by A. X. Ahmad
Was the Don delusional? The Indian government was still investigating him for unpaid taxes. If he set foot in Mumbai, he’d be arrested right away; leave aside the fact that the Hammer had sworn to cut him to pieces if he returned.
“Yes, I’ve been away too long.” The Don peered out at his pristine garden. “People in India no longer know who I am. The government I can handle—do you know how many high-ranking ministers come to see me?—but it’s the man in the street who must see me as a hero.” The Don abruptly changed the subject. “So. You are going to the one-day cricket match in Sharjah tomorrow, before the party?” Shabana nodded, and he continued. “Good. Good. Well, enjoy yourself.”
He kissed her on both cheeks, and she felt his old man’s breath, scented with decay.
Knowing she was being dismissed, Shabana salaamed prettily and left.
As the black Mercedes zoomed back through the desert, she watched the sun set. The fading light caught the glass towers on the horizon, and they glittered like a mirage.
It was strange to think of the Don as a homesick old man. For so long she had thought of him as superhuman, a master strategist who played chess with other people’s lives. Was his performance just now another one of his elaborate ploys? What the hell was he up to?
The cricket match he had asked about was an international event, and all the Bollywood stars would attend, creating a bigger attraction than the cricket. Columnists and film journalists swarmed the stadium, taking endless pictures, trying to divine the future of Bollywood: who sat with whom, and which stars weren’t talking to each other. The Don, of course, wouldn’t come. He never appeared in public, and he hadn’t been photographed since the 1970s.
When Shabana reached her hotel it was dark, and she sat on the edge of the bed in the plush, empty suite. Seeing the Don always brought back memories of Sanjeev, and she wondered, for the millionth time, what had happened to her lover. Even if his body turned up, it would be something; not knowing was so much worse.
Her cell phone rang. It was Ruksana, who had remained in Mumbai to arrange the logistics for Shabana’s next film.
“Hey. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, why?” Shabana crouched in front of the hotel bar and reached for a miniature bottle of vodka.
“Seeing the Don always upsets you, that’s why. No pulling out your hair, okay?”
“Leave me alone, Ruki.”
“And no booze with your sleeping pills. There will be photographers at the cricket match tomorrow. You can’t look like a harridan.”
“Good-bye, Ruki.”
Taking her sleeping pills, she lay down on the over-plush bed, and fought the urge to pull out her hair. Instead, she drank two small bottles of vodka, and fell into the darkness of chemical sleep.
The next day, Shabana’s wardrobe consultant dressed her to the nines, and when she walked into the Sharjah cricket stadium an audible gasp went through the crowd. Her long, thick hair fell in lustrous curls down her back, and she wore a form-fitting mauve blouse with billowing, see-through sleeves, flared white designer pants, and six-inch white stilettos.
She took her place in the box full of movie stars. Next to her was Julie Chaddha, an up-and-coming twenty-five-year-old starlet with a sensuous baby face and a sideline making exercise videos. Julie fluttered her eyelashes, and waved one toned arm at Shabana.
“Shabana! You’ve lost weight!”
At thirty-eight, Shabana knew that this compliment meant the opposite, but she gritted her teeth and air-kissed Julie.
Just then there was a sudden hush in the crowd. Both Julie and Shabana turned to look: was it Ameer Uddin, the hottest actor in Bollywood, with his muscles and mesh shirts, or the sexpot Naseem Begum?
It was neither. An unidentified man made his way down the slope of the stadium, surrounded by four bodyguards. He was clad in a lightweight sky-blue linen suit and an open-necked white shirt, and his eyes were masked by wraparound sunglasses. Reaching the box, he walked down the aisle toward Shabana, and she gasped in surprise.
The man in the blue suit was Don Hajji Mustafa, making his first public appearance in over thirty years.
Julie Chaddha hurriedly gave up her seat. The Don sat down and draped one tailored arm around Shabana’s shoulders; she could smell his strong aftershave, and her confusion was compounded by the urge to sneeze.
The photographers who crowded below the box looked stunned, and lowered their cameras. An unauthorized photograph of the Don was as good as a death sentence.
