The Story of My Assassins

by Tarun J. Tejpal

  I said, ‘Sure. Then why the security cover? Why for so long? If I never was the target?’

  He said, ‘Because I may be wrong. This is only what I think. The men who decide these things, I don’t know what they think. It’s not my job to know what they think. My job is to do. If everyone thinks, there will be a mountain of thinking, and no policing. My job is only to protect you, and that’s what I do. These doubts that I share with you, I share with you not as a policeman but as a friend. After all these years I am a friend, am I not? After some time even jailors and prisoners become friends—they realize one has no meaning without the other. And you and I are on the same side, are we not?’

  He said all this with a soft mouth but hard eyes. I thought, what a peerless cop this man must have been. I knew he was six months away from retiring. He’d told me several times that his nights now were full of dreams of his village and his family farm. The mango trees, the sugarcane stalks, the ripening gold of wheat, the green tufts of cabbage, the odour of cattle dung, the woodsmoke in the dal, the milk warm from the udder, the haunting call of the koel, the rain falling on mud, and the skies full of stars. In typical Huthyam fashion he’d said, ‘I want to decay and disintegrate where I was born and fashioned. I want my soul to wander in the fields of my childhood, not on the streets of Delhi, where it’ll get run over every day by a new Maruti.’

  I said, ‘So which one of them do you think was the one that was being fixed?’

  He said, ‘Who can tell? They are all bloody maaderchods! They all deserve to be fixed. This country needs to hang a few thousand of them and the rest will fall into place. You know who I think it is—I think it’s that quiet Musalman from Bareilly. They say he’s very calm, never complains, says nothing, asks for nothing, except pieces of wood which he chisels all the time. No one has ever come to seek bail for him or to represent him in court. Such men carry worlds inside them. Such men can go anywhere, do anything. In this age of terrorism and Pakistan and the underworld and sinister politics, a man like him could have crossed many dangerous lines. They say he is resolute that he doesn’t want bail. What kind of man says that? What kind of man fears freedom? Only one who fears the freedom of other men to kill him.’

  I said, ‘If you know all this, why doesn’t the investigating agency?’

  He pulled the biscuit apart—its soft pink belly holding fast—and said, ‘They know what they are supposed to know. What they have been told to know. In the government it is never good to know more than you should. The government is a gigantic puzzle, and we are all tiny pieces of it. Our place is preordained, marked, defined. The best piece is the one that quietly fits into its place, that helps complete the puzzle. But you should not worry. They will definitely find what they are supposed to find. You must remember the government never fails and the government is never wrong. When stupid people think so, they don’t realize that this is exactly what the government wanted! To fail; to be wrong. The government is always right.’

  I looked at the spine of The Naked Lunch on the bookshelf. Huthyam had ignored it today. Burroughs would have loved him.

  I said, ‘So will they be let off soon?’

  ‘Not if the government doesn’t want them to be.’

  ‘Will my security detail be finally removed?’ A nondescript shadow lay sprawled outside, shapeless and unbuttoned, the 9mm iron cold in his crotch.

  ‘Not if the government doesn’t want it to be.’

  I said, ‘Can I get you another cup of tea?’

  He said, ‘One cup is friendship. Two is intimacy. And that is always reductive. As friends we talk about big things, philosophical things, national affairs. But in intimacy we will talk about wives and bosses and the price of milk and vegetables, and we will become small men obsessed with small things. So no more tea, my friend, no more.’

  And with that he stuck the biscuit back together and gently placed it in his mouth.

  Sara was, of course, from a different school. She believed in lightning intimacies. With her it did not lead to a sinking into mundanity but rang the bell to a higher order. For more than a year after we had handed over to Kapoorsahib and moved on, she remained resolute. She dumped the sparrow and brought in two young lawyers, who shaved close, gelled their hair, and spoke in sharp accents. The few times I met them their colognes smelled so sweet I wanted to kiss them. They were hopelessly in love with her, and showed up at the Vasant Kunj flat whenever summoned.

  One of them was the son of a very rich and famous lawyer, who, when he first met Sara, had the aura of someone who owned the world. He had worked for some years in New York but had obviously never encountered a force of nature like her. Since then he had undergone a full immersion into the socialist-revolutionary cauldron. Every privilege of his short life had been used to crucify him. Now he’d developed the sorry air of someone who had been caught mugging the world. Each time I met him in her flat he wore a look of grim, unblinking intensity as he stared at the diva, her thick legs folded under her long skirt, the light glancing off her photo shoulders and sharp clavicles. The world needed urgent saving. It was the Sara effect. It would wear off. But for some time he would be ready to slit his wrists if she only asked.

  Sara knew the truth. Sara had found out the truth. Sara had worked to find out the truth. It had taken time and meetings and excavation.

  At Gate No. 3, Central Jail Tihar, the guards all recognized her. She was issued her visitor’s pass without a fuss. Even the other lawyers of the killers recognized this woman had an inalienable right to speak to their clients. Never before had she looked more fearsome. She had taken to wearing a big Naga shawl, in rich black, white and red stripes with several crossed spears woven into it. ‘I am at war,’ she told me.

  When she strode out to do business, the warrior queen with two gelled boys in creased trousers, fragrant enough to be kissed, the commingling of all improbable things in the world was complete.

  When I told her that Hathi Ram believed that Kabir M was the mastermind behind the conspiracy to kill me, she threw open her Naga shawl and snorted like she was going to charge. I almost ducked for cover as she jumped off the sofa and rushed into her bedroom. She came back with cupped hands and emptied them onto the green marble slab of her centre table. Six little wooden choozas. The sizes varied marginally. She righted each one and stood them in a line.

