Sacred Games

by Vikram Chandra

  ‘Arre, Gaitonde,’ she said. ‘Nobody is going to fire off those things. Nobody is that crazy.’

  ‘You never know. Somebody may not be crazy and they may set one off. They may have their reasons.’

  ‘What reasons could those be, Gaitonde?’

  She was really being quite patient with me, talking to me about this without cursing or slamming down the phone. I think she knew how tattered and tired I was, and she was trying to be kind. Usually, she had no patience with fear, or fantasies, or what she called men’s terrors. I didn’t want to tell her about my crawling panic about Guru-ji and what he may have had us smuggle and his disappearance, mainly because I understood very little of it myself. I just had a dread, and fragmented images of fire, always fire. I wanted her to leave Bombay. ‘You never know,’ I said. ‘Pakistan might do something. And then we might do something. Some general may decide this is a good time for an attack. Bombay is the first place that would get hit.’

  ‘We are all friendly with the Pakistanis right now, Gaitonde. And even when we are shouting at each other, it’s all show. They always make noise, and then we make noise, bas. Don’t worry so much, Gaitonde.’

  I tried to get her to take a holiday in New Zealand, to go to Dubai even, for shopping. But no, she had work in the city, she was producing and managing, and there was money to make and people to see, she was just too busy. ‘And if it happens, Gaitonde,’ she said finally, ‘so what? We all have to die some day. And if Bombay is gone, then where will I live anyway? I can’t go back to my village.’ She laughed. ‘Or do you want me to go and stay with what’s-his-name in Kuchaman City? Listen, baba – if this city is gone, my office is gone, my home is gone, all my work is gone, what I know is gone. Then there’s nothing to stay alive for anyway.’

  And she dismissed my attempts to send her to Australia, and burst into wild laughter when I told her that she should expand her business to London maybe. She said, ‘Don’t worry so much, Gaitonde. I saw this in an American picture last month, somebody sets off a big atom bomb in an American city. I was scared during the film, then afterwards I was all right. This happens only in films. It’s too filmi. If it happens in a film, it won’t happen in life. Nobody’s going to set off a dhamaka. You’ve already made that film. Don’t take on so much tension about nothing, just relax. Go to sleep.’

  I let it go, I let her have her way and spoke of other things. But I had an idea. I kept it to myself, I didn’t tell her, and I got my boys working. This is our top priority, I told them. I threw money into the project, I moved material from Thailand and Belgium into the very heart of Bombay. I followed the construction closely. I had photographs e-mailed to me every hour, and I watched the immensely thick walls rise out of a precise square of darkness in an empty plot in Kailashpada. That dimness came from an immense excavation, down into the earth. I built a safe house, a shelter. I built walls that would hold back fire, a profound deep that would keep the poison from Jojo’s skin. I made this house for her, in case of emergency she could descend into it. But I found that if I thought of this small white house at night, I was able to go to sleep. On my yacht, this is what I did every night: after I had made sure that the sentry teams had been set up, and the motion detectors and the short-range security radar had been tested and adjusted and activated, I locked myself into my bedroom. I settled into a comfortable seat on the floor, and meditated. I tried to keep my mind still, concentrated into a point, and tried to experience the consciousness that was the universe, that was me. I went beyond gods and goddesses, beyond blue-skinned Krishna and his bloody open mouth with its threats of dissolution, I journeyed beyond all form, to the essence that lay beyond language. Then I got into bed. I curled myself almost round and then I was in Bombay, in Kailashpada and inside my white cube, I was far under the surface, I was sheltered and held by good thick steel and the best, hardest cement in the world. In this imagined embrace, I at last found peace. I was secure.

  The End of the World

  Kamble was still heartbroken about the conclusion to the Kamala Pandey case. He said it again, ‘That maderchod bhenchod pilot, he is lower than the bhadwas, even. They take money from women, all right, I can understand that. You put a randi to work, you help in bringing customers, you put in time and effort, you get something back. But this Umesh, this bastard, he didn’t even have the guts to stand face to face with Kamala and demand, “Give me money.” He hid and took photos of this woman, and he used other men to extract money from her. And she loved him.’

  ‘Shocking,’ Sartaj said. ‘Just shocking to think that a man may do such things to a woman.’

