_ 7, nos. 3\u20134 (Fall\/Winter 1981): 21.\n\n. Conrad Black, _Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Champion of Freedom_ (New York: PublicAffairs, 2003), 603\u2013605.\n\n. _Hood County Tablet_ , November 19, 1942, 8.\n\n. _Hood County Tablet_ , December 24, 1942, 1.\n\n. Donovan Webster, _The Burma Road: The Epic Story of the China-Burma-India Theater in World War II_ (New York: Harper Perennial, 2004), 129.\n\n. Thomas Ray Foltz, \"My Life as a GI Joe in World War II,\" China-Burma-India: Remembering the Forgotten Theater of World War II, 2007, cbi-theater.com\/gijoe\/gijoe.html.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Theodore White, \"The Hump: The Historic Airway to China Was Created by US Heroes,\" _Life_ , September 11, 1944.\n\n. Memoirs of World War II radiomen report that this was common practice.\n\n. Douglas F. Devaux, \"China, Burma and India from the Back Seat: Memories from the China-Burma-India Theater,\" China-Burma-India: Remembering the Forgotten Theater of World War II, 2001 (adapted for internet 2016), cbi-theater.com\/backseat\/backseat.html.\n\n. Still, the efforts of the Hump-fliers were weakened by corruption on the other end. The supplies that landed in China didn't always end up in the proper hands\u2014the bane of international charity\u2014and the black market was booming in and around the drop-off point of Kunming. Unscrupulous hoarders built fortunes from selling supplies shipped from Indian bases. As Donovan Webster writes in _The Burma Road: The Epic Story of the China-Burma-India Theater in World War II_ (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003), \"troops were living on gruel, Spam, and rice, while those close to Hump deliveries in China grew fat on American-bought pork, beef, and chicken\" (128).\n\n. Williams, reading aloud from his manuscript during an honorary symposium about him, March 29, 1984, CD-ROM, included in the Williams Papers collection.\n\n. Alan Prendergast, \"Sixteen Years After His Death, Not-So-Famous Novelist John Williams Is Finding His Audience,\" _Westword_ , November 3, 2010.\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 10, 2014.\n\n. USAAF\/USAF Aircraft Accidents 1942\u20131955 for India: Military Aviation Incident Reports, aviationarcheology.com; National Archives, College Park, Maryland, Lists of Allied Air Crashes, compiled 09\/1939\u201303\/1945, ARC Identifier 7373711\/MLR Number A1 2109-C Series, Record Group 92: Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, 1774\u20131985.\n\n. Wakefield, \"John Williams, Plain Writer,\" 21.\n\n. Barbara Tuchman, _Stilwell and the American Experience in China_ (New York: Grove Press, 1970); Nancy Williams, interview, October 10, 2014. Nancy said, \"His nightmares continued for years and gradually lessened\u2014the guilt.\"\n\n. James McWilliams, \"The Examined Lie: A Meditation on Memory,\" _American Scholar_ , Summer 2015.\n\n. Katherine Williams, email, May 2, 2015.\n\n. Dan Wakefield, interview, November 11, 2013.\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 10, 2014.\n\n. From a booklet dated March 1944, Williams Papers. That month the 1st and 2nd Troop Carrier Squadrons flew seventeen low-altitude missions, parachuting supplies to Merrill's Marauders, an Allied guerrilla force in the Burmese jungle\u2014more than twenty tons every other day. Instead of keeping a soldier's diary of events, Williams may have preferred writing fiction as a gesture of faith that he would survive to be published one day.\n\n. Brian Wooley, \"An Interview with John Williams,\" _Denver Quarterly_ (Winter 1986): 5.\n\n. Satyavati C. Jordan to Williams, March 25, 1945, Williams Papers.\n\n. Satyavati C. Jordan to Williams, March 29, 1945, Williams Papers.\n\n. Jack Newsom to Williams, October 22, 1944, Williams Papers.\n\nChapter Four. Key West\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 9, 2014. When Williams was in India, he and the men drank something the locals brewed\u2014they called it \"spot-bottle\"\u2014drops of which stained their uniforms white.\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 9, 2014.\n\n. Brian Wooley, \"Interview with John Williams,\" _Denver Quarterly_ (Winter 1986): 25. If Williams wrote half a dozen sentences he liked in a day's work, he was satisfied.\n\n. Edward Stone, _A Certain Morbidness: A View of American Literature_ (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969), 18.\n\n. All quotations here and in the passage that follows are from John Williams, _Nothing But the Night_ (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1990).\n\n. Before the war, Smart had published a study of private libraries in colonial Virginia that other scholars would still be citing sixty years later. About this role as an adviser to students, later, at the University of Miami, a student named Marc Yacht sought out Smart, his creative writing teacher. Yacht was in pre-med and wanted to be a doctor, but he was rethinking that decision. Smart had been a member of the pre-med club at the University of Alabama, so he understood. Yacht decided to drop out for a while, but later he enrolled in medical school and enjoyed a long career as a physician. Marc Yacht, MD, interview, June 13, 2015.\n\n. Smart was a heavy drinker and intimated that it was a problem in his later correspondence.\n\n. George K. Smart to Williams, July 7, 1946, Williams Papers.\n\n. Aswell succeeded Maxwell Perkins as administrator of the Thomas Wolfe estate in 1947.\n\n. _Paris News_ , September 10, 1937, 9.\n\n. John M. Spottswood to Williams, December 6, 1945, Williams Papers.\n\n. Dan Wakefield, \"John Williams, Plain Writer,\" _Ploughshares_ 7, nos. 3\u20134 (Fall\/Winter 1981): 16.\n\nChapter Five. Alan Swallow\n\n. Ten years later, the house fell beneath the bulldozers digging for the Ventura Freeway.\n\n. \"Texas Memories: 1932,\" _Denver Quarterly_ (Winter 1986): 129. Nancy Williams said, \"John loved his mother too much to talk about her.\" Nancy Williams, interview, October 9, 2014.\n\n. Edward Aswell to Williams, June 19, 1946, and George K. Smart to Williams, July 7, 1946, Williams Papers.\n\n. Alan Swallow to Williams, November 2, 1946, Williams Papers.\n\n. Gale Woolf (Yvonne's daughter), interview, June 8, 2015.\n\n. Yvonne (Stone) Woolf to Williams, May 21 and 22, 1947, Williams Papers.\n\n. Alan Swallow to Williams, December 14, 1946, Williams Papers.\n\n. Dale W. Nelson, _The Imprint of Alan Swallow: Quality Publishing in the West_ (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2010), 159.\n\n. Ibid., 11.\n\n. The Blue Books were favorites of William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Richard Byrd (the polar explorer), Louis L'Amour (who said, \"The Little Blue Books were a godsend to wandering men and no doubt to many others\"), Harlan Ellison (who called them \"moveable schoolrooms at ten cents a shot\"), Saul Bellow, Gore Vidal, and Margaret Mead (who took a suitcase full of them to the Samoan Islands). Studs Terkel, who was raised in a Chicago boardinghouse, loved overhearing discussions between boarders about titles in the series. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover regarded the political, religious, and economic tracts as threats to the nation and arranged to have Haldeman-Julius arrested for tax evasion. The popularity of the Little Blue Books declined, however, during the Red Scare of the 1950s.\n\n. In 1938, Warren Brooks published a textbook, _Understanding Poetry_ , that codified many of the New Critical ideas into a coherent approach to literary study. The book, and its companion volume, _Understanding Fiction_ (1943), revolutionized the teaching of literature in universities well into the 1960s.\n\n. Quoted in Richard Ellman, \"Publisher for Poets,\" _Saturday Review_ , July 22, 1961, 33\u201334; Nelson, _Imprint of Alan Swallow_ , 57, 78.\n\n. Nelson, _Imprint of Alan Swallow_ , 75.\n\n. Donna Ippolito and Shirley Kopatz, \"Alan Swallow: Platten Press Publisher,\" _Journal of the West_ 8 (1969): 476.\n\n. Ibid., 476.\n\n. Robert Giroux to Williams, January 13, 1947, Williams Papers.\n\n. George K. Smart to Williams, May 5, 1947, Williams Papers.\n\n. Alan Swallow to Williams, April 29, 1947, Williams Papers.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Alan Swallow to Williams, August 5, 1947, Williams Papers.\n\n. George K. Smart to Williams, September 9, 1947, Williams Papers.\n\n. Historians Charles Graham and Robert Perkin, as well as Mayor Stapleton, are quoted in R. Laurie Simmons and Thomas H. Simmons, \"Historic Resources of Downtown Denver,\" National Register of Historic Places, Multiple Property Documentation Form, US Department of the Interior, National Park Service, .\n\n. \"Our Literary Alumni,\" _University of Denver Magazine_ , September 1964.\n\n. John Williams, _Stoner_ (New York: New York Review Books, 2006), 7.\n\n. Michelle Latiolais, interview, December 14, 2013. Latiolais was one of Williams' graduate students at the University of Denver.\n\nChapter Six. Love\n\n. Yvonne Williams to Elbert and Adair (?), April 25, 1948, Williams Papers. Elbert and Adair had a little boy, Harry, according to Yvonne's letter, so this is not John's grandfather Elbert Walker, who was in his nineties.\n\n. She edited Swallow's annual _Index to Little Magazines_ from 1948 to 1951.\n\n. George K. Smart to Williams, September 7, 1948, Williams Papers.\n\n. Yvonne Williams, April 25, 1948, Williams Papers.\n\n. Yvonne Woolf, \"DW [Douglas Woolf]: A Memoir\" (unpublished, undated), provided by Gale Woolf, her daughter.\n\n. Willard Marsh to Williams, May 4, circa 1958, Williams Papers.\n\n. George Rae Williams to Williams, March 16, 1948, Williams Papers.\n\n. Willard Marsh to Williams, March 23, 1948, Williams Papers.\n\n. Woolf, \"DW\"; Yvonne Williams, April 25, 1948, Williams Papers.\n\n. In _Wall to Wall_ , Woolf wrote:\n\nThere was nothing unusual about the truck parked by itself a little beyond the camp, it was an ordinary open-bed truck, Dodge, similar to the old-fashioned garbage truck. . . . No garbage truck I'd ever seen had smelled like that. I knew at once what was causing it, but I walked over for a look anyway, or perhaps because. The driver must have been waiting in the chowline with everyone else . . . so I was all alone. . . . He had a full load of soldiers in his truck, thrown in, their arms and legs and heads in various positions and attitudes that I'd never seen before. They were mostly French, a few Arabs, and despite their uniforms they didn't look very important any more. Later I learned that if you watched men die, especially if you've known them at all, they still look important afterward no matter what you have to do with them, but I was inexperienced then.\" (Douglas Woolf, _Wall to Wall_ [New York: Grove Press, 1962], 80\u201381)\n\n. Douglas Woolf, _Hypocritic Days and Other Tales_ , edited by Sandra Braman (Santa Barbara, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1993), 396.\n\n. Robert Creeley, \"Reading Douglas Woolf's Ya! & John-Juan,\" Dalkey Archive Press website, www.dalkeyarchive.com\/reading-douglas-woolfs-ya-john-juan.\n\n. Gale Woolf, interview, June 8, 2015.\n\n. Woolf, \"DW\"; Gale Woolf, interview, June 8, 2015.\n\n. Woolf, _Wall to Wall_ ; Gale Woolf, interview, June 8, 2015.\n\n. Alan Swallow to John Pauker, August 17, 1948, Williams Papers. Pauker, a commentator for the Voice of America during World War II, later became a poet, playwright, editor, and translator.\n\n. Yvor Winters, _Primitivism and Decadence: A Study of American Experimental Poetry_ (New York: Arrow Editions, 1937).\n\n. Billie Watson to Williams, July 9, 1948, Williams Papers.\n\n. John Williams, _Butcher's Crossing_ (New York: New York Review Books, 2007), 63.\n\n. John Williams, _Stoner_ (New York: New York Review Books, 2006), 193.\n\n. Undated draft of \"The Summer,\" Williams Papers.\n\n. George Rae Williams to Williams, July 11, 1948, Williams Papers; Woolf, \"DW.\"\n\n. Woolf, \"DW.\"\n\n. Gale Woolf, interview, June 8, 2015.\n\n. Woolf, \"DW.\"\n\n. Willard Marsh to Williams, October 14, 1948, Williams Papers.\n\n. Letters from George Rae and Willard Marsh to Williams, October 11 and 14, 1948, Williams Papers.\n\n. George Rae Marsh to Williams, December 4, 1948, Williams Papers.\n\n. Willard Marsh to Williams, December 4, 1948, Williams Papers.\n\n. George Rae Marsh to Williams, December 10, 1948, Williams Papers.\n\n. John Williams, _The Broken Landscape_ (Denver: Swallow Press, 1949), 23.\n\n. Willard Marsh to Williams, January 1, 1949, Williams Papers.\n\n**PART II. _BUTCHER'S CROSSING_**\n\nChapter Seven. The Winters Circle\n\n. Dale W. Nelson, _The Imprint of Alan Swallow: Quality Publishing in the West_ (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2010), 86. Not all of Swallow's books were for intellectuals. Virgil Scott's _The Hickory Stick_ (1947) was crime fiction. On August 20, 1947, _Kirkus Reviews_ said, \"Self-portrait of a heel, this, in its cold criminal conduct, its lust without love, its tough, tense narrative stands up well against (but does not necessarily derivate from) James Cain.\"\n\n. Quoted in Nelson, _Imprint of Alan Swallow_ , 98.\n\n. Alan Swallow to Williams, August 26, 1948, Williams Papers.\n\n. Kenneth Fields, \"True to His Word,\" _Stanford Alumni Magazine_ , November-December 2000, . The memory of hearing Winters reading verses moved Robert Lowell to say, \"His voice and measures still ring in my ears. They pass [poet A. E.] Housman's test for true poetry: if I remembered them while shaving, I would cut myself.\" Kenneth Fields, \"Winters's Wild West,\" _Los Angeles Review of Books_ , September 10, 2013, .\n\n. Fields, \"Winters's Wild West.