The Don smiled stiffly, his face creasing, as though he had forgotten how to smile. He waved at a young photographer who stood below them. “Aare, what are you waiting for? You want to take a snap? Go ahead.”
The young man slowly raised his camera, then hesitated.
“Come on, come on.” The Don gestured impatiently.
The photographer knelt and framed a picture of the Don and Shabana. He clicked, and that sound released the others, who raised their cameras and began to photograph frantically.
“You see,” the Don whispered into Shabana’s ear. “Let them see me. Public relations.”
Public relations. Shabana understood then what the Don was up to. He thought that being photographed alongside Bollywood’s hottest stars would impress the Indian public, change his image in their minds. My God, was the Don that out of touch?
Shabana saw the movie stars on either side of her cringe slightly, but none of them dared to leave. Instead, they put on fixed smiles and looked away from the cameras. Flashes went off, blinding Shabana, but she could not move; the Don’s arm was firmly around her shoulder.
The photographers shouted, Don, over here! Look this way! Shabana smiled till her face hurt, and prayed for the ordeal to be over.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Something yellow floats above Ranjit’s head. He squints up and sees a disc dangling above his face. It makes no sense.
He is lying on a narrow bed, his feet hanging off the edge. Somewhere far away there is the sound of voices, one loud, the other calm and matter-of-fact.
The disc resolves itself into a paper cutout of the sun. It is at the center of a mobile, encircled by other paper planets, each hung with white sewing thread from a cross of thin bamboo sticks. There must be a breeze blowing, because the fragile construction shivers and the planets begin to revolve slowly.
“It’s the solar system.”
Leela’s little boy stands at Ranjit’s elbow. The child’s plump cheeks puff out, and he blows upward, making the planets revolve faster. “Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto.”
Is that the correct order? Ranjit remembers helping Shanti with a school project, cutting and sticking pictures of planets onto a poster. He tries to sit up but falls back onto the thin pillow.
The boy stares at him with solemn eyes. “You’re sleeping in my bed.” It is a statement, not a complaint.
“I’m sorry. What’s your name?”
“Dev. And it’s okay, you can sleep here, Mom-Mom says you’re sick.”
“You’re a smart kid, to know all that.”
“Mom-Mom says I’m smart, but Leela’s always angry at me.” Dev blows again, and the planets revolve faster.
Watching them, Ranjit feels dizzy and he closes his eyes.
The voices continue their argument somewhere out there, interrupted by the sound of a car honking. There is the sound of footsteps, and a car driving off.
He must get up, he’s ashamed to be lying in Leela’s son’s bed. Then he feels Dev’s pudgy, warm hand on his shoulder.
“You’re sick. It’s okay, mister. Go to sleep.”
The weight of the boy’s hand pushes him back down into sleep, and willingly, gratefully, he feels the world ebb away.
* * *
He awakes, and for a frightening moment he doesn’t know where he is. Then it all comes back to him: the endless day, the pills, passing out on Leela’s doorstep.
A streetlight shines faintly through a window and
illuminates the small room: there is a dresser against the far wall, and next to it is a stack of translucent toy boxes, filled with ghostly furry animals, skeletal Transformers, and piles of dull Lego bricks. There is nothing on the walls and no rugs. It is so quiet that it’s hard to believe he’s still in New York.
He remembers Dev standing over him, but the child is gone, and the mobile hangs motionless. His watch has stopped, and it’s hard to tell what time it is, but he knows he has slept for a long time, at least seven or eight hours. At least the pain in his arm has been reduced to a dull throb.
From somewhere comes the sound of a television. Getting out of bed, he realizes that his shoes and socks are gone. He looks for them in the darkness, then gives up and walks barefoot down a long, windowless hallway that runs the length of the house. Passing a bedroom, the door ajar, he sees Dev fast asleep in the middle of a double bed, his face illuminated by the blue glow of a nightlight. He is sprawled out, arms and legs thrown far apart, and Ranjit remembers that Shanti used to sleep like this, sometimes turning a hundred and eighty degrees during the night. Only children sleep with such abandon; adults hunch into their pillows, or curl into tight fetal balls.