  Kamble threw off Sartaj’s sarcasm with an angry shrug. ‘Arre, boss, okay, yes, I have lots of women. Maybe I hurt them too, but I give everything to them, they also hurt me. I am not talking about money only. I give this –’ He thumped his chest. ‘–and anything else they ask for. Money? I shower money, I throw it away. I give it away and delay my own plans because I am ready to let them hurt me. You understand?’

  He was ridiculous and he was completely serious, and Sartaj reached across the table and patted his arm. ‘Yes, this pilot is a complete bastard,’ he said gently. ‘We will take care of him, don’t worry.’

  Sartaj then told Kamble about waking up that morning with a memory of a guru preaching, and remembering that he had once been part of the bandobast for a big public ceremony in Andheri West, a religious ritual that had gone on for days, that had been conducted by a deep-voiced guru who had used a very sophisticated foreign wheelchair. ‘This was many years ago,’ he told Kamble, ‘but more recently I went to see the body of an apradhi named Bunty, who had been thokoed by some small-time chillar shooters after his own company fell apart.’

  ‘Bunty, bole to Gaitonde’s man?’

  ‘That one. I had talked to this Bunty on the phone just a few days before he was killed. And he was talking about his fancy wheelchair, which could go up and down stairs and do all kinds of tricks. And he said that Gaitonde gave him the wheelchair.’

  ‘So you think…’

  ‘I’m telling you, Kamble, that guru had the same wheelchair as Bunty. I remember very clearly. Maybe not the same model, but the same make.’

  Kamble looked very sceptical, and in the hard light of afternoon Sartaj had to admit that the link looked very tentative and fragile. But he tried to sound cheerful, and told Kamble about jumping on to his bike in the very early morning and speeding to the PCO near Santa Cruz station and calling Anjali Mathur in Delhi, waking her up. And how she had called back later in the morning to say that her organization was investigating the guru.

  ‘Now they are looking into it,’ Sartaj said, ‘and they will find everything out. They have lots of resources. If there is really a threat to the city, they will find out about it, and fix it.’

  But Kamble refused to be cheered up, even by the thought of an all-powerful national organization saving the city and himself from possible thermonuclear destruction. Sartaj had invited him to the Mughal-e-Azam Restaurant in Goregaon, for a celebratory lunch, to mark their breaking of the Kamala Pandey blackmail case. But Kamble was still scowling darkly. He shook his head and waved his hand at the window, towards the city and the world beyond. ‘Boss, you want to save this?’ he said bitterly. ‘For what? Why?’

  They were sitting in the air-conditioned first-floor cabin, amidst a halfhearted attempt at Mughal splendour. There was a brass surahi on the window-sill next to each booth, and two faded paintings of princesses in long-nosed profile on the wall. But you could see the pile of dirty dishes in the washbasin next to the bathroom, and the glass on the window was stained and spotty. The city that Sartaj could see – in the direction of Kamble’s contemptuous gesture – was equally dusty and shabby on this furious October day. They were protected from the dense swirl of exhaust and road rage by Mughal-e-Azam’s wheezing air-conditioner, but that was only temporary. Soon they would have to emerge from this dirty haven into the dirt of the untidy streets, into the random
and endless excavations by PWD crews, the jiggling and lawless streams of traffic, the sullen and sweaty walkers. None of it was pretty, but was it so bad that it all deserved to die? ‘Come on,’ Sartaj said. ‘You’re getting too emotional about all this.’ Sartaj was amused by Kamble’s romanticism, his anger at the pilot, but to wish for a final collapse was much too excessive.

  ‘No, I’m very serious,’ Kamble said. ‘Better if it was all destroyed.’ He moved his hand flat above the table, in a cleaning gesture. ‘Then it can all start again, fresh. Otherwise, nothing will change. Like this, just like this, we’ll go on.’

  It was astonishing to Sartaj that Kamble still believed in change. How insidious and indestructible hope was if it refused to vanish from the breast of this corrupt, greedy, violent man. ‘But if something happens, if the bomb goes off, we all go. Not just you and me. Your parents, your sisters, your brother, all, everything. You want that to happen?’

  Kamble shrugged. ‘Arre, bhai, if we go, we go. Everyone has to die. Better to all go together.’