\" See also Stanley Edgar Hyman, \"Yvor Winters and Evaluation in Criticism,\" in _The Armed Vision: A Study in the Methods of Modern Literary Criticism_ (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955), 23\u201353. It was true: Winters was born three centuries too late, and he was a thoroughly Johnsonian character. His marriage to Janet Lewis, however, was tender and they were devoted to each other.\n\n. David Yezzi, \"The Seriousness of Yvor Winters,\" _New Criterion_ , June 1997, 26.\n\n. R. L. Barth, ed., _The Selected Letters of Yvor Winters_ (Athens: Swallow Press \/ Ohio University Press, 2000).\n\n. A. Alvarez, \"Yvor Winters,\" in _Beyond All This Fiddle: Essays, 1955\u20131967_ (New York: Random House, 1968), 255\u2013259 (originally published in _The New Statesman_ , 1960).\n\n. Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford, quoted in Joseph Epstein, \"Father of History: Herodotus and the Human Dimension in the Past,\" _Weekly Standard_ , October 20, 2014.\n\n. Yvor Winters, \"Individual Poets and Modes of Poetry: The 16th Century Lyric in England. A Critical and Historical Reinterpretation,\" in Paul J. Alpers, ed., _Elizabethan Poetry: Modern Essays in Criticism_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), 98; originally published in _Poetry Magazine_ 53 (1939).\n\n. Quoted in Yezzi, \"Seriousness of Yvor Winters\"; Kenneth Rexroth, _American Poetry in the Twentieth Century_ (New York: Seabury Press, 1971), 92\u201393.\n\n. Yvor Winters, _In Defense of Reason_ (Denver: Swallow Press, 1947).\n\n. Frederick Seidel, \"Robert Lowell, The Art of Poetry No. 3,\" _Paris Review_ (Winter-Spring 1961).\n\n. Winters was also a moral figure to his students, which meant he had as profound an influence on them as any academic knowledge they picked up in his classes. He and Janet Lewis vigorously protested the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. They were founding members of the California branch of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People); they organized the retrial of a man unjustly convicted of murder; and they were both concerned with the plight and history of Native Americans.\n\n. George K. Smart to Williams, circa early 1949, Williams Papers.\n\n. Martha Hume, \"Artist of Diversity: John Williams,\" _Dust_ (Winter 1966): 18.\n\n. Willard Marsh to Williams, January 20, 1949, Williams Papers. Marsh sometimes poured himself a drink, or several, when he wrote letters, so his tone has to be taken with a grain of salt.\n\n. Nelson, _Imprint of Alan Swallow_ , 85.\n\n. Ibid., 98.\n\n. Jean James, interview, June 20, 2015. Her husband, Stuart James, was later chair of the English Department at the University of Denver. She said,\n\nAlan, he was impatient, with people who weren't interested in ideas, who weren't interested in the literary world. I don't think he tolerated stupid people very well. He was just kind of harsh in many ways. He never was to Stewart or to me, but I think he was to others. I saw that at many gatherings. He liked working. And many writers, or people of that ilk, that's the way they are, they are always thinking about writing. They are always thinking about ideas. And so to be in a world where they would consider it frivolous, they just don't want to bother.\n\n. J. V. Cunningham, _The Collected Essays of J. V. Cunningham_ (Chicago: Swallow Press, 1976), 421.\n\n. Irving Howe, _A Margin of Hope_ (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982), 190.\n\n. Timothy Steele, \"An Interview with J. V. Cunningham,\" _Iowa Review_ (Fall 1985).\n\n. Francis Fike, \"Cold Grace: Christian Faith and Stoicism in the Poetry of J. V. Cunningham,\" _Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature_ (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2007), 141\u2013158.\n\n. J. V. Cunningham, \"For My Contemporaries,\" from _The Exclusions of a Rhyme: Poems and Epigrams_ (Athens: Ohio University Press\/Swallow Press, 1960).\n\n. Hayden Carruth to Williams, October 31, 1949, Williams Papers.\n\n. Desmond Powell to Williams, April 6, 1950, Williams Papers.\n\nChapter Eight. \"Natural Liars Are the Best Writers\"\n\n. John Williams, _Stoner_ (New York: New York Review Books, 2006), 15.\n\n. Quoted in \"Natural Liars Are the Best Writers,\" _Moberly (MO) Monitor-Index_ , October 8, 1936.\n\n. Leon T. Dickinson, _An Historical Sketch of the Department of English, University of Missouri\u2013Columbia_ (Columbia: Department of English, University of Missouri, 1986).\n\n. \"A.H.R. Fairchild Talks on Value of Knowledge of Human Nature as Learned from Books,\" _Columbia (MO) Evening Missourian_ , October 30, 1922.\n\n. Dickinson, _Sketch_.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Alan Swallow to Williams, February 9, 1951, Williams Papers.\n\n. Barthold Fles to Williams, September 10, 1951, Williams Papers.\n\n. Alan Swallow to Williams, September 19, 1951, Williams Papers.\n\n. Harry Brague to Williams, November 11, 1951, Williams Papers. The legendary Maxwell Perkins hired Brague in 1946. He was Kurt Vonnegut's editor for _Player Piano_ and became Hemingway's editor in the late 1950s. A colorful description of New York publishing as a decrepit old boys' club after the war appears in an essay by Charles Scribner Jr., \"I, Who Knew Nothing, Was in Charge,\" _New York Times_ , December 9, 1990.\n\n. Barthold Fles to Williams, July 19, 1952, Williams Papers.\n\n. Harry Shaw to Barthold Fles, June 21, 1954, Williams Papers.\n\n. Barthold Fles to Williams, June 21, 1954, Williams Papers.\n\n. Ana\u00efs Nin, _Fire: From \"A Journal of Love, 1934\u20131937_ (Reprint, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1995), 280.\n\n. Willard Marsh to Williams, October 22, 1952, Williams Papers.\n\n. Willard Marsh to Williams, undated, Williams Papers.\n\n. Willard Marsh to Williams, October 22, 1952, Williams Papers.\n\n. A number of Williams' students over the years remembered his delight in reciting Wyatt during class.\n\n. Yvor Winters, _In Defense of Reason_ (Denver: Swallow Press, 1947). One of the editions is available online at archive.org.\n\n. Yvor Winters, _Forms of Discovery_ (Denver: Swallow Press, 1967), 44. Twenty years after publishing _In Defense of Reason_ , Winters still thought so much of Greville that he devoted ten pages to him in _Forms of Discovery_.\n\n. Williams, \"Fulke Greville: The World and God,\" _Denver Quarterly_ (Summer 1975). \"Imperfectly golden\" seems like a generous assessment of a poet who addressed his mistress as \"Faire dog\" in \"Sonnet II.\"\n\n. \"Our Literary Alumni,\" _University of Denver Magazine_ , September 1964.\n\n. Ray B. West to Williams, June 8, 1953, Williams Papers.\n\n. Alan Swallow to Williams, February 22, 1953, Williams Papers.\n\n. Yvor Winters to Alan Stephens, August 21, 1953, Williams Papers.\n\n. Ray B. West to Williams, circa late 1953, Williams Papers.\n\n. Williams to The Editors, _Poetry_ , January 20, 1954.\n\n. Willard Marsh to Williams, March 18, 1953, Williams Papers.\n\n. Florence Roberts, interview, June 6, 2015.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Ibid.\n\nChapter Nine. _Butcher's Crossing_\n\n. Alan Swallow to Williams, February 8, 1953, Williams Papers.\n\n. Martha H. Hume, \"Alan Swallow: In Memoriam,\" _Small Press Review_ (Spring 1967); Alan Swallow to Williams, January 1, 1954, Williams Papers.\n\n. Though commonplace today, in the 1950s there were no professional associations of writers in the United States, and only a handful of master of fine arts (MFA) programs. Some faculty resisted convening panels and workshops about writing for market, maintaining it was outside the mission of academe. Others looked askance at writing courses whose purpose was to produce writers; it sounded ironic\u2014maybe even a little Kafkaesque. Allen Tate, a leader of the New Criticism who later taught creative writing at Princeton, voiced a complaint in 1964 that has become perennial: \"The academically certified Creative Writer goes out to teach Creative Writing, and produces other Creative Writers who are not writers, but who produce still other Creative Writers who are not writers.\"\n\n. Leon T. Dickinson, _An Historical Sketch of the Department of English, University of Missouri-Columbia_ (Columbia: Department of English, University of Missouri\u2013Columbia, 1986).\n\n. Associated Writing Programs Newsletter, \"John Williams to Head AWP,\" 1974. The association supports writing programs in over 500 colleges and universities as well as 130 writers' conferences and centers.\n\n. Jean James, interview, June 20, 2015. Ms. James came to Denver as a student in 1959 and married Stuart James, an English instructor who became department chairman.\n\n. Gerald Chapman, interview, May 10, 2015.\n\n. Dan Wakefield, \"John Williams, Plain Writer,\" _Ploughshares_ 7, nos. 3\u20134 (Fall\/Winter 1981): 19.\n\n. Program for \"Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World,\" 1893, . For several seasons of the show, Sitting Bull, the Lakota holy man who had a vision predicting victory over the soldiers, walked somberly into the middle of the ring as the finale to the mock battle. Unexpectedly, he became a figure of respect among whites. Indian agency police killed him in 1890, fearing that he would use his influence to further inspire the mystical Ghost Dance movement.\n\n. Gerald Chapman, interview, May 10, 2015.\n\n. Lewis Mumford, _The Golden Day: A Study in American Experience and Culture_ (New York: Liverwright, 1926), 79.\n\n. Williams, \"The 'Western': Definition of the Myth,\" _The Nation_ , November 18, 1961.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Revisionist western films include _3:10 to Yuma_ (1957, 2007); _Jeremiah Johnson_ (1972); _Dances with Wolves_ (1990); and _Unforgiven_ (1992).\n\n. Willard and George Rae Marsh to Williams, November 11, 1954, Williams Papers.\n\n. Theodore R. Cogswell to Art Landis, March 14, 1978, Arthur Landis Papers, Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York.\n\n. This is the convention, renamed the Milford Science Fiction Convention in Kurt Vonnegut's _God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater_ , at which Rosewater blurts out drunkenly to the assemblage, \"I love you sons of bitches. You're all I read anymore.\"\n\n. George Rae Marsh to Williams, January 25, 1955, Williams Papers.\n\n. Eileen Bassing, _Where's Annie?_ (New York: Random House, 1956), 54. This sketch of George Rae as a ditzy muse does injustice to her career as a writer and playwright. As George Rae Williams, she wrote five published plays: _Mind over Mumps: A One-Act Farce_ (Franklin, OH: Eldridge Publishing Company, 1951); _Augie Evans: Private Eye: A One-Act Farce_ (Franklin, OH: Eldridge Publishing Company, 1951); _Leave It to Laurie: A Comedy in One Act_ (Minneapolis: Northwestern Press, 1952); _Keeping It in the Family: A Comedy in One Act_ (Minneapolis: Northwestern Press, 1953); and _A Will and a Way: A Three Act Comedy_ (Franklin, OH: Eldridge Publishing Company, 1962). As George Rae Cogswell, she wrote (with her second husband, Ted) the short story \"Contact Point\" (1975), and they contributed a coauthored story to _Six Science Fiction Plays_ (New York: Pocket Books, 1975). In 1979, as Georgia Cogswell, she published _Golden Obsession_ (New York: Kensington, 1979). Tony Burton, \"George Rae Marsh (Williams), aka Georgia Cogswell (1925\u20131997),\" Sombrero Books, September 14, 2015, sombrerobooks.com\/?p=2689.\n\n. Martha Hume, \"John Williams: Artist of Diversity,\" _Dust_ (Winter 1966): 24.\n\n. Willa Cather, _Not Under Forty_ (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1936), 50.\n\n. Flora Merrill, \"A Short Story Course Can Only Delay, It Cannot Kill an Artist, Says Willa Cather,\" reprinted in _Nebraska State Journal_ (April 25 1925): 11.\n\n. Janet Lewis to Williams, September 3, 1958, Williams Papers.\n\n. John Williams, _Butcher's Crossing_ (New York: New York Review Books, 2007), 117.\n\n. Ibid., 250.\n\n. Morton M. Hunt to Williams, August 28, 1958. Hunt authored popular nonfiction books about healthy approaches to relationships and living.\n\nChapter Ten. Fiasco\n\n. Linda Lear, _Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature_ (New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 1997).\n\n. Betty Friedan, _Life So Far_ (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), 138. Rodell was also Martin Luther King Jr.'s literary agent during the publication of his first book, _Stride Toward Freedom_.\n\n. Morton M. Hunt to Williams, August 28, 1958, Williams Papers.\n\n. Marie Rodell to Williams, October 20, 1958, Frances Collin Papers, private collection (Collin Papers hereafter). Collin became a partner in the agency after Rodell retired.\n\n. Williams to Rodell, September 1958, Williams Papers.\n\n. Willard Marsh to Williams, undated, circa 1958, Williams Papers.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Willard Marsh to Williams, August 8 1958, Williams Papers.\n\n. Williams to Rodell, October 31, 1958, Collin Papers.\n\n. During his career, until his retirement in 1965, Scott edited James Michener's _Tales of the South Pacific_ ; Elizabeth Stevenson's _The Crooked Corridor_ ; and Barbara Tuchman's _The Guns of August_ , all winners of the Pulitzer Prize.\n\n. Rodell to Williams, November 31, 1958, Collin Papers.\n\n. Williams to Rodell, November 7, 1958, Williams Papers.\n\n. Editor at W. W. Norton to Joan Daves, December 9, 1958, Collin Papers; Harry Brague to Rodell, January 30, 1959, Collin Papers.\n\n. Pascal Covici to Rodell, March 2, 1959, Collin Papers.\n\n. Williams to Rodell, February 18, 1959, Collin Papers. Williams was a good judge of his own ability. The short story form wasn't his fort\u00e9. His novel-length voice sounded unhurried, removed even, and a sense of immediacy is critical in short stories.