The Caretaker

by A. X. Ahmad

  One gray suit walks right under it. Ranjit hurls himself out of its path, falling onto the blond man behind him. The pole slams into the second gray suit’s shoulder, sending him sprawling. It hits the ground with a sickening thud, inches away from Ranjit.

  Under Ranjit the blond man curses and scrabbles to free the gun in his pocket. Pushing him away, Ranjit levers himself up, his feet sliding in the snow. Two security guards are running across the road from the JFK building, and the fallen pole blocks his path ahead.

  He turns and runs down Cambridge Street.

  Cold air sears his lungs and his feet slip and slide. He sprints through an intersection, a blur of motion, rapid thoughts running through his head: the street is too wide, too open, lined with office buildings.

  He turns suddenly up a steep cobbled street into residential Beacon Hill. Sprinting up the brick sidewalk, he passes gas streetlamps and tiny, elegant brick row houses with black shutters. The nineteenth century has been preserved up here, the cobbled streets so narrow that the sun hardly reaches them, and the brick houses are crowded together, their granite steps dimpled by centuries of use.

  Turning right and then left, he makes his way up the hill. He listens for footfalls behind him, but there is silence, and by the time he reaches Pinckney Street he slows to a walk. The doorways in this exclusive neighborhood bristle with the snouts of security cameras, and a running man will soon be spotted.

  Where can he go? From far down the hill he hears sirens, ambulances or police cars, moving toward the JFK building. Best to head toward the river, where there is a subway station and the huge Mass General Hospital. He walks rapidly down the street, passing an empty Laundromat and then a tiny corner store, his heartbeat slowing. A white van barrels across Pinckney Street and slams to a stop.

  Damn it.

  The blond man jumps out and sprints toward him. Ranjit takes a deep breath and runs again, ducking into a side alley. It turns and twists, and soon he is completely disoriented, the blond man’s footfalls right behind him. Slowing to look over his shoulder, he skids on a patch of ice and his feet slip under him. He falls, and the blond man catches up. A fist hits out, knocking off Ranjit’s baseball cap, and fingers like talons sink deep into his topknot, grabbing his hair. The hard muzzle of a gun jams into the back of his neck.

  “Enough of this bullshit.”

  Yanking Ranjit’s hair from behind, the blond man pulls him to his feet.

  Ranjit complies for an instant, then lowers his head and twists away. He feels a sharp pain as his hair rips from his scalp, and the blond man falls backward, clutching a handful of long black hair. His shoulder slams hard into the cobblestones, and a flesh-colored hearing aid spills from one ear.

  Ranjit kicks the gun from the man’s hand, and it skitters away into the darkness.

  The blond man lies on the ground, his pink silk tie skewed across his chest. His shoulder is unnaturally high—dislocated or broken—and he looks up at Ranjit, stifling a moan of pain.

  “You’re dead. You and your fucking family are dead.”

  There are sirens coming from below, and the sound of shouting. Ranjit looks around for the gun, but it has vanished into a tangle of old lumber and discarded window grates.

  “You think you can run? We’ll find you—”

  Ranjit doesn’t wait to hear the rest. The sirens are getting louder now. He picks up his baseball cap and jams it onto his head. He runs again, arms pumping, feet slithering on the ice.

  By the time he reaches Louisburg Square at the top of the hill he can barely breathe. It is bright up here after the narrow streets below, and the tall, bay-windowed town houses face a rectangular park surrounded by high iron railings. A white-haired woman in a fur coat stands inside the park, cooing at a small Pekingese, and as Ranjit slows to a walk, the dog runs to the railings and barks at him.

  The woman reaches down and scoops the dog into her arms. “Shush, Princess, shush. That scary man can’t get in here.”

  Scary man? What is she talking about? Touching the back of his head, his fingers come away red and sticky; his scalp is bleeding badly.

  He runs again, diving into the network of back alleys that meander down the other side of the hill. Turning into an alley just wide enough for a person, he follows its twists and turns, looking for a place to hide, but all the parked cars are locked, and the houses are all alarmed.

