The mimic men - V. S. Naipaul [72]
Then the horse called Tamango disappeared.
The reaction at school was strange. The correct thing to say was of course that it was a pity or, if you wished to use a newspaper word, an outrage. But there were undercurrents. It was at once assumed that the horse would not be found; and it was also assumed that Deschampsneufs had in some way become vulnerable to further loss. His loss was tragic, but it made him ridiculous; and within two days the loss itself became something that could be justified. Boys who had put up with Deschampsneufs’s brutality became retrospectively irritated; the merit of the horse was questioned; and the very name Tamango, to so many a cause for pride, was now seen as a provocation and an insult.
After about a week we heard that the horse had been found. It was dead. That was all we heard at first, and the news surprised no one. But what I next heard chilled and sickened me and gave me more strongly than ever the sensation of rawness and violation: rubbery raw flesh, tainted holy oil. It was more than a death. A charcoal burner had found the animal, garlanded with marigold and faded hibiscus, on a freshly prepared platform of beaten and plastered earth. Heart and entrails had been torn out; but there were flowers on the animal’s mane, flowers woven into its tail; and the coat had been brushed as though by proud grooms. At the centre of the platform, on a smaller, shallow platform of its own, were the remains of a fire, still fragrant with burnt sugar, pitchpine, butter and coconut. Banana suckers had been planted at each corner of this smaller platform; and at each corner a swastika had been traced out in flour. Asvamedha: to myself alone I spoke the word. It filled me with unexpected awe and horror. An ancient sacrifice, in my imagination a thing of beauty, speaking of the youth of the world, of untrodden forests and unsullied streams, of horses and warrior-youths in morning light: now rendered obscene. My mind, at once literal and fantastic, created a picture of a deepening, endless tunnel: into this I felt I was ever descending, when all I wanted was to return to the light.
The killing of Tamango was inevitably linked with my father and his followers. The newspapers were outraged and called for action. But nothing could be established. The newspapers called for the destruction of my father’s camp and his eviction from crown lands. The administration ignored this unbalanced and ill-timed advice; the governor continued to be cool. At school it was hard for me, though. I was at one with those who abused me. Their abuse was touched with fascination, but their sense of sacrilege was not greater than my own. I could not ridicule; I could not defend. I was sorry for Deschampsneufs’s sake: the vindictive current still ran against him. I shared his anger, hurt and disgust. But when he challenged me to fight I fought.
I had never had a fight before and I was certain it would go against me. We were about the same height but Deschampsneufs was heavier. I thought that whatever I was going to do had better be done quickly; and I was as surprised as anyone when at the end of our first clinching I found that Deschampsneufs was on the floor and I was on top of him. That, I knew, was the limit of my success; through our unscientific tangling of arms and legs I could sense that he was recovering fast. I had a moment of alarm, and for an added reason. At the back of my mind was the thought that I had supporters. Now I saw