\n\n. Cecil Scott to Williams, May 7, 1959, Williams Papers.\n\n. Cecil Scott to Rodell, May 12, 1959, Collin Papers; Rodell to Williams, May 13, 1959, Collin Papers; Rodell to Williams, May 13, 1959, Williams Papers. By reversing herself about Macmillan, she confused Williams. He would have been content with Little, Brown. She wrote, \"It's a very good house, I think; at least, I have no serious quarrel with the quality of their list.\"\n\n. Williams to J. V. Cunningham, June 11, 1959, Williams Papers.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Williams to Rodell, June 18, 1959, Collin Papers. Nancy Williams said there was no point in asking John where he was going. \"Out,\" he responded.\n\n. Rodell to Williams, July 20 and 22, 1959, Williams Papers; Williams to Rodell, August 2, 1959, Williams Papers; Rodell to Williams, August 6, 1959, Williams Papers; Williams to Rodell, August 11, 1959, Williams Papers. All of this correspondence was about choosing a title.\n\n. W. L. Rice to Williams, April 19, 1960, Williams Papers. Rice waited a few weeks after the article appeared to write to Williams.\n\n. Rodell to Williams, March 29, 1960, Williams Papers.\n\n. Nelson Nye, \"Roundup,\" _New York Times_ , April 4, 1960.\n\n. Williams to Rodell, March 31, 1960, Collin Papers.\n\n. Cecil Scott to Francis Bacon, _New York Times_ , March 31, 1960, Collin Papers.\n\n. Cecil Scott to Williams, April 12, 1960, Williams Papers.\n\n**PART III. _STONER_**\n\nChapter Eleven. \"It Was That Kind of World\"\n\n. George Rae Marsh to Williams, January 18, 1960, Williams Papers.\n\n. Willard Marsh to Williams, circa early 1960, Williams Papers.\n\n. Nash Ramblers resemble cars drawn by Robert Crumb in his 1960s underground comics. The model Butch and George Rae owned was the same as the one driven by Lois Lane in the _Superman_ television series.\n\n. Robert B. Richardson, interview, December 12, 2013.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Fred Inglis, interview, September 5, 2014.\n\n. Robert B. Richardson, interview, December 12, 2013.\n\n. Gerald Chapman, interview, May 10, 2015.\n\n. Daniel Aaron, _The Americanist_ (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007), 144\u2013145. Aaron was the author of _Writers on the Left_ (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), his classic study of the radical American activists and novelists of the 1920s and '30s.\n\n. Jean James, interview, June 20, 2015; Gerald Chapman, interview, May 10, 2015.\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 9, 2014.\n\n. Jonathan Williams, interview, October 9, 2014.\n\n. Jim Clark, letter, February 27, 2015.\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 9, 2014.\n\n. \"Yarb\" is a vernacular mispronunciation of \"herb\"; \"yarb-doctors\" were folk medicine healers.\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 9, 2014.\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 10, 2014.\n\n. Williams to Marie Rodell, December 14, 1960, Collin Papers.\n\n. Alfred Kazin, _Writing Was Everything_ (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 10.\n\n. Bin Ramke, interview, October 7, 2014. Ramke was a friend and former colleague of Williams at Denver. His collection of poems, _The Difference Between Night and Day_ (1978), won the Yale Younger Poets Prize; _The Massacre of the Innocents_ (1994) and _Wake_ (1998) were awarded the Iowa Poetry Prize.\n\n. Cecil Scott to Williams, September 14, 1960, Williams Papers.\n\n. Williams to Rodell, September 26, 1960, Williams Papers.\n\n. William Peden to Williams, July 21, 1960, Williams Papers.\n\n. John Williams, \"Prospectus: An Anthology of the Shorter Poems of the English Renaissance,\" undated, Williams Papers.\n\n. Pyke Johnson to Williams, May 7, 1962, Williams Papers.\n\n. Williams to Rodell, February 2, 1963, Collin Papers.\n\n. Williams to Rodell, June 13, 1963, Williams Papers.\n\n. Gerald Chapman to R. C. Hadley, March 8, 1963, Williams Papers; Chapman, interview, May 10, 2015.\n\n. Williams to Rodell, April 2, 1963, Collin Papers.\n\n. John Edward Williams, _English Renaissance Poetry: A Collection of Shorter Poems from Skelton to Jonson_ (New York: New York Review of Books, 2016), xxiv.\n\n. Pyke Johnson to Williams, July 29, 1963. \"I can't help remembering how you and I discussed Mr. Winters during our rambles around the Denver campus.\"\n\n. Rodell to Williams, June 11, 1963, Collin Papers.\n\n. Williams to Rodell, June 13, 1963, Williams Papers.\n\n. John Williams, \"'63 Journal\" (in his handwriting), beginning June 21, 1963, Williams Papers.\n\nChapter Twelve. \"The Williams Affair\"\n\n. Williams to Marie Rodell, July 19, 1963, Collin Papers.\n\n. Cecil Scott to Rodell, July 12, 1963, Collin Papers. Al Hart was later Ian Fleming's editor at Macmillan.\n\n. Williams to Rodell, July 19, 1963, Collin Papers.\n\n. Rodell to Alan Williams, July 17, 1963, Collin Papers.\n\n. Yvor Winters to Doubleday Anchor Books, July 19, 1963, Yvor Winters and Janet Lewis Papers, Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California (Winters\/Lewis Papers hereafter).\n\n. Johnson's assistant was Helen D'Alessandro, who later became Harlan Ellison's editor.\n\n. Yvor Winters to Helen D'Alessandro, July 23, 1963, Winters\/Lewis Papers.\n\n. Yvor Winters to Anne Freedgood, July 25, 1963, Winters\/Lewis Papers.\n\n. Winters to \"Dear Sirs,\" July 19, 1963, Winters\/Lewis Papers.\n\n. Recounting the situation two years later to a professor friend, Winters was still angry:\n\nAnd his students know [he cribs from my lectures]. One of my students brought me a copy of the Williams anthology shortly after it appeared, almost two years ago. . . . I wrote to Anchor and told them they had been taken. They checked. They finally made Williams write a page of acknowledgement, which I accepted, although it was pretty sleazy. . . . Williams teaches at the U. of Denver; Swallow tells me that he has been lecturing verbatim from my essays for a long time, without acknowledgment, and that his students know it. He . . . publish[es] poems here and there which are ghastly imitations and piracies, mostly of me. (Yvor Winters to Gerald Graff, December 21, 1965, email from David Myers, November 15, 2013 [Myers collection hereafter])\n\n. Heather McHugh, email, May 12, 2015.\n\n. Martha Hume, \"John Williams: Artist of Diversity,\" _Dust_ (Winter 1966): 16.\n\n. Williams to Yvor Winters, August 8, 1963, Williams Papers. While the draft acknowledgment was making its way to California, Winters told Johnson on the phone, \"I don't wish any communication with Williams unless it is to plead for mercy. . . . I will wreck this book unless you provide proper acknowledgment.\" Pyke Johnson to Williams, August 9, 1963, Williams Papers.\n\n. Pyke Johnson to Williams, August 14, 1963, Williams Papers. \"I don't see what else we can do now,\" Pyke wrote, \"and I am beginning to doubt whether we will ever be able to satisfy him. However, let's try.\"\n\n. Pyke Johnson to Yvor Winters, September 25, 1963, Winters\/Lewis Papers.\n\n. Pyke Johnson to Williams, August 26, 1963, Williams Papers.\n\n. Yvor Winters to Gerald Graff, December 21, 1965, Myers collection.\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 10, 2014.\n\n. Hume, \"Artist of Diversity: John Williams,\" 17.\n\n. Williams to Rodell, November 21, 1963, Collin Papers.\n\n. John Williams, \"The Future of the Novel,\" in _Contemporary Literary Experience_ , David Madden, ed. (Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, 1974).\n\n. \"Our Literary Alumni,\" _University of Denver Magazine_ (September 1964). Williams couldn't abide the solipsism of the Beat writers and poets.\n\n. Williams to Rodell, September 16, 1963, Williams Papers.\n\n. Jonathan Williams, interview, October 9, 2014.\n\n. Several years later, Dan Wakefield recalled visiting Williams at his home. He said, \"Lonnie was really icy and you could feel the tension. Very unpleasant. Finally John said, 'Let's get out of here.' We drove over to the home of a woman who was lovely. And I then realized, 'This is his girlfriend!'\"\n\n. Willard Marsh to Williams, October 15, 1963, Williams Papers.\n\nChapter Thirteen. _Stoner_\n\n. Marie Rodell to Williams, March 11, 1964, Williams Papers.\n\n. Pyke Johnson to Williams, March 26, 1964, Williams Papers.\n\n. Williams to Rodell, November 21, 1963, Collin Papers.\n\n. Robert L. Morris to Williams, March 16, 1964, Williams Papers.\n\n. The University of Denver received $50,000 to establish the quarterly, which seemed like an enormous amount at the time\u2014the equivalent of four or five instructors' salaries. _The Denver Quarterly_ , of which Williams was the first editor, celebrated its fiftieth year in 2015 and has long been considered a leading literary magazine. Williams discovered he enjoyed creating it from the ground up\u2014contacting writers for submissions, planning the look of the publication, and editing the inaugural issue slated for early 1965. It suited him because he made the quarterly reflect his opinions. Concerned about the \"insidious ways that middle class culture\" was unduly influencing popular taste, he urged contributors to submit \"good essays done on such things as the 'new avant-garde' novel, new-wave cinema, the New York Review of Books, the literary magazines (in general or in particular), modern art, virtually all of the performing arts, and so forth.\"\n\n. John Williams, _Stoner_ (New York: New York Review Books, 2006), 181.\n\n. Joanne Greenberg, interview, October 8, 2014.\n\n. Bob Johnson to Williams, June 5, 1963, Williams Papers.\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 10, 2014.\n\n. Amanda Vail, interview, September 9, 2014. Vail, later an acclaimed biographer, was the editor at Viking who later replaced Smith.\n\n. Gerald Howard, \"Jacket Required: Thomas Pynchon's V,\" Graywolf Press December 12, 2013, . Howard, who worked with Smith, later became an executive editor at Doubleday.\n\n. Amanda Vail, interview, September 9, 2014.\n\n. Undated response to questionnaire submitted by a student to Williams, Williams Papers; Williams to Jeremy Larner, April 22, 1966, Williams Papers; Irving Howe, \"The Culture of Modernism,\" _Commentary_ , November 1, 1967.\n\n. Responses to questionnaire, Williams Papers.\n\n. David Myers, interview, December 16, 2013. Myers, a student of Cunningham's, said, \"I know for a fact that Cunningham was the model for Stoner. Stoner's marriage to Edith is Cunningham's wife, Barbara Gibbs\" (the poet). Williams spoke often of _My Mortal Enemy_ (1926), Willa Cather's portrait of a marriage that disintegrated over many years. Regarding Cunningham's relationship with his daughter, Timothy Steele said, \"He raised her, and, as far as I could judge, they had a good relationship.\" Email, July 3, 2015. Steele is the editor of _The Poems of J. V. Cunningham_ (Athens, OH: Swallow Press, 1997).\n\n. Williams, _Stoner_ , 3.\n\n. Ibid., 6.\n\n. Ibid., 13.\n\n. Ibid., 5.\n\n. The novelist Baine P. Kerr was a student of Williams': \"He would explain brilliantly Flaubert's methods\u2014light glinting off leaves, smells.\" Kerr, interview, October 8, 2014. Hilton Als, in _Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold_ , Griffin Dunne, director (2017).\n\n. Williams, _Stoner_ , 23.\n\n. Responses to questionnaire, Williams Papers.\n\n. Williams, _Stoner_ , 16.\n\n. Ibid., 51.\n\n. Ibid., 53.\n\n. Ibid., 117, 119.\n\n. Ibid., 65\u201366, 85\u201386, 95.\n\n. Ibid., 91.\n\n. Ibid., 92.\n\n. Ibid., 99.\n\n. Williams Papers, Box 11.\n\n. Williams, _Stoner_ , 111\u2013112.\n\n. Ibid., 37.\n\n. Ibid., 131.\n\n. Ibid., 137.\n\n. Ibid., 148.\n\n. Ibid., 174.\n\n. Moral identity is by no means just a literary construct. How it defines who we are is clear from an incident in medical history. In 1848, an explosion launched a thirteen-pound tamping iron through the skull of a twenty-five-year-old railroad worker named Phineas Gage, taking a chunk of his brain with it. Formerly mild-mannered and responsible, Gage emerged from the accident impulsive and foul-tempered. His character changed so markedly that those who knew him said he was \"no longer Gage.\" Recent experiments conducted in human behavior demonstrate that \"moral traits\u2014more than any other mental faculty\u2014are considered the most essential part of identity, the self, and the soul.\" And so it is with creating strong characters in fiction who operate from a moral identity that is established through choice, behavior, and response to conflict. Nina Strohminger and Shaun Nichols, \"The Essential Moral Self,\" _Cognition_ 131 (2014): 159\u2013171.\n\n. Sr. Joan Saalfeld, email, February 26, 2016.\n\n. Michelle Latiolais, interview, December 14, 2013.\n\n. Christof Wegelin, \" _The Imagination of Loving: Henry James's Legacy to theNovel_ by Naomi Lebowitz\" (review), _Southwest Review_ (Spring 1966): 197\u2013199. Winters used a similar method for putting teeth into his poetry. \"Every poem of Winters',\" wrote the critic Alvin B. Kernan, \"is a dramatization of the conflict between the moral perceiver and a spiritually empty world which is nevertheless so solid and real that the confrontation cannot be avoided\" (John Fraser, \"Leavis, Winters and 'Tradition,'\" in _Southern Review_ , Vol. 7, No. 4, Autumn 1971, 963\u2013985.\n\n. Williams, _Stoner_ , 203.\n\n. Williams to Jeremy Larner, April 22, 1966, Williams Papers.\n\n. Williams to Fred Inglis, January 10, 1966, Williams Papers.