  He stops at the rear of a town house marked with a Realtor’s sign. The door into the walled backyard is alarmed, accessible only by a keypad, but he recognizes the bright blue security company logo; it is the same firm that monitors the Red Heron Estate. Maybe the override code will work here as well. Praying under his breath, he punches in BLUESKY.

  The alarm light blinks off and the door opens with a click. Thank you, Guru. He enters the postage-stamp backyard, dead brown grass crunching under his feet. The house seems deserted, the shades down in all the windows.

  Making sure the door is shut, he crouches down, just in time. Footsteps outside race past, then return, and a hand tugs on the door. After a pause, the footsteps clatter away, dying out somewhere down the hill.

  As the adrenaline wears off, the shock hits Ranjit, and he begins to shake. The blond man isn’t a thief, but an employee of Senator Neals. Ranjit is being hunted by a powerful man with enormous resources.

  But why? What the hell is hidden inside the doll?

  He crouches in the deserted yard, listening intently. Minutes pass, but all he hears is the cawing of crows and the swish of traffic on Charles Street. The sun is high in the sky when he opens the door a crack and peers down the alley. It is empty except for a tabby cat stretching leisurely in the weak sunlight.

  Sticking to the alleys, he makes his way down the hill and emerges onto Charles Street. The Starbucks coffee shop across the road looks empty at this time, and he ducks into it, heading for the restroom at the back.

  Locking the door, he washes blood off the back of his neck. The blond man has torn out a chunk of hair at the back of his head, and he jams paper towels into his baseball cap to absorb any further bleeding.

  The door handle rattles, and an irate Bostonian voice says, “C’mon, c’mon. Step on it, for Chrissakes. There are people waiting out here.”

  Ignoring the voice, Ranjit glances into the mirror, and his own gaunt, bearded face stares back at him. This will not do. The Senator’s men will be looking for him now, taking his description all around the city. If the Senator can manipulate Homeland Security, he can easily tell the cops that Ranjit is a criminal or a terrorist.

  When he emerges from the restroom, a bald man waiting outside glares at him. Ranjit walks quickly down Charles Street, looking for a drugstore, and finds one a block away. He buys a disposable razor, shaving cream and scissors, and, remembering the coughing man, adds six large Snickers bars to his purchases.

  Clutching his plastic bag, he heads down Charles Street, passing a row of antique shops, art galleries, and trendy clothing boutiques. The young mothers wheeling their babies in three-hundred-dollar strollers see his greasy blue mechanic’s jacket and baseball cap and give him a wide berth as he passes.

  As he walks toward Chinatown, he is alert for the wail of a siren or the screech of a car stopping. He relaxes only when he reaches the open expanse of the Boston Common.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It is midmorning by the time he enters the Garibaldi, inhaling its smell of stale body odor and cleaning fluid. He’s passing the battered reception counter when the hotel manager waves him over.

  “You in room five-nineteen, right?”

  Ranjit fights the urge to run. “Why, is there a problem?”

  “If you stay past noon, you need to pay for another night.”

  “Oh yeah. Sure, sure.”

  The manager looks as beat-up as any of his guests, with reddened, pouchy eyes and close-cropped white hair. Ranjit hands over the money and the man grins lopsidedly and points to the radio playing in the background.

 
; “You hear about it? Telephone pole fell on Cambridge Street. Two guys in the hospital, they say. What are the chances, huh? Getting hit by a telephone pole?”

  Ranjit just grunts and looks away.

  The manager laboriously writes out a receipt and tries a different tack. “So … getting much sleep up there, next to old Jimmy?”

  “The walls are pretty thin.”

  “Yeah, they subdivided this place back in the seventies. Used to be a grand old hotel. Babe Ruth stayed here, you know. Yeah, Jimmy’s been coughing like that for two years. Amazing he’s still alive.”

  “His name is Jimmy?”

  “Don’t call him Jimmy to his face. He hates that. Likes to go by James.”

  Ranjit nods and heads up to his room. The elevator is still broken, and by the time he reaches the fifth floor he is exhausted and soaked in sweat.

  * * *

  Clear, hard sunlight pours through the jammed window of his room. He sits on his bed and runs his fingers along the cold porcelain of the naked doll, feeling for the outlines of a hidden compartment.