This bedroom houses a small shrine in the corner, just a few framed pictures of Hindu gods and goddesses, a wilting hibiscus flower, and sticks of half-burned incense. The room probably belongs to the old lady, and the next bedroom is definitely Leela’s: her open closet reveals a row of skimpy cocktail dresses, and the dresser is littered with scraps of blond hair. Entering her room, he picks up an empty plastic bag and sees that it contained a “27-Piece Glue-on Weave,” whatever that is.
He follows the sound of the television, hearing the swell of familiar music, followed by Hindi dialogue. A man is talking:
“I came back for you, but you are gone, my love. Oh, I wish I could turn back the clock and make years disappear.”
It is the last scene in Laila Aur Paul, Shabana’s hit remake of Romeo and Juliet. Ranjit had seen it, all those years ago, in India. In the film, Paul has returned to Mumbai to find Laila lying cold and waxen. He doesn’t know that she is faking her death so she can wake later and be with him.
“I wanted to be worthy of you. I wanted your father to accept me. I have been away, working in Dubai, and I am a rich man now, but you are dead. Let me join you, in your cold, lonely place.” There is the sound of a gunshot and a body hitting the ground.
Ranjit walks down the final length of the corridor and enters the living room. The television—a large flat screen—is very loud, and as he enters the room, the old lady sitting on the plastic-covered couch seems unsurprised to see him.
“I’m sorry about fainting like that. Please forgive me—”
“Shhh. This is the best part. Sit down.” The old lady pats the seat next to her, her eyes fixed on the screen. “Leela has gone to work, but she wants to talk to you. She’ll be back in a few hours.”
There are no other chairs in the dark room. Ranjit sits next to the old lady, the plastic crackling under his thighs, and wonders how much she knows about Leela’s job at the club. The old lady is absorbed in the film, and he follows her gaze: on the screen, Shabana’s supposedly lifeless body stirs and sits up.
Shabana was in her twenties then, her cheeks still rounded with youth, and wears a chaste white sari. The man lying dead on the floor sports a high, glossy pompadour and wears a wide-lapeled suit. They are both on the open veranda of a village house, surrounded by fields.
Shabana’s slim neck bows and her blue-black hair cascades to her shoulders as she bends over Paul’s dead body.
“Oh, my love. What have you gone and done? I wanted them to think I was dead, so that I could join you. Now you are gone, and I must drink the real poison.”
Shabana picks up a glass of colorless liquid and drinks. The camera zooms out, and the house shrinks to a rectangle surrounded by bright yellow mustard fields. There is a slow pan to the hills beyond, and a stone Ganesh temple fills the screen. The elephant god in the alcove is smiling gently, and the camera moves closer and closer, till his carved face fills the screen. The beat of a lone tabla begins, joined by the slow wail of a harmonium, and the credits roll.
The old lady sighs and her eyes are moist as she turns off the television. “Such a good film. They don’t make these kind of films anymore. The old ones are the best ones.”
Ranjit tries to stand, but the plastic sticks to his thighs. “I owe you an explanation. You see, the painkillers for my arm—”
“These?” An orange plastic pill bottle is clutched in her hand. “How many of them you take during the day? Two? Three?”
“I think three.”
“One more of these, you in a coma. Where did you get them? I’ve never seen such a high dose of oxycodone. I used to be a nurse, I know all about it, I’ve seen many, many patients overdose. You did a real chupid thing. And you know what is more chupid? You’re carrying a gun.” She reaches down between the cushions and takes out the Glock. “Found it in your pants when you passed out. What you doing with this?”
He looks at the gun and clears his throat. “I have a license for that. I’m a security guard.”
“A gun, but no bullets? What kind of security guard are you?” He reaches out his hand for it, but she shakes her head and puts the Glock on the table. “I don’t want guns in this house, not with the child here. I’ll keep this away for you. Now. Leela and I had a long, long talk about you. You going to help her get away from this Patel?”
He remembers the muffled conversation he overheard. How much has Leela told her?