\n\n. Williams wrote, \"Grace is one of those mysterious people, as I suggest in the novel, whose moral nature is of such frailty and delicacy that it must be nurtured with infinite care. The fact is, the world does not nurture with such care, and such people are usually destroyed. The question of whether or not this should be so is irrelevant; it simply _is_ so [his italics]. If all the world could have loved Grace as Stoner did, she might have been saved; but the world did not.\" Williams to Fred Inglis, January 10, 1966, Williams Papers.\n\n. Williams, _Stoner_ , 215.\n\n. Marie Rodell, quoting Williams in a letter to Cork Smith, August 3, 1964, Collin Papers.\n\n. Dan Wakefield, interview, November 13, 2013. To Cork Smith, Williams wrote, \"I can't seem to get away from clowns.\" Williams to Smith, May 21, 1965, Williams Papers. Stubby Kaye was not as incidental a performer as Williams thought. He was a Broadway musical actor whose role in _Guys and Dolls_ was reprised in the 1955 film version with Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra.\n\n. Cork Smith to Williams, October 19, 1965, Williams Papers.\n\n. Irving Howe, \"The Virtues of Failure,\" _The New Republic_ , February 22, 1966.\n\n. Robert Pawlowski, email, April 19, 2015. Jean James about the scene in the English Department\u2014Williams seated alone in a chair all day\u2014from her husband, Stuart, the department head, in interview on June 18, 2016.\n\n**PART IV. _AUGUSTUS_**\n\nChapter Fourteen. Bread Loaf and \"Up on the Hill\"\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 10, 2014; Robert B. Richardson, interview, December 12, 2013.\n\n. Dale W. Nelson, _The Imprint of Alan Swallow: Quality Publishing in the West_ (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2010), 108; Frederick Manfred, \"Alan Swallow, Poet and Publisher,\" _Chicago Tribune_ , December 18, 1966.\n\n. Alan Swallow to Williams, March 13, 1963, Williams Papers.\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 10, 2014.\n\n. Willard Marsh to Williams, June 2, 1965, Williams Papers.\n\n. William Sloane to Williams, July 25, 1965, Williams Papers.\n\n. Williams to Wayne Carver, May 13, 1966, Williams Papers. Williams taught a writing seminar at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, at Carver's invitation.\n\n. John Williams, \"Looking for John Ciardi at Bread Loaf,\" in Vincente Clemente, ed., _John Ciardi: Measure of the Man_ (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1987).\n\n. David Haward Bain and Mary Smyth Duffy, eds., _Whose Woods These Are: A History of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, 1926\u20131992_ (Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press, 1993), 61.\n\n. Ibid., 95.\n\n. Williams, \"Looking for John Ciardi at Bread Loaf.\"\n\n. Dan Wakefield, \"John Williams, Plain Writer,\" _Ploughshares_ 7, nos. 3\u20134 (Fall\/Winter 1981): 9.\n\n. Williams, \"Looking for John Ciardi at Bread Loaf.\"\n\n. Dan Wakefield, interview, November 13, 2013.\n\n. Jay Neugeboren, interview, September 3, 2014.\n\n. Manfred, \"Alan Swallow, Poet and Publisher.\"\n\nChapter Fifteen. The Good Guys\n\n. Williams to Seymour Epstein, February 17, 1967, Williams Papers. He also expressed his satisfaction with Marie Rodell in this letter, despite the contretemps he'd suffered in connection with _Butcher's Crossing_ , saying she was \"the most honest and straightforward agent I have ever known, a real professional, and totally respected among the editors and publishers. . . . _If_ she talks to you about your writing, she will talk to you about it as if she were your friend, not your critic, and she will have respect for you, what you do, and your own decisions.\"\n\n. Williams to Harry H. Taylor, Ball State University English Department, June 7, 1966, Williams Papers.\n\n. Williams to Marie Rodell, June 6, 1966, Collin Papers.\n\n. John Williams, \"Statement of Project\" to the Rockefeller Foundation, April 12, 1966, Williams Papers.\n\n. John Williams, _Augustus_ (New York: New York Review Books, 2014), 22.\n\n. John Williams, \"Statement of Project\" to the Rockefeller Foundation, April 12, 1966, Williams Papers.\n\n. Gerald Chapman interview, July 12, 2015.\n\n. Fred Inglis, interview, June 22, 2014. Inglis was a visiting professor from England during the late 1960s and became one of Williams' closest friends.\n\n. Williams to Rodell, September 14, 1959, Collin Papers.\n\n. Jonathan Williams, interview, October 9, 2014. Katherine's career is similar to her father's. She received her PhD from the CUNY Graduate School, which specializes in seventeenth-century, romantic, and Victorian British literature. She received a bachelor's degree in French from the University of Denver. As of this writing, she is an associate professor and chair of the English Department at New York Institute of Technology.\n\n. Rodell to Williams, June 6, 1967, Williams Papers.\n\n. John Williams, \"Fact in Fiction: Problems for the Historical Novelist,\" _Denver Quarterly_ 7, no. 4 (Winter 1973): 1\u201312. Williams was influenced in his thinking by a paper given by Janet Lewis at the 1966 University of Denver summer writing workshop. It was titled \"The Problems of the Historical Novelist.\" Winters\/Lewis Papers.\n\n. Williams, \"Fact in Fiction,\" 5.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Richard Johnson, \"Interview: John Williams,\" _Empire_ , _Denver Post_ , June 9, 1985. As Harold Rosenberg wrote, \"A generation is fashion: but there is more to history than costume and jargon. The people of an era must either carry the burden of change assigned to their time or die under its weight in the wilderness.\" \"Death in the Wilderness,\" in _The Tradition of the New_ (New York: Da Capo Press, 1994), 255.\n\n. Williams, _Augustus_ , 18\u201319. Williams' view of life seems almost Russian at times, especially Tolstoyan, as in _The Death of Ivan Ilyich_ , where the hero seeks some kind of transcendence that will reveal his purpose before he dies.\n\n. Joanne Greenberg, interview, October 8, 2014; Sr. Joan Saalfeld, SNJM (Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary), interview, October 7, 2014.\n\n. Williams, _Augustus_ , 293.\n\n. Johnson, \"Interview: John Williams.\"\n\n. Williams to Willard Marsh, October 11, 1967, Willard Marsh Papers, Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.\n\n. Williams to John Ciardi, January 22, 1968, Williams Papers.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Williams to Dan Wakefield, March 8, 1968, Wakefield Papers, Lilly Library, Indiana University.\n\n. Jonathan Williams, interview, October 9, 2014.\n\n. Blake Bailey recounts the legend of Richard Yates, who, in a fit of mania abetted by alcohol, climbed up on the roof of Treman cottage and assumed the spread-arm position of Christ crucified. _A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates_ (Reprint, New York: Picador, 2004). He had to be talked down.\n\nAccording to David Haward Bain and Mary Smyth Duffy, eds., _Whose Woods These Are: A History of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, 1926\u20131992_ (Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press, 1993), the \"torrid romance of 1963\" was between the forty-one-year-old novelist John Hawkes and Joan Didion, who was twenty-eight years old at the time and had come to Bread Loaf on a fellowship. \"'They were like tragic teenagers,' snickered one Bread Loafer. _'Two weeks left to live!'_ \u2014before they had to go back to their respective lives\" (p. 89, italics in original). A staff member suffered a nervous breakdown during Ciardi's tenure as director. \"God did not intend for all those writers to gather in one place at one time,\" he warned from his hospital bed (p. 101).\n\n\"We are all madmen, which we already knew,\" Wakefield wrote to Williams in 1969.\n\n. Bain and Duffy, eds., _Whose Woods These Are_ , 98.\n\n. William Sloane, July 18, 1968, Williams Papers.\n\n. Bain and Duffy, eds., _Whose Woods These Are_ , 102.\n\n. Ibid., 98.\n\n. Sally Boland, \"Acceptance Speech for the 1997 Kalikow Award,\" June 29, 1997, Plymouth State University, Plymouth, New Hampshire.\n\n. Alan Prendergast, \"Sixteen Years After His Death, Not-So-Famous Novelist John Williams Is Finding His Audience,\" _Westword_ , November 3, 2010.\n\n. Williams to William Hamlin, Chairman, Division of Humanities, University of Missouri at St. Louis, December 7, 1965. Hamlin and his wife, Florence, accompanied John and Lonnie on the vacation to Mexico in 1954, which should be taken into account regarding the breezy tone of Williams' letter.\n\n. Gerald Chapman, interview, May 20, 2015.\n\n. Peggy McIntosh, \"White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work in Women's Studies,\" Working Paper (Wellesley College, Center for Research on Women), 1988, no. 189.\n\n. Peggy McIntosh, interview, March 17, 2015.\n\n. Elizabeth Richardson, interview, May 18, 2015. The woman chosen over Richardson was American literary critic Helen Vendler.\n\n. David Milofsky, \"John Williams Deserves to Be Read Today,\" _Denver Post_ , July 1, 2007.\n\n. Peggy McIntosh, interview, March 17, 2015.\n\n. Brian Wooley, \"An Interview with John Williams,\" _Denver Quarterly_ (Winter 1986): 19.\n\n. Johnson, \"Interview: John Williams.\"\n\n. Timothy Steele, email, March 1, 2015. Steele is a poet and author. He edited _The Poems of J. V. Cunningham_ (Athens, OH: Swallow Press, 1997).\n\n. Wooley, \"Interview with John Williams.\"\n\n. Dan Wakefield, \"A Matter of Style,\" _Denver Quarterly_ (Winter 1986): 139.\n\n. _Stoner_ fans often wonder whether Bill Stoner and John Williams are similar. In their convictions about the academy, they are. Julian Barnes wrote, discussing Professor Stoner, \"He becomes a teacher, 'which was simply a man to whom his book is true, to whom is given a dignity of art that has little to do with his foolishness or weakness or inadequacy as a man'. Towards the end of his life, when he has endured many disappointments, he thinks of academe as 'the only life that had not betrayed him'. And he understands also that there is a continual battle between the academy and the world: the academy must keep the world, and its values, out for as long as possible.\" Julian Barnes, \"Stoner: The Must-Read Novel of 2013,\" _Guardian_ , December 13, 2013.\n\n. John W. Aldridge, _After the Lost Generation: A Critical Study of the Writers of Two World Wars_ (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951), ix. Aldridge, who taught alongside Williams at Bread Loaf, was himself a World War II combat veteran who had been awarded the Bronze Star. Ciardi had been a machine-gunner on a bomber over Japanese islands.\n\n. Bain and Duffy, eds., _Whose Woods These Are_ , 103.\n\n. Ibid., 106.\n\nChapter Sixteen. \"Long Life to the Emperor!\"\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 4, 2014.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Williams to Marie Rodell, April 3, 1970, Collin Papers.\n\n. Nancy Williams said, \"We never insisted that the kids like or see each other. We would have his kids over for dinner a couple times a month, maybe. John didn't discipline his very much\u2014they weren't misbehaving children. But he expected that his and mine would do what he said. Never raised his voice or hand to them.\" Apparently, John was a sterner and angrier parent when he was married to Lonnie. His son, Jonathan, recalled being punished with a belt a few times. During the holidays, both sets of grandparents\u2014Lonnie's and Nancy's parents\u2014came to the house and socialized.\n\n. Few of his friends knew the story of how \"John Jewell\" had become \"John Williams.\"\n\n. Carol DeBoer-Langworthy, interview, October 3, 2014; Joanne Greenberg, interview, October 8, 2014. None of the many people interviewed, however, believed that Williams' small stature had anything to do with his demeanor. In other words, he didn't try to compensate for it in any obvious way.\n\n. Robert Pawlowski, email, February 28, 2015.\n\n. Martha Hume, \"John Williams: Artist of Diversity,\" _Dust_ (Winter 1966): 18.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Williams' typed responses to a questionnaire, undated. Williams Papers.\n\n. Willard Marsh, \"Forwarding Service,\" in _Beachhead in Bohemia_ (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969), 143.\n\n. George Rae Williams to Williams, October 25, 1970, Williams Papers.\n\n. Tony Burton, \"Willard 'Butch' Marsh (1922\u20131970) and His Novel About 1950s Ajijic,\" Sombrero Books, October 26, 2015, sombrerobooks.com\/?p=2682.\n\n. Miller Williams, September 1970, Williams Papers.\n\n. Dan Wakefield to Williams, October 1, 1970, Williams Papers.\n\n. Rodell to Dan Wakefield, October 9, 1970, Collin Papers.\n\n. Seymour Lawrence to Rodell, September 8, 1970, Collin Papers.\n\n. Rodell to Lawrence, September 11, 1970, Collin Papers.\n\n. Rodell to Dan Wakefield, January 27, 1971, Williams Papers.\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 11, 2015.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Jerry Murray, \"Memories of Mack and Jeannette\" (April 2009), www.efanzines.com\/EK\/eI43\/index.htm#murray.\n\n. David Haward Bain and Mary Smyth Duffy, eds., _Whose Woods These Are: A History of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, 1926\u20131992_ (Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press, 1993), 105.\n\n. Robert Pack, interview, December 13, 2013.\n\n. Dan Wakefield, interview, August 3, 2014.\n\n. Susan Cheever, _Drinking in America: Our Secret History_ (New York: Twelve Books, 2015). Cheever, the daughter of the writer John Cheever, wrote, \"By the time my father's generation of writers started publishing in the years after World War II, being a writer almost always meant being a drunk\" (p. 165).\n\n. Dan Wakefield, interview, August 3, 2014. The Irish poet Dylan Thomas died of alcoholic poisoning in 1953, a few days after drinking eighteen whiskeys at the White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village, a favorite waterhole for writers.