  Rattling the doll, he listens hard, but there is only silence. He holds its tiny skirt and then its blouse up to the light, looking for something sewn into the cloth, and sees only ancient brown stains, lipstick, or perhaps blood.

  The doll lies in his lap, looking at him tauntingly with its painted black eyes. He remembers how Shanti had slept with it, her curly hair streaming across the pillow, her arm thrown around it. If only he had taken away the doll and not indulged her, none of this would have happened. What the hell is hidden in here? He imagines smashing it into a hundred jagged pieces, but if he does that, he might destroy whatever is hidden in it. There has to be a better way.

  He thinks of Preetam and Shanti. They have now spent a whole night in detention. He can imagine them in a small cell, frightened and sleepless, waiting for help. And the key to everything is hidden in this damn doll.

  He remembers passing the antique stores on Charles Street. They might be able to tell him something about the doll, but first things first. He can’t walk around Boston looking like this.

  * * *

  The fluorescent light in the tiny bathroom buzzes and blinks into life. Touching the back of his head, he feels his hair matted with blood; at least his scalp has stopped bleeding.

  Taking off his shirt, he stands bare-chested in front of the small mirror. The glass has lost most of its silvering over the years, but the murky image that stares back at him is unmistakably that of a bearded Sikh.

  He unknots his hair and it falls to his waist. There are glimmers of gray in his beard that weren’t there a few days ago. It does not matter now.

  He remembers walking through the Golden Temple with his mother. Mataji had pointed at the men bathing in the glittering waters of the sarovar, the sacred lake.

  “Ranjit,” she had said, “a Sikh never cuts his hair. Our ancestors were warriors who would rather face death than be defiled. Your turban is part of who you are. If you lose your identity, you lose yourself. You must never betray the Gurus.”

  He had looked at his reflection in the water, proud of his turban, proud to be a Sikh, and he had promised her that he would never betray his faith.

  He can hear his mother praying, her voice melodious and strong.

  Even in a gale of torrential rain

  I would go to meet my Guru

  Even if an ocean separates them

  A Sikh would go to meet his Guru

  As a man dies of thirst without water

  A Sikh would die without his Guru …

  Now, standing in the gloomy bathroom, he opens his eyes and looks at himself one last time. Taking a deep breath he raises the gleaming scissors to his head.

  Forgive me, Mataji.

  * * *

  His arm aches and the bathroom floor is inches deep in thick black hair. When he’s done with his scalp, he begins cutting into his beard and mustache, and soon there is only stubble. He soaps his face and shaves, using the cheap plastic razor. He is clumsy and cuts himself, and the white lather on his face turns pink.

  When he’s done, he runs a plastic comb through his hair, feeling the teeth bite into his scalp. Maybe he shouldn’t have cut his hair quite so short. Now he’ll have to buy some gel and spike it, like he’s seen in the magazines.

  He gathers up the drifts of hair from the floor and stuffs them into a plastic bag, all the while avoiding his reflection in the mirror. When he can delay no more, he is forced to look at himself.

  A stranger’s face stares back from the mirror. Short, spiky hair. A long face with a strong jaw, a sharp nose, and tired eyes. And there is the scar: a thick ridge that starts under his jaw and curves to his left ear. With his beard gone, it is exposed.

  He turns his head away, shuts off the bathroom light, and heads to the trash chute down the corridor. Pulling open the metal flap, he throws the bag down its dark mouth, imagining the black ropes of hair mingled with chicken bones and bloody paper towels. A part of himself will now remain forever in America.

  He returns to his room for the Snickers bars and walks over to his neighbor’s open door, knocking loudly on the door frame. James looks up startled from his book and skitters backward in his wheelchair.

  “Hey, it’s me. Ranjit, from next door.”

  “Jeez,” James gasps. “You scared the hell out of me. I didn’t recognize you.”

  “Thanks for watching my room. Here is your candy. Snickers, right?”