  Sartaj had to laugh at the grandiosity of Kamble’s disillusionment. Kamble was very young, after all. His disappointment demanded a complete cleansing, a new start, nothing less. ‘Don’t be silly,’ Sartaj said. ‘Eat your chicken.’

  A waiter put down a gloriously red tandoori chicken, and a plate laden with rumali rotis. ‘Raita,’ Kamble said, ‘bring the raita, yaar.’ He tore off a big hunk of breast and chewed it thoughtfully. ‘Bastard, it’s good.’

  That was the trouble with the bedraggled Mughal-e-Azam. It was incapable of cleaning itself up, and its waiters were slow and sullen, but somehow the establishment produced spectacular tandoori chicken. Sartaj took a leg, and savoured the plump moistness, tinged slightly by clay. Kamble wielded a handful of rumali roti and took in another long strip of chicken, and closed his eyes in ecstasy.

  ‘At the very least,’ Kamble said, ‘what we need in this country is a dictator. You know, to organize everything.’ He chewed noisily. ‘With that you have to agree.’

  ‘If he organized everything, then he would catch you, right? And all your activities?’

  ‘No, no. No, saab. If everything was good, I wouldn’t need to engage in any of my activities. You see? I only do what I have to do, to live in this Kaliyug.’

  It was an unassailable argument, quite perfect in its circularity. Kamble was enraptured by perfections: if there was no perfect world, he wanted a perfect destruction, or at least a perfect dictator. Sartaj felt his stomach churn, and waited for the raita. He tried to remember if he had ever believed in such unadulterated ideals, if he had ever been so young. Certainly, he had once believed that Meghna was utterly and wholly beautiful, and that he was the most handsome sardar in all of Bombay, if not in the entire southern half of the country. But that was a long time ago. ‘Since we live in Kaliyug, my friend, let’s decide what we are going to do about the pilot.’

  ‘You know what I want to do.’

  ‘You can’t thrash him. A couple of slaps, maybe. But nothing else. Think about it, Kamble. There’s not even a FIR, and this isn’t some road labourer from Andhra. This chutiya could be big trouble if you leave him with a broken leg or something.’

  ‘I know some other fellows who could do the breaking.’

  ‘No,’ Sartaj said.

  ‘All right, all right.’ Kamble waved a bone morosely. ‘Let’s take his money, then.’

  ‘And his toys.’

  ‘The film theatre?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Kamble chortled. For the first time that day, he got that ferocious, beady exuberance in his eyes. ‘DVDs,’ he said. ‘I want all his DVDs.’ He split a chicken breast in two, and pulled at a morsel within. ‘Did you tell her yet?’

  Sartaj shook his head. He hadn’t told Kamala yet, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. He was sure that she would weep, and maybe there would be hysterics. Maybe she would curse the pilot, and then herself. ‘You want to tell her?’

  ‘Are you crazy, boss? Me? I spend my life dealing with angry women. I’ll go and talk to the pilot, read him his punishments. I’ll tell him all the fines he has to pay. But her? No, no.’ Kamble seemed restored, with his lips wet from the chicken. ‘Anyway, you are the one she likes,’ he said, grinning, and waved for more roti. ‘You take care of her.’ He turned his head towards Sartaj abruptly, his hand still in the air. ‘Boss, why Santa Cruz station?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said you drove to Santa Cruz station to make the call. Why?’

  ‘I was passing by.’

  ‘At six in the morning you were passing by Santa Cruz?’

  ‘I didn’t say six.’

  ‘You said you woke up the Delhi woman.’ Kamble put both elbows on the table, leaned forward. ‘My friend,’ he said, ‘where did you sleep last night?’

  ‘Nowhere.’

  ‘Nowhere?’

  ‘At home.’

  ‘At home. Home. Home.’ Kamble puffed up his cheeks, and looked quite like a benign bulldog.

  ‘Home-home what?’

  ‘It is nice to find a home, Sartaj Saab. Especially a home that is near Santa Cruz.’ Kamble twisted in his seat, and roared, ‘Arre, have you gone to Aurangabad to get our rotis?’ He came back to Sartaj, and beamed. ‘What, did I say something? Eat, eat.’