\n\n. Michelle Latiolais, interview, December 14, 2013.\n\n. Williams to Corlies Smith, February 17, 1972, Collin Papers.\n\n. Smith to Williams, March 1, 1972, Williams Papers.\n\n. Smith to Williams, April 4, 1972, Collin Papers.\n\n. Williams to Rodell, June 14, 1972, Collin Papers.\n\n. Williams to Alan Williams, July 8, 1972, Williams Papers; Rodell to Williams, June 8, 1972, Collin Papers.\n\n. Dan Wakefield, \"John Williams, Plain Writer,\" _Ploughshares_ 7, nos. 3\u20134 (Fall\/Winter 1981): 12.\n\n. Orville Prescott to Alan D. Williams, July 15, 1972, Williams Papers; J. V. Cunningham to Williams, October 8, 1972, Williams Papers.\n\n**PART V. _THE SLEEP OF REASON_**\n\nChapter Seventeen. \"How Can Such a Son of a Bitch Have Such Talent?\"\n\n. Eric Pace, \"2 Book Awards Split for the First Time,\" _New York Times_ , April 11, 1973. The National Book Awards are given to one book (and author) annually in each of four major categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and young people's literature. There are other categories, but they generally fall under the main four. Each panel considers hundreds of books.\n\n. John B. Breslin, \"Year of the Big Book: NBA 1973,\" _Saturday Review_ , May 5, 1973, 408\u2013409.\n\n. Pace, \"2 Book Awards Split.\"\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. William Cole, \"The Last of the National Book Awards?\" The Guest Word, _New York Times_ , May 4, 1975, 288.\n\n. Joanne Greenberg, interview, October 8, 2014.\n\n. William Zaranka, interview, October 7, 2014. Over the years, Zaranka served as an English professor, program chair of the creative writing program, dean of liberal arts and sciences, and provost of the university. Philip Doe, who also taught in the department, said, \"John winning the award wasn't universally greeted with joy\" (Philip Doe, interview, October 8, 2014).\n\n. Carol DeBoer-Rolloff, later DeBoer-Langworthy, became a lecturer in literary biography at Brown. The editor, Martha Rupp, explained to Rolloff why she didn't want to write the article.\n\n. Carol DeBoer-Langworthy, interview, October 3, 2014.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Ibid. Williams' remarks about disliking experimental fiction are paraphrased from the interview he gave to Martha Hume for _Dust_ in 1966, but he repeated the same sentiments consistently over the years.\n\n. John F. Baker, \"Academe Dominates a Low-Key NBA,\" _Publishers Weekly_ , April 30, 1973, 33.\n\n. John Barth to Williams, April 18, 1973, Williams Papers.\n\n. Williams to Durrett Wagner at Swallow Press, May 2, 1973. Williams summarizes Viking's reasons for rejecting his poems in his letter to Wagner. Four partners purchased Swallow Press and moved the business to Chicago following Alan's death in 1966. Suzanne Alaura Klinger, \"The Swallow Press Archives: A Finding Guide with Background on the Swallow Press and Its Significance\" (master's thesis, University of Chicago, 1984).\n\n. Robert O. Preyer, Brandeis University English Department chairman, to Williams, April 25, 1973, Williams Papers. The poet Adrienne Rich held the one-year appointment at the time.\n\n. Philip Doe, interview, October 8, 2014.\n\n. Robert Pawlowski, email, February 28, 2015.\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 10, 2014.\n\n. Marie Rodell to Williams, May 25, 1973, Collin Papers.\n\n. Baine Kerr, interview, October 8, 2014.\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 10, 2014.\n\n. Eric Gould, interview, March 19, 2015; Jonathan Williams, interview, October 9, 2014; David Milofsky, interview, December 13, 2013. Gould taught with Williams for many years. Milofsky was a professor in the department who knew John late in his career.\n\n. John Ciardi to Williams, June 18, 1971, Williams Papers; Joan Saalfeld, interview, October 7, 2014.\n\n. Michael White, interview, October 3, 2014.\n\n. Burton Raffel, interview, June 15, 2015; Miriam Epstein, interview, June 14, 2015.\n\n. William Zaranka, interview, March 2, 2015.\n\n. Joanne Greenberg, interview, October 8, 2014.\n\n. Fred Inglis, interview, June 22, 2014; Steve Heller, interview, March 2, 2015. Heller said the \"Anything other than the obvious . . .\" remark was directed at the novelist and short story writer Gordon Weaver, who used to tell the story as a joke on himself.\n\n. Interviews with Williams' former students: Joan Saalfeld, October 7, 2014; Angela Ball, June 14, 2015; Nancy Esterlin, June 27, 2015; Heather McHugh, by email, May 12, 2015; Philip Doe, October 8, 2014; Michelle Latiolais, December 14, 2013; Michael White, October 3, 2014; and William Zaranka, October 7, 2014.\n\n. Baine Kerr, interview, October 8, 2014.\n\n. William Zaranka, interview, October 7, 2014.\n\n. Joseph Nigg, interview, December 12, 2013. Nigg later became the author of popular books for young people about mythical creatures and lost places.\n\nChapter Eighteen. In Extremis\n\n. John, almost sixty, had mellowed toward children. The grandchildren were allowed free rein. Jonathan and his wife came to pick up their son, and the little boy \"had trashed the apartment,\" Jonathan later said. \"Oh, we're so sorry, we'll pick it up!,\" he told his father. But Nancy and John replied, \"No. Don't bother. We had a wonderful time watching him.\"\n\n. Williams to Fred Inglis, Fall 1980, Williams Papers.\n\n. Nancy Williams to Peggy and Burton Feldman, June 5, 1979, Burton Feldman Papers, University of Denver.\n\n. Williams to Fred Inglis, Fall 1980, Williams Papers.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. William Cifelli, _John Ciardi: A Biography_ (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1997), 416. Nancy Williams, interview, October 9, 2014. Windsor Lane, near the top of Solares Hill, the highest point in Key West, is now called the Writer's Compound. It's a private neighborhood of restored shanties, cottages, and bungalows connected by brick walkways and lush gardens. Former residents include Richard Wilbur, John Hersey, Ralph Ellison, and John Ciardi.\n\n. Dan Wakefield, \"John Williams: Plain Writer,\" _Ploughshares_ 7, nos. 3\u20134 (Fall\/Winter 1981).\n\n. Baine Kerr, interview, December 16, 2013; Cindy Carlisle, interview, December 18, 2013.\n\n. Baine Kerr, interview, October 8, 2014; Cindy Carlisle, interview, December 18, 2013. Said Inglis, \"I've seen him get very aggressively tight once or twice with Nancy and she just wept copiously when it happened. And that was very difficult and embarrassing, about what to do and where to look\" (Fred Inglis, interview, September 5, 2014).\n\n. Williams to Burton Feldman, a colleague at the University of Denver, October 24, 1979, Burton Feldman Papers, University of Denver (Feldman Papers hereafter); William Zaranka, interview, October 7, 2014.\n\n. His son, Jonathan, believed Williams had an addictive personality: he went at writing, drinking, and smoking with the same ferocious intensity.\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 9, 2014.\n\n. Williams to Fred Inglis, Fall 1980, Williams Papers.\n\n. Dan Wakefield, email, April 11, 2016.\n\n. Roxie Munro, interview, October 2, 2014.\n\n. Steve Heller, interview, March 2, 2015. Heller, a first-timer and still in college\u2014technically, too young be there\u2014scheduled himself to read one of his stories to an audience of Pulitzer and National Book Award winners. Touchingly, \"it was well-received.\" David Nemec, interview, February 23, 2015.\n\n. Jim Clark, letter, February 27, 2015.\n\n. Bin Ramke, interview, October 7, 2014.\n\n. John Ciardi to Margaret Mills, National Institute of Arts and Letters, February 20, 1985, Williams Papers.\n\n. Douglas Woolf, _Hypocritic Days and Other Tales_ , edited by Sandra Braman (Santa Barbara, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1993), 393\u2013399.\n\n. Gale Woolf, interview, June 7, 2015. Yvonne's partner beginning in 1980 was an Irish American sportsman in Washington State. The relationship that lasted twenty-five years, until his death in 2005.\n\n. Alan Prendergast, \"Sixteen Years After His Death, Not-So-Famous Novelist John Williams Is Finding His Audience,\" _Westword_ , November 3, 2010; Nancy Williams, interview, October 9, 2014.\n\n. Williams to Fred Inglis, Fall 1980, Williams Papers; Arlo Haskell, \"A Day at the Beach, 1984,\" Key West Literary Seminar, April 29, 2008 (updated September 26, 2016), www.kwls.org\/key-wests-life-of-letters\/a_day_at_the_beach_in_key_west.\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 10, 2014.\n\n. Nancy Williams to Margaret and Burton Feldman, April 29, 1986, Feldman Papers.\n\n. Williams to Edward Loomis (handwritten draft, circa 1988), Williams Papers. Loomis was a professor of English at the University of California at Santa Barbara.\n\n. Williams to the Feldmans, April 29, 1986, Feldman Papers; Nancy Williams, interview, October 10, 2014.\n\n. It must be said that regardless of the friction that existed between Williams and some of the others, the symposium was made possible through grants from the Colorado Endowment for the Humanities; the support of the University of Denver English Department of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities; and the _Denver Quarterly_ , which devoted its winter 1986 issue entirely to him and his work, including the first John Williams bibliography. It was an effort that took almost a year to plan.\n\n. Cifelli, _John Ciardi_ , 476.\n\n. Blake Bailey, _A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates_ (Reprint, New York: Picador, 2004), 558.\n\n. Jim Clark, email, February 27, 2015.\n\n. Clark wrote, in the email of February 27, 2015:\n\nSadly, Mr. Yates fell completely off the wagon in Denver. He made a bit of a spectacle of himself at the main program at the Denver Public Library, and when I stopped by the hotel to pick him up to take him to the airport, he was nowhere to be found. I asked the desk clerk where I could find Mr. Yates, the writer, as I was supposed to take him to the airport. \"You need to speak to the Manager,\" she replied. I learned that Mr. Yates had collapsed in the lobby a little earlier, suffering delusions and seizures. He ended up staying in the hospital in Denver for about two weeks, drying out.\n\n. Prendergast, \"Sixteen Years After His Death.\"\n\n. Audio recording made at the Denver Public Library, March 29, 1986, included in Williams Papers.\n\n. Nancy Williams, interview, October 10, 2014.\n\n. _Ozarks at Large: Arkansas Voices_ , interview with John Williams broadcast on National Public Radio station KUAF, 1993.\n\n. George Rae to Williams, March 3, 1987, Williams Papers.\n\n. The collage of anecdotes comes from a letter from George Rae Marsh to the Williamses, March 21, 1987, Williams Papers; Williams to Frances Collin, May 10, 1989, Collin Papers; Nancy, John, and Kathy Williams to Margaret and Burton Feldman, January 29, 1990, Feldman Papers; Nancy Williams to the Feldmans (the dream), November 14, 1990, Feldman Papers; interviews with Nancy Williams, October 8\u201310, 2014; and Prendergast, \"Sixteen Years After His Death.\"\n\nEpilogue. John Williams Redux\n\n. Edwin Frank, interview, October 1, 2015.\n\n. Colum McCann, \"Colum McCann's Top 10 Novels on Poets,\" _Guardian_ , October 2, 2006.\n\n. Astrid Gagneur, Interview with Anna Gavalda, Myboox, September 19, 2011.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Oscar Van Gelderen, interview, October 1, 2015.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Edwin Frank, interview, October 1, 2015; Cristina Marino, interview, October 2, 2015.\n\n. Edwin Frank, interview, October 1, 2015.\n\n. John Williams, _Stoner_ (New York: New York Review Books, 2006), 277\u2013278.\nWorks Consulted\n\nAaron, Daniel. _The Americanist_. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007.\n\nAldridge, John W. _After the Lost Generation: A Critical Study of the Writers of Two World Wars_. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951.\n\nAlvarez, A. \"Yvor Winters.\" In _Beyond All This Fiddle: Essays, 1955\u20131967_. New York: Random House, 1968. Originally published in _The New Statesman_ , 1960.\n\nBailey, Blake. _A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates_. Reprint, New York: Picador, 2004.\n\nBain, David Haward, and Mary Smyth Duffy, eds. _Whose Woods These Are: A History of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, 1926\u20131992_. Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press, 1993.\n\nBassing, Eileen. _Where's Annie?_ New York: Random House, 1956.\n\nCheever, Susan. _Drinking in America: Our Secret History_. New York: Twelve Books, 2015.\n\nCifelli, William. _John Ciardi: A Biography_. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1997.\n\nClemente, Vincente, ed. _John Ciardi: Measure of the Man_. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1987.\n\nCreeley, Robert. \"Reading Douglas Woolf's Ya! & John-Juan.\" Dalkey Archive Press website, www.dalkeyarchive.com\/reading-douglas-woolfs-ya-john-juan.\n\nCunningham, J. V. _The Collected Essays of J. V. Cunningham_. Chicago: Swallow Press, 1976.\n\n. \"For My Contemporaries.\" In _The Exclusions of a Rhyme: Poems and Epigrams_. Athens: Ohio University Press \/ Swallow Press, 1960.\n\nDickinson, Leon T. _An Historical Sketch of the Department of English, University of Missouri\u2013Columbia_. Columbia: Department of English, University of Missouri, 1986.\n\nEllman, Richard. \"Publisher for Poets.\" _Saturday Review_ , July 22, 1961.\n\nEpstein, Joseph. \"Father of History: Herodotus and the Human Dimension in the Past.\" _Weekly Standard_ , October 20, 2014.\n\nFike, Francis. \"Cold Grace: Christian Faith and Stoicism in the Poetry of J. V. Cunningham.