  James takes the bag, nods his thanks, and immediately wolfs down a whole bar, chewing hungrily through the sticky caramel. Ranjit watches him eat, realizing with a pang that there is probably no food in the room, other than the orange in front of the gold Buddha. The small room smells strongly of bitter herbs, and he sees that James is brewing some kind of tea, a dark cup of it sitting on the dresser.

  Finishing the candy bar, James looks up wonderingly. “Hah. Your own mother wouldn’t recognize you. Whaddya do, knock over a bank?”

  “Nothing like that. I just had a shave and a haircut.”

  “I’d fire that barber if I were you. You’re all cut up.”

  Ranjit smiles. It sounds so much like something Khandelkar would say. He leans against the wall and watches James unwrap another Snickers bar. “What’s that you’re drinking? Smells awful.”

  “Chinese herbs, my friend. Stuff comes from the mainland, it’s the real thing. Man, this Snickers is good. Thanks again.”

  “Hey, no problem. James, I have a question to ask you—”

  James’s wheelchair makes a slight arcing motion as he grips its arms. “James? You called me James? They’re talking about me at the front desk?”

  “They told me that you don’t like to be called Jim. Or Jimmy. That’s all.”

  James looks up, a faraway look in his eyes. “I was named James. I like to be called what I was named. It’s only proper.”

  “Okay, James. Listen, I need to sell something, an heirloom. Do you know anything about the antique stores on Charles Street?” Ranjit thinks of the doll, now back in its hiding place above the bathroom ceiling.

  James laughs as he reaches for another candy bar, peeling off the wrapper as though it were a banana.

  “Selling your stuff? You must be in bad shape.” Leaning back, he pauses, the candy bar halfway to his mouth. “Those places on Charles Street, they’re thieves. Go down to Boylston, past the Steinway Store. There are a couple of places that have been there a hundred, hundred and fifty years. If it’s old, they’ll buy it.”

  “Thanks. I’ll check it out.”

  “And while you’re down there, keep a lookout for some gold cuff links. Engraved with the initials ‘FX.’”

  Ranjit looks puzzled. “Why, did someone steal them?”

  “No, no. They’re my father’s. I sold them when I got back from ’Nam. Now I dream about them. I keep thinking I’ll get them back one day.”

  Ranjit nods and leaves, seeing tears in James’s eyes.


  This country, he thinks, it’s just full of lonely old people. If this were India, there would be someone—a nephew, a daughter—to care for James. When he dies at the Garibaldi Hotel, this small room will be his tomb; it could be weeks before someone realizes that he isn’t coughing anymore.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It is late afternoon and the sun is setting when he leaves the Garibaldi. Walking down Essex Street, he feels strangely naked without his beard, and his head feels light, shorn of the weight of his hair. Reaching the Boston Common, he walks along it, mingling with a string of office workers hurrying home from work, their breath steaming into the cold air. When he waits with them to cross Boylston Street, no one stares at him or moves away. A pretty, middle-aged white woman actually smiles at him, and he smiles back, surprised. So this is what it is like to resemble everyone else.

  The antique stores are in a line at the far end of Boylston Street, their shop windows all lit, glowing like aquariums in the gloom.

  The first window is crowded with antique musical instruments, slender oboes, tarnished brass trumpets, and saxophones with mouthpieces worn smooth by years of spittle. The second window features carved Victorian furniture, but the third is full of bric-a-brac, old wind-up gramophones and silver tea sets, and he decides to enter it.

  A man sitting behind a counter is reading The Boston Globe, and Ranjit gets a shock when he sees a photograph of Senator Neals’s face staring up at him. It is the same image from the hostage release, the Senator with his arms raised triumphantly, like a prizefighter.

  The gray-faced man hurriedly puts the paper away and is surprisingly deferential when Ranjit shows him the doll.

  “Hmmm. A very curious object. But not my line, I’m afraid. I deal in nineteenth-century ephemera. This looks older. Try Tim Hubley at the end of the street.”

  Ranjit thanks him and walks farther, spotting a battered tin sign that says HUBLEY AND SONS, AUCTION HOUSE, and in its window, behind china figurines, is a row of porcelain dolls. These seem newer than the ones in Anna’s collection, and are made to resemble little girls, with button noses and shiny, synthetic hair.