The old lady’s dark eyes do not leave his face. “My girl, she’s putting a lot of trust upon you. I know what Leela does. I’m not chupid. She works at the club. Everybody here knows that. My girl, she throws around her money…” The old lady frowns. “She says she’s doing this for us, but I don’t think so. She’s doing it for herself. And now see what is happening to her? See her face. She’s being beaten.”
The old lady’s steady gaze unsettles him.
“I’ll do my best to get her out of there.”
She stares at him with her dark eyes, her eyebrows perfect arcs above them. “Let me look at you. I can read faces. I can tell who can be trusted, who is a liar.”
He feels her hot breath on his face. Suddenly feeling dizzy, he slumps back into the sofa.
“What’s the matter?” She scrutinizes his face. “You’re still pale. I bet you took the oxycontin on an empty stomach. When was the last time you ate?”
Ranjit thinks back on the greasy vegetables and hard rotis that Kikiben had offered him; he’d barely had a few mouthfuls. “Not for a while.”
The old lady stands up. “So come. Eat some food.”
“I couldn’t possibly—”
“Don’t be chupid, boy. You going to just starve? Pass out again?”
She rolls off the couch in a practiced gesture and walks through a door into the kitchen. He follows her, blinking as she flips on a bare bulb overhead.
By the window, overlooking the backyard, is a small round table covered with a yellowed plastic tablecloth. Against the back wall is a small four-burner gas stove with blackened pots on it, an avocado-colored refrigerator, and one single shelf, crowded with bottles and jars of spices. The old lady takes a chipped plate, piles it high with food from the stove, and gestures at the table.
Ranjit sits and the old lady places a plate in front of him, piled with a rich chicken and potato curry, and a stack of flaky dhal puri bread. The food is still hot, and he wonders if she just cooked it.
“Don’t let it get cold. Eat, man.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Rampersad. I’m Ranjit Singh, by the way.”
“Mrs.? They only call me that at the bank.” She laughs, showing pink gums, and her thin eyebrows arch with hilarity. “Name is Roopmattie, but everyone calls me Auntie. And I know who you are.”
The delicious dhal puri is stuffed with yellow lentils, and he uses it to scoop up the rich gra
vy of the chicken curry, redolent with Indian spices mixed with thyme. He hasn’t had such a good meal since the leftovers in Shabana’s apartment.
This kitchen reminds him of his mother’s kitchen in Chandigarh, and he remembers her squatting over her two-burner stove, producing delicious meals with her few blackened pots. In fact, this place, with its barely furnished rooms, reminds him of his mother’s house. A house in India is not filled with things, is not a display of personal tastes and preferences; it is a stage for life to happen, filled with cooking smells and children and visiting relatives.
“This food is great, Auntie.”
“I made it. Leela, she can’t even make a piece of toast. Here, you eat some more.”
Before he can protest, Auntie has taken his plate and refilled it. Though he is getting full, the aroma makes his mouth water, and he eats on.
Auntie nods, as though continuing a conversation she is having in her head. “Yes, that man Patel, he is the devil. But Leela, she’s got it all wrong. I don’t want to stay here. I want to go back to Guyana. Let them deport us. I don’t care, as long as I get back home.”
He puts his spoon down. “You want to be deported? I don’t understand…”
Auntie rests her elbows on the table, and clasps her hands together as though praying.
“I told you, I can tell from a person’s face if he can be trusted or not. It is a gift. In Georgetown, all the ladies would come to me, tell me their troubles, ask me what to do. I would say: Show me your husband’s face, I’ll tell you if he is cheating. Show me your daughter’s face, I’ll tell you if she is lying.
“And I was always, always right. Back home, old people, they have respect. Here—if you are old, you are useless, like, like…” She points to a worn sponge lying next to the sink. “… some old useless thing. No one listens to old people here. Especially Leela. You have a child, Ranjit?”
“A daughter, she’s thirteen. She lives with her mother, in India.”
“Daughters bring sorrow. Sons bring joy.” Auntie’s voice is matter-of-fact. “Leela, she was always difficult, and after her father left to come here, I could not control her at all.”