\" In _Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature_. Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2007.\n\nFraser, John. \"Leavis, Winters and 'Tradition.'\" _Southern Review_ (Autumn 1971).\n\nGruber, Frank. _Zane Grey: A Biography_. New York: Amereon, 1969.\n\nHoward, Gerald. \"Jackets Required: Thomas Pynchon's V.\" Graywolf Press, December 12, 2013, .\n\n. \"Pynchon from A to V: Gerald Howard on _Gravity's Rainbow_.\" _Bookforum_ (Summer 2005), www.bookforum.com\/archive\/sum_05\/pynchon.html.\n\nHume, Martha. \"Artist of Diversity: John Williams.\" _Dust_ (Winter 1966).\n\nHyman, Stanley Edgar. \"Yvor Winters and Evaluation in Criticism.\" In _The Armed Vision: A Study in the Methods of Modern Literary Criticism_. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955.\n\nJohnson, Richard. \"Interview: John Williams.\" _Empire_ , _Denver Post_ , June 9, 1985.\n\nKlinger, Suzanne Alaura. \"The Swallow Press Archives: A Finding Guide with Background on the Swallow Press and Its Significance.\" Master's thesis, University of Chicago, 1984.\n\nLear, Linda. _Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature_. New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 1997.\n\nMerrill, Flora. \"A Short Story Course Can Only Delay, It Cannot Kill an Artist, Says Willa Cather.\" Reprinted in _Nebraska State Journal_ , April 25, 1925.\n\nMilofsky, David. \"John Williams Deserves to Be Read Today.\" _Denver Post_ , July 1, 2007.\n\nMumford, Lewis. _The Golden Day: A Study in American Experience and Culture_. New York: Liverwright, 1926. Online.\n\nNelson, Dale W. _The Imprint of Alan Swallow: Quality Publishing in the West_. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2010.\n\nNye, Nelson. \"Roundup.\" _New York Times_ , April 4, 1960.\n\n\"Our Literary Alumni.\" _University of Denver Magazine_ (September 1964).\n\n_Poetry_ , LII excerpted in Paul. J. Alpers, ed. _Elizabethan Poetry: Modern Essays in Criticism_ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967).\n\nRexroth, Kenneth. _American Poetry in the Twentieth Century_. New York: Seabury Press, 1971.\n\nSeidel, Frederick. \"Robert Lowell, The Art of Poetry No. 3.\" _Paris Review_ (Winter-Spring 1961).\n\nSimmons, R. Laurie, and Thomas H. Simmons. \"Historic Resources of Downtown Denver.\" National Register of Historic Places, Multiple Property Documentation Form. US Department of the Interior, National Park Service.\n\n_Source Book of Information on Tabard Inn_. Columbia, MO: Press of the Crippled Turtle, 1951.\n\nStanford, Donald E. \"Yvor Winters, 1900\u20131968,\" _Southern Review_ (Summer 1968).\n\nStone, Edward. _A Certain Morbidness: A View of American Literature_. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969.\n\nStrohminger, Nina, and Shaun Nichols, \"The Essential Moral Self.\" _Cognition_ 131 (2014).\n\nSwallow, Alan. _An Editor's Essays of Two Decades_. Seattle: Experiment Press, 1962.\n\nWakefield, Dan. \"John Williams, Plain Writer.\" _Ploughshares_ 7, nos. 3\u20134 (Fall\/Winter 1981).\n\nWhite, Theodore. \"The Hump: The Historic Airway to China Was Created by US Heroes.\" _Life_ , September 11, 1944.\n\nWilliams, John. \"Fact in Fiction: Problems for the Historical Novelist.\" _Denver Quarterly_ 7, no. 4 (Winter 1973).\n\n. \"In the American Grain: The Importance of William Carlos Williams.\" _Colorado Review_ (Fall 1997).\n\n. \"The 'Western': Definition of the Myth.\" _The Nation_ , November 18, 1961.\n\nYvor Winters. \"Individual Poets and Modes of Poetry: The 16th Century Lyric in England. A Critical and Historical Reinterpretation.\" In Paul J. Alpers, ed., _Elizabethan Poetry: Modern Essays in Criticism_. New York: Oxford University Press, 1967. Originally published in _Poetry Magazine_ 53 (1939).\n\nWooley, Brian. \"An Interview with John Williams.\" _Denver Quarterly_ (Winter 1986).\n\nWoolf, Douglas. _Hypocritic Days and Other Tales_. Edited by Sandra Braman. Santa Barbara, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1993.\n\nYezzi, David. \"The Seriousness of Yvor Winters.\" _New Criterion_ (June 1997).\nA John Williams Bibliography\n\n**NOVELS**\n\n_Nothing But the Night_. Denver: Swallow Press, 1948; Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1990; London: Vintage, 2018. Published in translation in Dutch (Lebowski), German (DTV), and Italian (Fazi), and forthcoming in Catalan from Ediciones 62.\n\n_Butcher's Crossing_. New York: Macmillan, 1960; London: Victor Gollancz, 1960; London: Odham's Press, 1961; New York: Dolphin Books, 1962; London: Panther Books, 1963; Boston: Gregg Press, 1978; Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1987; New York: New York Review Books, 2007; London: Vintage, December 2013. Published in translation in Bulgarian (Labyrinth), Chinese (Horizon Media), Danish (Lindhardt & Ringhof), Dutch (Lebowski), Finnish (Bazar), French (Piranha), German (DTV), Hebrew (Yedioth), Italian (Fazi), Korean (Opus), Norwegian (CappelenDamm), Portuguese (Brazil) (Absurdaventura), Serbian (Plato), Spanish (Lumen\/Random House Mondadori), Swedish (Natur & Kultur), and Turkish (Koton Kitap).\n\n_Stoner_. New York: Viking, 1965; New York: Lancer Books, 1966; New York: Pocket Books, 1972; London: Allen Lane, 1973; Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1987; New York: New York Review Books, 2006; New York: New York Review Books, 2015 (50th Anniversary Hardcover edition); London: Vintage Classics, 2012 (American Greats series). Published in translation in Albanian (IDK), Arabic (Dar Athar), Bulgarian (Labyrinth), Catalan (Ediciones 62), Chinese (CM Publishing, Horizon Media), Croatian (Fraktura), Czech (Kniha Zlin), Danish (Lindhardt and Ringhof), Dutch (Lebowski, best seller), Finnish (Bazar), German (DTV, best seller on the _Der Spiegel_ list for over a year), Greek (Gutenberg), Hebrew (Yedioth), Icelandic (Draumsyn), Italian (Fazi), Korean (Random House), Latvian (Zvaigzne ABC), Lithuanian (Baltos Lankos), Norwegian (Cappelen Damm), Polish (Sonia Draga), Portuguese (Brazil) (Editora Absurdaventura), Portuguese (Portugal) (Dom Quixote), Romanian (Polirom), Russian (Astrel), Slovak (Artforum), Slovene (Mladinska), Spanish (Argentina) (Fiordo Editorial via Ediciones Baile del Sol), Spanish (Spain) (Ediciones Baile del Sol), Swedish (Natur & Kultur), Turkish (Koton Kitap), and Ukrainian (Ranok).\n\n_Augustus_. New York: Viking, 1972; London: Allen Lane, 1973; New York: Dell Press, 1973; New York: Penguin Books, 1979; Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1993; New York: New York Review Books, 2014; London: Vintage, 2013. Published in translation in Bulgarian (Labyrinth), Catalan (Ediciones 62), Chinese (Horizon and Chi Ming), Croatian (Fraktura), Danish (Lindhardt and Ringhof), Finnish (Bazar), French (Piranha), German (DTV), Greek (Dardanos), Hebrew (Yedioth), Italian (Fazi, Frasinelli, Sperling and Kupfer), Japanese (Sakuhin Sha), Korean (GU-Fic), Latin (Lebowski), Norwegian (CappelenDamm), Portuguese (Brazil) (Editora Radio Londres), Spanish (Ediciones Pamies), Swedish (Natur & Kultur), and Ukrainian (Ranok).\n\n**BOOKS OF POETRY**\n\n_The Broken Landscape_. Denver: Swallow Press, 1949.\n\n_The Necessary Lie_. Denver: Verb Publications, 1965.\n\n**FICTION APPEARING IN PERIODICALS**\n\n\"Short Story 2.\" _Story_ 33, no. 130 (Spring 1960).\n\n\"The Sleep of Reason.\" _Ploughshares_ 7, nos. 3\u20134 (October 1981): 23\u201360.\n\n**POETRY APPEARING IN PERIODICALS**\n\n\"Love Poem.\" _New Mexico Quarterly_ 16, no. 3 (Autumn 1946): 359.\n\n\"Time, Place and Circumstance.\" _Interim_ 2, nos. 3\u20134 (1946): 34\u201337.\n\n\"Variation on a Theme by Donne.\" _Yale Poetry Review_ 5 (Autumn 1946): 12.\n\n\"The Waiting Man.\" _Matrix_ 9, nos. 3\u20134 (Winter 1946\u20131947), 37.\n\n\"The Harbinger of Sunstroke.\" _Experiment_ 3, no. 1 (Spring 1947): 191\u2013192.\n\n\"Statement.\" _University of Kansas City Review_ 13, no. 4 (Summer 1947): 327.\n\n\"Weapon.\" _Experiment_ 3, no. 1 (Spring 1947): 192.\n\n\"The Braggart Mind.\" _Experiment_ 4, no. 2 (1948): 148.\n\n\"The Fishes.\" _Berkeley: A Journal of Modern Culture_ 5 (1948): 5.\n\n\"The Forest Is All Blown.\" _The Tiger's Eye: On Arts and Letters_ 5 (October 1948): 16.\n\n\"The Land.\" _Experiment_ 4, no. 1 (1948): 239.\n\n\"Ode.\" _Arizona Quarterly_ 4, no. 2 (1948): 148.\n\n\"The Pocketing Season.\" _Experiment_ 4, no. 1 (1948): 240.\n\n\"Casualty.\" _Poetry Book Magazine_ 13 (1949): 5.\n\n\"The Wall.\" _Poetry_ 74, no. 6 (Summer 1949): 319.\n\n\"The Dancer.\" _Poetry Book Magazine_ 4, no. 4 (Summer 1952): 10.\n\n\"Song of the Arctic Explorers.\" _Talisman_ 2 (1952): 44.\n\n\"Act Five, Scene Two.\" _Prairie Schooner_ 1 (1953): 17.\n\n\"The Affliction.\" _Prairie Schooner_ 1 (1953): 20.\n\n\"The Demons.\" _Talisman_ 4 (Winter 1953): 22\u201327.\n\n\"The Lovers.\" _Western Review_ 17, no. 2 (Winter 1953): 101\u2013102.\n\n\"The Steps of Love.\" _Prairie Schooner_ 1 (1953): 18.\n\n\"Voyage.\" _Prairie Schooner_ 1 (1953): 19.\n\n\"On the Key to My Bookcase.\" _Western Review_ 18, no. 3 (Spring 1954): 198.\n\n\"A Summer Day.\" _Between Worlds_ 1, no. 1 (Summer 1960): 46\u201347.\n\n\"The Name of Death.\" _Colorado Quarterly_ 9 (Winter 1961): 224.\n\n\"Passage.\" _Colorado Quarterly_ 9 (Winter 1961): 225.\n\n\"The Sparrow.\" _Western Humanities Review_ 15 (Winter 1961): 32.\n\n\"A Return.\" _Voices: A Journal of Poetry_ 178 (May\u2013August 1962): 26.\n\n\"Cold Coffee.\" _South Dakota Review_ 1, no. 1 (December 1963): 35.\n\n\"The Progress of the Soul.\" _South Dakota Review_ 1, no. 1 (December 1963): 33\u201334.\n\n\"Seascape with Figure.\" _Verb: A Broadsheet in the Flat Style_ 2, nos. 3\u20134 (November\u2013December 1964): 6\u20137.\n\n\"A Winter Garden.\" _South Dakota Review_ 1, no. 1 (December 1963): 36.\n\n\"Letters from Rome.\" _Poetry Northwest_ 7, no. 3 (Autumn 1966): 27\u201328.\n\n\"At Bernini's Fountains.\" _Southern Review_ 3, no. 2 (Spring 1967): 406.\n\n\"Letter to a Friend.\" _Denver Quarterly_ 3, no. 2 (Summer 1968): 74\u201378.\n\n**POEMS APPEARING IN ANTHOLOGIES**\n\n\"Six Poems: The Dead; The Meaning of Violence; For My Students, Returning to College; A History; The Skaters; The Leaf.\" In _New Poems by American Poets #2_ , ed. Rolfe Humphries. New York: Ballantine Books, 1957, 169\u2013172.\n\n\"An Airman, Falling, Addresses His Sweetheart.\" In _The Sound of Wings_ , ed. Joseph B. Roberts and Paul L. Brand. New York: Henry Holt, 1957.\n\n\"Nightmare.\" In _One of the Family_ , ed. Fred Inglis. London: Ginn, 1971.\n\n\"Four Poems: Letter from the Atlantic; At the Theater; The Skaters; Cold Coffee.\" In _Contemporary Poetry in America_ , ed. Miller Williams. New York: Random House, 1972, 64\u201365.\n\n\"The Skaters.\" In _Hosannah the Home Run!_ , ed. Alice Fleming. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972.\n\n\"Letter from Oxford.\" In _The Scene_ , ed. Fred Inglis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.\n\n\"The Skaters.\" In _Direction_ , ed. Theodore Clymer, Leo P. Ruth, Peter Evanechko, and Julia Higgs. New York: Random House, 1974.\n\n\"On Reading Aloud My Early Poems.\" In _Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry_ , ed. John Frederick Nims. New York: Random House, 1974, 359.\n\n\"Two Poems.\" In _Poets of Western America_ , ed. Clinton F. Larson and William Stafford. Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1975.\n\n**EDITORIAL**\n\n_Twentieth Century Literature: A Scholarly and Critical Journal_ , 1954\u20131956.\n\n_University of Denver Quarterly: A Journal of Modern Culture_ , 1966\u20131970.\n\n_English Renaissance Poetry_. Garden City: Doubleday, 1963. New York: Anchor Books, 1973. New York: W. W. Norton, 1974.\n\n**ESSAYS APPEARING IN PERIODICALS**\n\n\"J. V. Cunningham: The Major and the Minor.\" _Arizona Quarterly_ 6, no. 2 (Summer 1950): 132\u2013146.\n\n\"The 'Western': Definition of Myth.\" _The Nation_ 43, no. 17 (November 18, 1961): 401\u2013406.\n\n\"Concerning Little Magazines: Something Like a Symposium\" (editorial statement). _Carleton Miscellany_ 7, no. 2 (Spring 1966): 1974\u20131976.\n\n\"Editorial Statement.\" _Denver Quarterly_ 1, no. 1 (Spring 1966).\n\n\"Henry Miller: The Success of Failure.\" V _irginia Quarterly Review_ 44, no. 2 (Spring 1968): 225\u2013245. (Also anthologized twice; see below.)\n\n\"Fact in Fiction: Problems for the Historical Novelist.\" _Denver Quarterly_ 7, no. 4 (Winter 1973): 13\u201336.\n\n\"Fulke Greville: The World and God.\" _Denver Quarterly_ (Summer 1975).\n\n**ESSAYS APPEARING IN ANTHOLOGIES**\n\n\"The Western: Definition of the Myth.\" In _The Popular Arts: A Critical Reader_ , ed. Irving Deer and Harriet A. Deer. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1967.\n\n\"Henry Miller: The Success of Failure.\" In _American Literary Anthology #3_ , ed. George Plimpton and Peter Ardery. New York: Viking Press, 1970. Reprinted in _Contemporary Literary Criticism_ , ed. Carolyn Riley. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1973.\n\n\"The Future of the Novel.\" In _Contemporary Literary Experience_ , ed. David Madden. Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, 1974.\n\n**WORKS ABOUT JOHN WILLIAMS**\n\nSelected Reviews\n\n_Nothing But the Night_\n\n_Sewanee Review_ 57, no. 1 (Winter 1949): 127\u2013135 (F. Cudworth Flint).\n\n_Sewanee Review_ 56, no. 4 (Autumn 1964): 671\u2013684 (Robert B. Heilman).\n\n_Butcher's Crossing_\n\nBignardi, Irene. \"Che cosa si impara leggendo un western.\" _La Repubblica_ , March 20, 2013.\n\nBlackburn, Virginia. \"How the West Was Slaughtered: _Butcher's Crossing_ Review.\" _The Express_ , January 5, 2014.\n\nBrenner, Jack. \"Butcher's Crossing: The Husks and Shells of Exploitation.\" _Western American Literature_ 8, no. 4 (Winter 1973).