  ‘I need to go,’ was all Kamala Pandey said when he told her who the blackmailer was. They were sitting at their usual table in the empty Sindoor Restaurant, towards the back and to the left. It was late in the afternoon, and the low sun through the frosted windows made a golden glow in which the white-clad Kamala had looked very pretty. Now, after hearing about the pilot and his perfidy, she clamped her jaw and a vein vibrated across her forehead, and she said only, ‘I need to go.’

  She swept her keys off the table and got up even as Sartaj said, ‘Wait, wait.’ He followed her towards the door, then came back to get her purse. When he got outside, she was sitting in her car, staring past the paan-wallah and the pedestrians. ‘Madam?’ he said.

  Her hand was shaking against the side of the steering wheel, scraping the key against metal. She looked down, collected herself and tried again. This time she managed to fit the key in.

  ‘Madam,’ Sartaj said gently. ‘Don’t drive right now. Please.’

  He opened the car door, and she let him take her by the elbow and draw her out. She stood with her hands straight by her side while he leaned into the car for the keys, and then he had to turn her around and walk her back into the restaurant. He seated her first, then sat himself down across from her. Her eyes were a translucent amber, and she was looking straight through him. ‘Madam,’ he said. ‘Madam, would you like some water?’ He slid a glass towards her, and then reached out and took her hand and curled it around the bottom.

  She began to weep. She withdrew her hand, put it into her lap, and the sharply defined lines of her face seemed to blur, and a sound came out of her and shivered down Sartaj’s spine. He had heard it many times, this guttural, child-like cry. He had heard it from parents whose children had been murdered, brothers who had lost sisters in accidents, old women who had been made into paupers by their relatives, and yes, from lovers who had been betrayed. This low bawling was always hard to confront when it started because you knew there was nothing you could do. Sartaj had learned to wait it out. Kamala was quite unaware of him, and she howled without shame, or reserve. A waiter poked his head out of the kitchen door, and then Shambhu Shetty looked through. Sartaj raised a hand, just slightly, and shook his head. Then he waited.

  Kamala cried herself out, and then she pressed both hands to her face. Sartaj took a sheaf of tissues out of a glass on the table and held them out. She dabbed at her face, and took a deep breath. ‘I love him,’ she said in English.

  ‘Madam, he is a very bad man. He has stolen from you. He has used you.’

  ‘No, not him. My husband. I was talking about my husband.’

  That paused Sartaj. He fumbled for more tissues to hide
his incredulity, and he cleared his throat. ‘Yes, madam, of course.’

  She leant forward, and she was fierce now. ‘No, you don’t understand. I know you think I am a bad woman.’ Her make-up had been smudged away, and Sartaj had never seen her face so bare, not even on that first morning when she had been quarrelling in her nightclothes. ‘But you don’t understand. I want to be married to my husband. I don’t want to leave him, I don’t want a divorce. If I wanted to leave, I would have left a long time ago. I don’t want to leave. I want to stay. Do you understand?’

  She had the apradhi’s need to explain herself, even after the danger of punishment had been extinguished. ‘Madam?’ Sartaj said.

  ‘Are you married?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’ Sartaj had no intention of explaining himself to Kamala Pandey, of trying to explain his own failures to this failed woman.

  ‘Then you can’t know.’

  ‘Know what, madam?’

  ‘Marriage is very hard. Falling in love, getting married, that is easy. But then you have a whole life left. You have years and years. And you want to stay, you want to. To stay, sometimes you need something. I know it sounds like a lie, like an excuse. But it is true. Having him there, he, you understand…’

  She didn’t want to say the name, Umesh, on her tongue, it was too bitter. ‘The pilot?’ Sartaj said.

  ‘Yes, the pilot.’ She shook her head from side to side, marvelling at herself, her life. ‘He made it possible for me to stay with my husband. I swear. Otherwise I would have gone. I have my own job, I have a house to go to, with my parents. But I love my husband.’ Her shoulders shook, and she cried a little, and blew her nose into tissues. She looked very young now, with strands of hair sticking to her cheeks. ‘You have a bad opinion of me and my husband because you saw us fighting and all that. But really we are better than that. We are good together. You didn’t have a chance to see that.’