\n\nFoulds, Alan. \"Butcher's Crossing Is Not at All Like Stoner\u2014But Just as Superbly Written.\" _The Spectator_ (January 18, 2014).\n\nHeilman, Robert B. \"The Western Theme: Exploiters and Explorers.\" _Partisan Review_ (March 1961).\n\nKemp, Peter. \"Shock and Gore: _Butcher's Crossing_.\" _Sunday Times_ , January 5, 2014.\n\nLezard, Nicholas. \"Is John Williams' Wild West Novel Better Than the Hit _Stoner_?\" _Guardian_ , January 7, 2014.\n\nMalvaldi, Marco. \"Verso la grande frontiera: Un viaggio di formazione che anticipa Cormac McCarthy.\" _La Stampa_ , March 23, 2013.\n\n_Partisan Review_ 28, no. 2 (March-April 1961): 286\u2013297 (Robert B. Heilman).\n\nVan Essen, Rob. \"Moby Dick in the Wild Western.\" _Boeken_ (November 22, 2013).\n\n_Stoner_\n\nAkbar, Arifa. \"The Quiet Professor Who Finally Became a Bestseller.\" _The Independent_ , June 4, 2013.\n\nAlmond, Steve. \"Lost & Found: Stoner.\" _Tin House_ (June 2009).\n\nBarnes, Julian. \"Stoner: The Must-Read Novel of 2013.\" _Guardian_ , December 13, 2013.\n\n_Best Sellers_ 32 (May 1, 1972): 71.\n\nBigsby, Christopher. \"Stoner: A Classic Tale of a 'Small' Academic Life.\" _Times Higher Education UK_ (September 12, 2013).\n\nBland, Archie. \"John Williams' Stoner Has Achieved Late Popular Acclaim But Is the Dead Author's Second Novel Another Forgotten Work of Brilliance?\" _The Independent_ , December 6, 2013.\n\n_Booklist_ 61 (June 1, 1965): 953.\n\n_Books & Bookmen_ 18 (July 1973): 134.\n\nChevilley, Philippe. \"Romain Am\u00e9rican: _Stoner_ de John Williams.\" _Les Echos_ , September 5, 2011.\n\nCripps, Ed. \" _Stoner_ : The Literary Rediscovery of the Year.\" _Huffington Post_ , July 28, 2013.\n\n_Daily Mail_ (London). \"Stone Me, It's a Truly Great Read.\" August 17, 2013.\n\nDeats, Sara Munson, and Lagretta Tallent Lenker, eds. _Aging and Identity: A Humanities Perspective_. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999.\n\nDickstein, Morris. \"The Inner Lives of Men.\" _New York Times Book Review_ , June 17, 2007.\n\n\"Gavalda, son coup de _Stoner_.\" _Elle_ (September 9, 2011).\n\n_Guardian Weekly_ 108 (May 5, 1973): 25.\n\nGuerrera, Antonello. \"Stoner Mania.\" _La Repubblica_ , August 8, 2013.\n\nHabash, Gabe. \"A 'Perfect' American Novel Strikes Gold Overseas.\" _Publishers Weekly_ (April 27, 2013).\n\nHeathcock, Alan. \"Three Books to Take to a Fistfight.\" NPR, April 28, 2011.\n\n_Kirkus Reviews_ 33 (March 1, 1965): 264.\n\nKreider, Tim. \"The Greatest American Novel You've Never Heard Of.\" _The New Yorker_ , \"Page-Turner\" (blog), October 21, 2013.\n\n_Library Journal_ 90 (April 1, 1965): 1749.\n\n_Listener_ 89 (June 21, 1973): 840.\n\nMcCann, Colum. \"Book of a Lifetime: _Stoner_ by John Williams.\" _The Independent_ , June 15, 2013.\n\n. \"Stoner by John Williams.\" _The Independent_ , June 15, 2013.\n\nMontague, Sarah. \"Ian McEwan: Stoner di Williams tocca la verita: Come la grande letteratura.\" _La Repubblica_ , August 10, 2013.\n\nNeuhoff, Eric. \"Un homme ordinaire qui ne ressemble a personne.\" _Le Figaro_ (September 1, 2011).\n\n_New Yorker_ 41 (June 12, 1965): 155.\n\nNivet, Jean-Fran\u00e7ois. \"R\u00e9v\u00e9lation Am\u00e9ricaine: _Stoner_ de John Williams, traduit de l'Anglais par Anna Gavalda.\" _L'Humanit\u00e9 Supplement_ (January 5, 2012).\n\nNucci, Matteo. \"Da _Stoner_ a _Augusto_ , la vita anonima di un genio letterario perduto e ritrovato.\" _Il Venerdi_ (November 1, 2013).\n\n_Observer_ , April 22, 1973, 33.\n\nSnow, C. P. \"Good Man and Foes.\" _Financial Times_ , May 24, 1973.\n\n_Southern Review_ (Winter 1967): 186\u2013196.\n\nStark, John. \"The Novels of John Williams.\" _Hollins Critic_ 17, no. 4 (1980): 12\u201313.\n\n_Sunday Mirror_ (London). \"Books,\" August 4, 2013.\n\nSutherland, John. \"Literature Needs More Lazarus Miracles Like _Stoner_.\" _The Telegraph_ , July 13, 2103.\n\n_Times Literary Supplement_ , May 18, 1973, 545.\n\n_Virginia Quarterly Review_ 41 (Autumn 1965): cxx.\n\n_Augustus_\n\n_America_ 128 (May 5, 1973): 408.\n\n_Book World_ 6 (October 29, 1972): 15.\n\n_Economist Survey_ 249 (November 10, 1973): 16.\n\n_Kirkus Reviews_ 40 (August 15, 1972): 975.\n\n_Library Journal_ 97 (September 1, 1972): 2756.\n\n_Listener_ 90 (October 4, 1973): 459.\n\n_National Observer_ 11 (December 9, 1972): 25.\n\n_New Yorker_ 48 (November 25, 1972): 199.\n\n_New York Times_ 122 (October 28, 172): 29.\n\n_New York Times Book Review_ (April 8, 1973): 30 (John Leo).\n\n_New York Times Book Review_ (August 26, 1979): 31.\n\n_Publishers Weekly_ 202 (September 18, 1972): 71.\n\n_Saturday Review_ 1 (January 13, 1973): 66.\n\n_Time_ 100 (December 18, 1972): 107.\n\n_Times Literary Supplement_ (January 11, 1974): 25.\n\n_Wall Street Journal_ 181 (January 24, 1973): 18.\n\n_The Broken Landscape_\n\n_Arizona Quarterly_ 6, no. 3 (1950): 269.\n\n_Partisan Review_ 17, no. 2 (February 1950): [189]\u2013193 (Randall Jarrell).\n\n_Necessary Lie_\n\n_Southern Review_ (Winter 1967): 197\u2013228 (G. Lensing).\n\nCritical Studies\n\nBrenner, Jack. \"Butcher's Crossing: The Husks and Shells of Exploitation.\" _Western American Literature_ (February 1973): 243\u2013259.\n\nHartt, Julian. \"Two Historical Novels.\" _Virginia Quarterly Review_ (Summer 1973): 450\u2013458.\n\nHeilman, Robert B. \"Butcher's Crossing.\" _Partisan Review_ 28, no. 2 (March\u2013April 1961): 286\u2013297.\n\n. \"The Western Theme: Exploiters and Explorer.\" _Partisan Review_ (March\u2013April 1962): 286\u2013297.\n\nHobson, Geary. \"Reassessing John Williams' _Stoner_ : Twelve Years After.\" _New America_ 3, no. 2 (1977).\n\nHowe, Irving. \"The Virtues of Failure.\" _New Republic_ (February 12, 1966): 19\u201320.\n\nLeo, John. \"A Portrait Shaded toward the Stoic.\" (Review\/discussion of _Augustus_.) _New York Times Book Review_ (April 8, 1973): 30.\n\nNelson, Robert J. \"Accounts of Mutual Acquaintances to a Group of Friends: The Fiction of John Williams.\" _Denver Quarterly_ (Winter 1973): 13\u201336.\n\nSnow, C. P. \"Good Man and Foes.\" _Financial Times_ (London), May 24, 1973.\n\nStamper, Major Rex. \"John Williams: An Introduction to the Major Novels.\" _Mississippi Review_ 3, no. 1 (1974): 89\u201398.\n\nStark, John. \"The Novels of John Williams.\" _Hollins Critic_ 17, no. 4 (October 1980). (List of books by Williams, 12\u201313, is inaccurate.)\n\nWalsh, George. \"John Williams.\" In _Twentieth Century Western Writers_ , ed. James Vinson. Detroit: Gale Research, 1982, 815\u2013816.\n\nWerner, Craig. \"John Williams.\" _Dictionary of Literary Biography_. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1980), 371\u2013377.\n\nOf Additional Interest\n\n_Book World_ (January 27, 1974): 4.\n\n_Book World_ 9 (September 16, 1973): 13.\n\nBreslin, John B. \"Year of the Big Book\u2014NBA 1973.\" _America_ 128 (May 5, 1973): 408\u2013409.\n\nPace, Eric. \"The National Book Award in Fiction: A Curious Case.\" _New York Times Book Review_ (May 6, 1972): 16\u201317.\n\n. \"Two Book Awards Split for the First Time.\" _New York Times_ , April 11, 1973, 38.\n\nInterviews\n\n\"Artist of Diversity.\" _Dust_ (Winter 1966).\n\n\"John Williams.\" _Denver Quarterly_ 20, no. 3 (Winter 1986).\n\nWakefield, Dan. \"John Williams, Plain Writer.\" _Ploughshares_ 7, nos. 3\u20134 (Fall\/Winter 1981): 9\u201322.\nIndex\n\n_Page numbers in italics refer to photographs_.\n\nAaron, Daniel: _The Americanist_ ,\n\nAiken, Conrad, , ,\n\nAjijic, Mexico, , , 105\u2013, 114\u2013, , 161\u2013, , 212\u2013\n\nalcoholism, 216\u2013, , , 281n27\n\nAldridge, John, __\n\nAlgren, Nelson,\n\nAls, Hilton,\n\n_American Scholar_ , ,\n\nAmmaniti, Niccol\u00f2,\n\nAnchor Books, 147\u2013, 154\u2013,\n\nAppleyard, Bryan,\n\n_Antioch Review_ , ,\n\nArendt, Hannah,\n\nAristotle,\n\n_Arizona Quarterly_ ,\n\nAsimov, Isaac,\n\nAssociation of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP),\n\nAswell, Edward, , 262n9\n\n_Augustus_ (Williams): inspiration for, 151\u2013; National Book Award for, viii, 223\u2013, 226\u2013, , 232\u2013, , , 281n1; submission and publication of, 217\u2013, ; synopsis of, 193\u2013; writing of, 159\u2013, 192\u2013, , ,\n\nBaldwin, James: _Going to Meet the Man_ ,\n\nBarnes, Julian, , 279n44\n\nBarth, John, ; _Chimera_ , 223\u2013, ; Williams' first meeting with, 226\u2013\n\nBassing, Ellen, 107\u2013; _Where's Annie?_ , , 269n20\n\nBellow, Saul, ; _Herzog_ ,\n\nBerger, Thomas: _Little Big Man_ ,\n\nBerryman, John,\n\nBertinetti, Roberto,\n\nBignardi, Irene,\n\nBishop, Elizabeth, ,\n\nBlake, Eunice, __\n\nBorges, Jorge Luis,\n\nBourjaily, Vance,\n\nBowers, Edgar,\n\nBrague, Harry, , , 267n11\n\nBrandeis University, , 227\u2013\n\nBread Loaf Writers Conference, __ , 187\u2013, , , 200\u2013, , 213\u2013, , , ,\n\nBrecht, Bertolt,\n\nBrogan, Louise,\n\nBrooks, Cleanth, ,\n\nBrooks, Gwendolyn,\n\nBrower, Brock, __ , ; _The Late Great Creature_ ,\n\nBrowne, Thomas: _Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial_ ,\n\n\"Buffalo Bill\" Cody, 102\u2013\n\nBuffalo Bill's Wild West, 102\u2013, 269n9\n\nbuffalo hunting, viii, , , , 109\u2013, , 120\u2013, __ , ,\n\nBurroughs, Edgar Rice,\n\nBurroughs, William S., , 263n10\n\n_Butcher's Crossing_ (Williams), viii, , , , __ , __ , , , , ; final title decision about, 117\u2013; _New York Times_ review of, as a western, 120\u2013, , , , , ; reprintings of, 218\u2013, ; submission and publication of, 112\u2013; synopsis of, 109\u2013; writing of (working title _The Naked World)_ , 104\u2013, , , 113\u2013\n\nButler, Frank,\n\nCandido, Anne Marie, vii\u2013viii\n\nCarruth, Hayden, 82\u2013\n\nCarson, Rachel: _Silent Spring_ , ,\n\nCather, Willa, , ; _My Antonia_ , ; _O, Pioneers!_ , ; \"Paul's Case,\" ; _The Professor's House_ ,\n\nCefelli, Edward M.,\n\nChapman, Gerald, 101\u2013, 139\u2013, , ,\n\nCharles Scribner's and Sons, , ,\n\nChiang Kai-shek,\n\nCiardi, John, ix, __ , 188\u2013, , 201\u2013, , , , , , ,\n\nClark, James,\n\nClark, Walter van Tilburg, ,\n\nClarksville, Texas, 4\u2013, , , __\n\nCody, William Frederick \"Buffalo Bill,\" 102\u2013\n\nCogswell, Theodore, , 214\u2013, , 270n20\n\nColeman, Marjorie, ,\n\nCollin, Frances, , , 270n4\n\nColman, Ronald: in _Lost Horizon_ , ; in _Prisoner of Zenda_ , ; in _A Tale of Two Cities_ , 16\u2013; Williams' emulation of, , , __ , , ,\n\nConnell, Evan S.,\n\nCoover, Robert,\n\nCrane, Stephen: \"The Blue Hotel,\" ; Williams' admiration for, ,\n\nCrawford, Judith, 250\u2013\n\nCrawford Doyle Booksellers (New York City), 250\u2013\n\nCreeley, Robert, ,\n\nCrews, Harry,\n\nCunningham, James Vincent (J. V.), , , __ , , , ; \"For My Contemporaries,\" ; marriage of, ; Williams' essay on, 82\u2013; Winters Circle and, 79\u2013; _Woe or Wonder: The Emotional Effect of Shakespearean Tragedy_ , 83\u2013\n\nCurtis Publishing,\n\nCuster, George Armstrong,\n\nDavis, Catherine,\n\nDeBoer-Rolloff, Carol, , 281n8\n\n_Denver Quarterly_ , , , , , , 274n5, 284n28\n\nDickstein, Morris, ,\n\nDoe, Philip, 281n7\n\nDonne, John, ,\n\nDoubleday, , , 154\u2013\n\nDoyle, John, 250\u2013\n\nDrayton, Michael,\n\ndu Maurier, Daphne: _The Glass Blowers_ ,\n\nEakins, Thomas,\n\nEliot, T. S., ,\n\nElizabethans, , 94\u2013, , 146\u2013\n\nEllis, Bret Easton,\n\nEllison, Harlan, , 263n10, 273n6\n\nEmerson, Ralph Waldo, , , ; _Butcher's Crossing_ and, , __ ; on _Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial_ (Browne), ; \"Threnody,\"\n\nEmpson, William,\n\nEngle, Paul, ,\n\nEpstein, Seymour, __ , , 192\u2013, , 231\u2013; _Leah_ ,\n\n_Esquire_ , , ,\n\nExp\u00f3sito, Tito,\n\nFagles, Robert,\n\nFairchild, A. H. R., , 87\u2013, ,\n\nFarrell, James T.,\n\nFaulkner, William, , , , ,\n\nFazi, Elido,\n\nFazi Editore, ,\n\nFielder, Leslie A.,\n\nFields, Kenneth, ,\n\nFirst World War. _See_ World War I\n\nFles, Barthold, 91\u2013\n\nFortunato, Mario,\n\nFrank, Edwin, , 254\u2013\n\nFriedan, Betty: _The Feminine Mystique_ ,\n\nFrost, Robert, , , ,\n\nGage, Phineas, 275n38\n\nGascoigne, George,\n\nGass, William,\n\nGavalda, Anna, 251\u2013\n\nGibbs, Barbara: \"Accusatory Poem,\" , , 274n15\n\nGinzburg, Harold,\n\nGinzburg, Thomas, , ,\n\nGold, Herbert,\n\nGooge, Barnabe,\n\nGordon, Caroline,\n\nGoya, Francisco,\n\nG. P. Putnam,\n\nGrass, G\u00fcnter, ; _The Tin Drum_ ,\n\nGray, Thomas,\n\nGreat Depression, 13\u2013, 22\u2013, ,\n\nGreenberg, Joanne, __ , , , , ; _I Never Promised You a Rose Garden_ ,\n\nGreville, Fulke (1st Baron Brooke), ; _The Life of the Renowned Philip Sidney_ , ; Williams' dissertation on, 94\u2013, , , , ,\n\nGrey, Zane: _Riders of the Purple Sage_ , ; Williams' childhood reading of,\n\nGunn, Thom,\n\nGuthrie, A. B., Jr.: _The Big Sky_ , ,\n\nHaldeman-Julius, Emanuel, , 263n10\n\nHaley, Alex: _The Autobiography of Malcolm X_ ,\n\nHall, Donald,\n\nHalls, Oakley: _Warlock_ ,\n\nHamlin, Florence, ,\n\nHamlin, William,\n\nHarcourt Brace, ,\n\nHardin, John G.,\n\nHardin Junior College, , 20\u2013, , __\n\nHarris, Mark, 73\u2013, ; _Bang the Drum Slowly_ ,\n\nHarrison, John, vii\n\nHart, Al, 153\u2013\n\nHeller, Steve, 282n28, 283n16\n\nHemingway, Ernest, , , , 267n11; _Death in the Afternoon_ , 98\u2013\n\nHerodotus,\n\nHilton, James: _Lost Horizon_ , ,\n\nHolmes, John Clellon, ; _Go_ ,\n\nHomer: _Iliad_ ,\n\nHomer: _Odyssey_ , ,\n\nHope, Anthony: _Prisoner of Zenda_ ,\n\nHowe, Irving, , , ,\n\n_Hudson Review_ ,\n\nHunt, Morton M., 110\u2013, , , 270n27\n\nHurston, Zora Neale,\n\nHyman, Stanley Edgar, ,\n\nIbsen, Henrik: _Pillars of Society_ ,\n\nInglis, Fred, , 234\u2013,\n\nIowa Writers' Workshop, ,\n\nJames, Henry,\n\nJewell, Amelia (n\u00e9e Walker; Williams' mother), 4\u2013, 8\u2013, , , , __\n\nJewell, J. E. (Williams' father), 5\u2013, , __\n\nJohnson, Pyke, , , , , , , 273n13\n\nJonson, Ben, ,\n\nJordan, Satyavati C.,\n\nJoyce, James, ; _Ulysses_ , ,\n\nJustice, Donald,\n\nKazin, Alfred,\n\nKees, Weldon,\n\nKennedy, X. J., __\n\nKent, Rockwell,\n\nKernan, Alvin B., 276n41\n\nKerr, Baine, , 236\u2013, , 275n20\n\nKesey, Ken, ; _One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest_ ,\n\nKey West, Florida, 40\u2013, 233\u2013, , 241\u2013, , ; Writer's Compound (Windsor Lane), , 283n6\n\nKumin, Maxine,\n\nLawrence, D. H., , ; _Lady Chatterley's Lover_ , ; _The Plumed Serpent_ ,\n\nLawrence, Seymour,\n\nLeavenworth, James, 141\u2013\n\nLeavis, F. R.,\n\nLebowski Publishers, 253\u2013\n\nLederer, William, __\n\nLe Dilettante,\n\nLevine, Philip,\n\nLewis, C. S.,\n\nLewis, Janet, ix, , 73\u2013, , , 118\u2013, , ; _The Ghost of Monsieur Scarron_ , ; marriage of, to Winters, ix, 74\u2013, 266n5; _The Wife of Martin Guerre_ ,\n\nLewis, Sinclair,\n\n_Liberty_ ,\n\nLittle, Brown and Company, ,\n\nLittle Blue Books, , 263n10\n\nLomax, Hollis N., , 172\u2013\n\nLondon, Jack: _Call of the Wild_ ,\n\nLowell, Robert, , 265\u2013266n4\n\nLuk\u00e1cs, Gy\u00f6rgy,\n\nMacLeish, Archibald,\n\nMacmillan, 115\u2013, 120\u2013, 145\u2013, , 271n19\n\n_Mademoiselle_ , 65\u2013,\n\nMailer, Norman, ,\n\nmale chauvinism,\n\nManfred, Frederick,\n\nMann, Heinrich,\n\nMarsh, George Rae (n\u00e9e Williams; Williams' half-sister), , , __ , 214\u2013, ; acting career of, ; birth and childhood of, , , , , ; and death of brother, ; marriage of, to \"Butch\" Marsh, 68\u2013, , , 106\u2013, , 137\u2013, 161\u2013, , 211\u2013; marriage of, to Ted Cogswell, 215\u2013; writing career of, 269\u2013270n20\n\nMarsh, Willard \"Butch,\" __ ; _Beachhead in Bohemia_ , , ; education of, , ; grave of, ; illness and death of, 211\u2013; marriage of, to George Rae, 68\u2013, , , 98\u2013, 105\u2013, , 137\u2013, 161\u2013, , 211\u2013; teaching career of, , 198\u2013, 211\u2013; _A Week with No Friday_ , , , , ,\n\nMartin, Edward Alexander, __\n\nMaugham, Somerset: _The Razor's Edge_ ,\n\nMcCann, Colum, 251\u2013\n\nMcCarthy, Cormac,\n\nMcEwan, Ian,\n\nMcGinley, Phyllis,\n\nMcGrath, Thomas,\n\nMcHugh, Heather,\n\nMcIntosh, Peggy, 204\u2013\n\nMcMahon, J. D., 6\u2013\n\nMcMurty, Larry: _Horseman, Pass By_ ,\n\nMelville, Herman: _The Confidence Man_ ,\n\nMiddlebury College, , , ,\n\nMiller, Henry,\n\nMilton, John, ,\n\nMissouri Writers' Workshop, ,\n\nMitford, Jessica, ,\n\nMoore, Marianne,\n\nmoral identity, , 275n38\n\nMumford, Lewis: _The Golden Day_ ,\n\nMunro, Roxie,\n\nMunroe, Harriet, 75\u2013\n\n_Naked World, The_ (Williams). See _Butcher's Crossing_ (Williams)\n\nNashe, Thomas,\n\nNational Book Award, viii, 223\u2013, 226\u2013, , 232\u2013, , , , 281n1\n\nNational Book Committee,\n\nNelson, Clara,\n\nNew Criticism, , , , , 263n11, 268n3\n\nNew Directions,\n\n_New Republic_ , , 178\u2013,\n\nNewsom, Jack, , , , , , , 260n16\n\n_New Yorker_ ,\n\n_New York Review of Books_ , , 254\u2013\n\nNims, John Frederick, __\n\nNin, Ana\u00efs, ,\n\n_Nothing But the Night_ (Williams), , , , , , ; Butch's critique of, 60\u2013; submission and publication of, , 48\u2013, , 59\u2013; synopsis of, 41\u2013; writing of,\n\nNye, Nelson C., 121\u2013\n\nOakley, Annie,\n\nO'Neill, Eugene, ; _Long Day's Journey into Night_ ,\n\nPack, Robert, __ , ,\n\nPawlowski, Robert,\n\nPeden, William,\n\nPercy, Walker,\n\nPeterson, Margaret,\n\nPetrarchan School of poetry, 76\u2013,\n\nPinkerton, Helen,\n\nPinsky, Robert,\n\n_Ploughshares_ , ,\n\n_Poetry_ , 75\u2013, , ,\n\nPoirier, Richard,\n\nPopular Books,\n\nPorter, Katherine Anne, ,\n\nProust, Marcel, , , ,\n\nPynchon, Thomas, 166\u2013,\n\nRaleigh, Walter,\n\nRamsay, Robert L., 86\u2013, , ,\n\nRexroth, Kenneth,\n\nRichards, I. A.,\n\nRichardson, Elizabeth,\n\nRichardson, Robert D., 138\u2013, 203\u2013\n\nRobbe-Grillet, Alain,\n\nRodell, Marie (Williams' agent), 111\u2013, , , 213\u2013, 217\u2013, , ; death of, ; _Stoner_ 's publication and, 144\u2013, 147\u2013, 153\u2013, , 163\u2013, ,\n\nRoethke, Theodore,\n\nRomanticism, 77\u2013, , ,\n\nRomantic poetry, 65\u2013, , , , 174\u2013\n\nRoosevelt, Franklin Delano, 13\u2013; and the New Deal, ,\n\nSalinger, J. D.: _Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction_ ,\n\nSandoz, Marie: _Old Jules_ ,\n\nSassoon, Siegfried,\n\n_Saturday Evening Post_ , , 114\u2013,\n\n_Saturday Evening Post Stories 1954_ ,\n\nScott, Cecil, 115\u2013, , 145\u2013, 153\u2013\n\nScribner's. _See_ Charles Scribner's and Sons\n\nSecond World War. _See_ World War II\n\nSevareid, Eric,\n\n_Sewanee Review_ ,\n\nSheckley, Robert,\n\nShepard, Harwell V. \"Shep,\" ,\n\nSidney, Philip, ,\n\nSilverberg, Robert,\n\nSinclair, Upton,\n\nSitting Bull, 269n9\n\nSloane, William M., __ , , ,\n\nSmart, George K. \"Ken,\" 44\u2013, , 48\u2013, 54\u2013, , , , 262nn6\u20137\n\nSmith, Annie Laurie (Williams' eighth-grade English teacher),\n\nSmith, Avalon \"Lonnie\" (Williams' third wife), , , __\n\nSmith, Corlies M. \"Cork,\" 167\u2013, 177\u2013, , , 217\u2013, ,\n\nSmith College, , 199\u2013\n\nSnow, C. P.,\n\nSolomon, Barbara Probst: _The Beat of Life_ ,\n\nSontag, Susan,\n\n_Southern Review_ ,\n\nSpenser, Edmund,\n\n_Spicy Adventure_ ,\n\n_Spicy Detective_ , ,\n\n_Spicy Mystery_ ,\n\nSpillane, Mickey: _I, the Jury_ ,\n\nStanford University, , 80\u2013, , , ; Merry Pranksters and,\n\nStapleton, Benjamin F.,\n\nStegner, Wallace, ix,\n\nSteinbeck, John, , , ,\n\nStephens, Alan, , , 96\u2013\n\nStevens, Wallace, ,\n\nStewart, Mary: _The Moon-Spinners_ ,\n\nstoicism, , ,\n\n_Stoner_ (Williams), xiii, , , , 85\u2013, 89\u2013, __ , __ ; autographing party for, 177\u2013; Dutch edition of, 253\u2013; existentialism of, ; French edition of, ; as _New York Review of Books_ Classics imprint, ; as \"the perfect novel,\" , ; reprintings of, , , ; review of, by Irving Howe, 178\u2013, ; similarities between Williams and title character of, 279n44; submission and publication of, 163\u2013, 177\u2013; synopsis of, 168\u2013; translations and international editions of, 252\u2013; as Waterstones Book of the Year, ; working title, _A Matter of Light_ , for, , 149\u2013, 153\u2013, 163\u2013; working title, _A Matter of Love_ , for, , , ; writing of, , 149\u2013, 153\u2013,\n\nStrode, Hudson, ,\n\nSwallow, Alan, , 50\u2013, , 100\u2013, , , , 183\u2013; death of, ; early years of, 51\u2013; education of, ; first published book of, ; influence of Little Blue Books on, ; marriage of, to Mae, ; publishing principles of, 53\u2013\n\nSwallow, Mae (n\u00e9e Elder), 52\u2013, , ,\n\nSwallow Press, , 53\u2013, 58\u2013, 64\u2013, 69\u2013, 73\u2013, , , 90\u2013, , 96\u2013, 183\u2013, , 265n1, 282n14\n\n_Tale of Two Cities, A_ (film), 16\u2013, __\n\nTate, Allen, , , , 268n3; _On the Limits of Poetry_ ,\n\n_Tiger's Eye, The_ ,\n\nTrilling, Lionel, , ,\n\nTuchman, Barbara,\n\nTurberville, George,\n\nUniversity of Denver: _Denver Quarterly_ , , , , , , 274n5, 284n28; Williams as professor at, 98\u2013, , , , 138\u2013, 183\u2013, , 202\u2013, 228\u2013; Williams as student at, ix, 55\u2013\n\nUniversity of Missouri: Missouri Writers' Workshop, , ; and Ramsay-Fairchild feud, 86\u2013, , ,\n\nUpson, William Hazlett, __\n\nvan Doren, Mark,\n\nvan Gelderen, Oscar,\n\nViking Press, , , 166\u2013, , , , , , , , 274n10, 282n14\n\nVonnegut, Kurt, , , 267n11; _God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater_ , 269n18\n\nWakefield, Dan, __ , 189\u2013, 200\u2013, 213\u2013, 216\u2013, , , , ; _Revolt in the South_ ,\n\nWalker, Amelia (Williams' mother). _See_ Jewell, Amelia (n\u00e9e Walker; Williams' mother)\n\nWalker, Elbert G. (Williams' grandfather),\n\nWalker, Laura Belle (n\u00e9e Lee; Williams' grandmother),\n\nWalter, Bruno,\n\nWarren, Robert Penn, ; _All the King's Men_ ,\n\nWebster, Donovan, 261n12\n\nWest, Morris L.: _The Shoes of the Fisherman_ ,\n\nWest, Ray B., ,\n\n_Western Review_ , ,\n\nWestward Movement, 103\u2013\n\n_Whole Earth Catalog_ , 223\u2013\n\nWichita Falls, 5\u2013, , , ; \"The Corner,\" __ ; Hardin Junior College, , 20\u2013, , __ ; Newby-McMahon Building, 6\u2013; Texas oil boom, 5\u2013; Wichita Players,\n\nWilder, Thornton: _The Ides of March_ , ; _Our Town_ ,\n\nWilliams, Alyeene Rosida (n\u00e9e Bryan; Williams' first wife): divorce of, from Williams, , ; marriage of, to Williams, 26\u2013\n\nWilliams, Avalon \"Lonnie\" (n\u00e9e Smith; Williams' third wife): _Broken Landscape_ dedicated to, ; divorce of, from Williams, 199\u2013, ; education of, , ; first meeting of, with Williams, ; marriage of, to Williams, , , , 98\u2013, , , 140\u2013, , 148\u2013, , , 185\u2013, , 274n25, 280n4\n\nWilliams, George Clinton,\n\nWilliams, George Rae. _See_ Marsh, George Rae (n\u00e9e Williams; Williams' half-sister)\n\nWilliams, John: birth of, ; at Brandeis (visiting professor), 227\u2013; at Bread Loaf, __ , , 200\u2013, , 213\u2013, , , , ; and \"Celebration of John Williams,\" 244\u2013; composition notebooks of, 36\u2013, ; courses taught at Brandeis by, ; death of, ; dissertation of, on Greville, 94\u2013, , , , , ; as editor at _Denver Quarterly_ , , , , , , 274n5; as editor at Swallow Press, 64\u2013; emulation of Ronald Colman by, , , , , , ; endowed chair of, ; enlistment of, in Army Air Corps, 28\u2013; European trip of, 195\u2013; final illness of, 237\u2013, , ; Guggenheim Foundation application of, 118\u2013, ; Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship of, 239\u2013; at Hardin Junior College, 20\u2013, , __ ; in high school, 18\u2013; and hog butchering with grandfather, 12\u2013; in India, 30\u2013; influence of _A Tale of Two Cities_ (film) on, 16\u2013; in junior high school, 15\u2013; in Key West, 40\u2013, 233\u2013; as lecturer at Berkeley, ; Lovelace Bookstore after-school job of, , , ; marriage of, to Alyeene, 26\u2013, 29\u2013, , ; marriage of, to Lonnie, , , , 98\u2013, , , 140\u2013, , 148\u2013, , , 185\u2013, , 274n25, 280n4; marriage of, to Nancy, , , 214\u2013, 228\u2013, 233\u2013, 242\u2013, ; marriage of, to Yvonne, 55\u2013, 58\u2013, 62\u2013, 67\u2013; military service of, 28\u2013; with mother, __ ; and mother's death and illness, 45\u2013; and Oxford University summer session, 148\u2013; as parent and grandparent, , 280n4, 283n1; personal identity of, 10\u2013, 15\u2013; portraits of, 35\u2013, __ , __ ; as radio announcer at KRRV and KDNT (as \"Jon Williams\"), 24\u2013, , ; as radio announcer at WKWF, , 40\u2013; relationship of, with George Rae, ; as Smith College writer-in-residence, , 199\u2013; and staging of _Our Town_ on KWFT, ; and Texas Institute of Letters award for fiction, ; at University of Arkansas (guest lecturer), ; at University of Denver (professor), 98\u2013, , __ , __ , 138\u2013, 183\u2013, , 202\u2013, 228\u2013; at University of Denver (student), ix, 55\u2013; and Wichita Players performance, ; _Wichita Times Record_ student feature piece on, 18\u2013; \"Winters affair\" and, , 154\u2013, , 273n10, 273n13\n\n\u2014works of: _The Broken Landscape_ (poetry collection), ; _Dr. Cooper Speaking_ (radio drama), , ; \"Drouth\" (poem), ; _English Renaissance Poetry_ (edited anthology), 146\u2013, , , , ; \"J. V. Cunningham: The Major and the Minor\" (critical essay), 82\u2013; \"The Lovers\" (poem), ; \"Memories: Texas, 1932\" (poem), ; _The Necessary Life_ (poetry collection), ; \"An Old Actor to His Audience\" (poem), 221\u2013; _The Shape of the Air_ (poetry collection), , ; _The Sleep of Reason_ (unfinished novel), , 235\u2013, 239\u2013, 245\u2013; _Splendid in Ashes_ (unpublished novel), 90\u2013, , ; \"The Summer\" (short story), 65\u2013. See also _Augustus_ ; _Butcher's Crossing_ ; _Nothing But the Night_ ; _Stoner_\n\nWilliams, Jonathan (Williams' son), , , , 199\u2013, 280n4, 283n1\n\nWilliams, Katherine (Williams' daughter), , , , 194\u2013, , , 277n10\n\nWilliams, Miller, , , ,\n\nWilliams, Nancy Ann Leavenworth (n\u00e9e Gardner; Williams' fourth wife), ix, __ , 158\u2013, , , , , , , ; education of, 141\u2013; first meeting of, with Williams, 141\u2013; marriage of, to Williams, , , 214\u2013, 228\u2013, 233\u2013, 242\u2013,\n\nWilliams, Pamela (Williams' daughter), , , ,\n\nWilliams, Tennessee, , ; _A Streetcar Named Desire_ ,\n\nWilliams, William Carlos,\n\nWilliams, Yvonne Elyce. _See_ Woolf, Yvonne Stone (n\u00e9e Williams)\n\nWillis, T. G.,\n\nWills, Garry,\n\nWimsatt, William Kurtz,\n\nWinters, Yvor, ix, , , , 275\u2013276n41; \"The Anatomy of Nonsense,\" ; _Collected Poems_ , 96\u2013; _In Defense of Reason_ , , , 94\u2013, ; _Forms of Discovery_ , ; _The Immobile Wind_ , ; influence of, on Williams, 94\u2013, 145\u2013; _The Magpie's Shadow_ , ; marriage of, to Janet Lewis, ix, 74\u2013, 266n5; as moral figure for students, 266n14; \"On a View of Pasadena from the Hills,\" ; Williams and (\"Winters affair\"), , 154\u2013, , 273n10, 273n13\n\nWinters Circle, 74\u2013, ,\n\nWister, Owen: _The Virginian_ , 53\u2013\n\nWolfe, Thomas, ; influence of, on Williams, 18\u2013, , ; _Look Homeward, Angel_ , ,\n\nWolfe, Tom: _The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test_ ,\n\nWoolf, Douglas, 62\u2013; marriage of, to Yvonne, __ , ; _Wall to Wall_ , , , , 264n10\n\nWoolf, Leonard,\n\nWoolf, Virginia, ; _Mrs. Dalloway_ ,\n\nWoolf, Yvonne Stone (n\u00e9e Williams), , __ , 240\u2013; divorce from Williams, 69\u2013; marriage to Williams, 55\u2013, 58\u2013, 62\u2013\n\nWordsworth, William, ,\n\nWorld War I, 28\u2013, ; George Williams and, , ; _Stoner_ and,\n\nWorld War II, , 262n23; and attack on Pearl Harbor, ; and Bread Loaf, ; and Hump-fliers, 31\u2013, __ , 261n12; and John Williams, 29\u2013, 151\u2013, ; and Leonard Woolf, 62\u2013; and _The Sleep of Reason_ , ; and Ted Cogswell,\n\nW. W. Norton,\n\nWyatt, Thomas, , , , , ; \"They Flee from Me,\"\n\nYacht, Marc, 262n6\n\n_Yale Review_ , ,\n\nYardley, Jonathan, 223\u2013\n\nYates, Richard, 244\u2013, 278n25, 284n32; _The Easter Parade_ , ; _Revolutionary Road_ ,\n\nYourcenar, Marguerite: _Memoirs of Hadrian_ ,\n\nZaranka, William, 281n7\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}