  I said, ‘Six little chicks went out to play, over the hills and far away …’

  She looked up, burning me with contempt. ‘Fucking bigot.’

  I said, ‘He’s in love with you?’

  She said, ‘That Hathi Ram, who you think is a terrific guy, is finally just another idiot policeman. This is what the great mastermind does—chisel small chicks out of mango wood! How dangerous do you think that is, mr peashooter? The underworld! The poor man barely knew his grandmother! In fact, he doesn’t even know his surname! He writes M. Yes, M—for motherfucked! By this country, day in and day out, from the day he was born! It’s true the man prefers to stay in jail. Hathi Ram is right. He doesn’t even want to apply for bail. But it’s not because he’s scared of someone outside. It’s simply because he has no one out here. He finds prison a safer and nicer and warmer place. Can you understand that? That there are people out there who can’t deal with your fucking horrible world! They need to hide in whatever dirty hole they can find.’

  I said, ‘I was only telling you what Hathi Ram said. I am sure he’s innocent.’

  ‘Not innocent,’ she hissed. ‘Wronged. Abused. Damaged. Victimized.’ She was standing up now, pacing between the living space and the small dining-table, Naga shawl flapping along with her arms, like a predatory bird. ‘When this man was a boy he was beaten to pulp by policemen for something his friends had done. Where you have a cock he has a small mash of chewed gum. They pulped it for him. The most it has ever done since then is pass water. This was a boy who went to a missionary school full of padres singing hark the herald angels sing! Try and imagine what the police did to him. In jail
he learned wood carving, and that’s what he does now. Tell me, how dangerous do you think these chicks are?’

  I picked up one. It was quite sweet, actually. Light as a feather, the contours smooth, the beak sharp. I should have taken one and stuck it between Kapoorsahib’s ass cheeks. Sweet bird of penitence: a token of love from the subaltern.

  After a purple patch, when I’d been choreographing Sara like a maestro, I’d lost the touch again. These days I was not quite sure how to play her. I had no idea what would bring on real contempt, and what would ratchet up desire. Recently, several bold sorties had ended in crash-landings. I said, ‘The police are out of control.’

  She exploded, the red-black shawl billowing menacingly, ‘Not just the police! Everyone! Everything! This whole country is out of control! You know what this great mastermind does? He simulates small car robberies, quickly gets himself arrested and heads back into jail. He is too gentle to even do something cataclysmic that will put him away forever. Stupidly, his father named him Kabir to honour the great fusion of Hindu-Muslim culture. The fool should have known it was the best way to ensure both sides would fuck him. Make the katua into the peessua! Well, the poor boy didn’t take a contract to kill you. He merely agreed to drive a car to Delhi, with almost no knowledge of who was in the car or why the car was going to Delhi. And the one they call Chaaku? He was brutalized as a boy by high-caste zamindars and barely escaped with his life. And Hathoda Tyagi—do you know why they call him Hathoda Tyagi? Because he had to defend himself with a bloody hammer when his clansmen raped his sisters over a land dispute. As for those other two, Kaaliya and Chini, it’s tragic. They don’t even have the semblance of family. They grew up on the railway tracks and survived by scrounging offal. These are your deadly assassins!’

  I said, my tone flat, trying to read where this was headed, ‘The police distort everything.’

  She flapped her red-and-black wings in such agitation I thought she would take off and land on me. ‘Not the police! Not just the police! Tell me who creates the real distortion? Tell me what is it that you are supposed to do? Tell me who tells the police to do what it does? Tell me, mr peashooter, who is supposed to blow the whistle on those who tell the police to do what it does? And the men who tell the police what to do, who tells them what to do? Go on, tell me!’

  I said, ‘You are right.’ I had no idea where she’d flown off to. She was in a long colourful skirt, some kind of Rajasthani mirror-work stuff. The shirt above was lime green, sleeveless and dainty on her frail torso. When she flapped her red-black wings, her tight caramel belly showed. I could have watched it all day.

  She said, ‘So go on, tell me. Who controls the men who tell the police what to do?’

  Unsmiling, clueless, steepling my fingers under my chin, I said, ‘What’s the point?’

  ‘The point, mr peashooter, is Kapoorsahib, and what he wants. What he wants is what finally the police will want, and the men who run the police will want. What he did to you and the three stooges is what he does to everyone. He is the beast of big money, and he can get anyone to suck his cock.’

  For a moment I thought we were going to hit the groove. But Sara was in a different space—as she seemed to be more and more these days. Some of her ranting, it seemed, was beginning to run into her skin.

  I said, ‘I think it’s far more complicated. It’s a complex dance between political power, police and money. And yes, us guys too.’ I sounded so good to myself. I could just bury my face in that caramel navel and never care to hear another word again.

  She flapped her wings and snorted. ‘It’s not complex! And it’s not a dance! Power pretends it’s a dance, the police pretend it’s a dance, and you guys pretend it’s a dance! The beast of big money knows it’s not. The beast of big money knows it’s the beast running the rest as a chain-gang, getting them to do what he wants. He allows you all the illusion of the dance till it suits him. And when he wishes to, he slices your balls off. Remember Kapoorsahib, and all of you searching for your testicles!’

  Messrs Kuchha King, Kuchha Singh and Frock Raja. The beasts of small money. And with them the two ignoble upholders of the public faith. All in search of their cojones, amid tinkling Clayderman in mast trees and naked weeping mermaids.

  I said, ‘That was different. An oddball situation.’ And recklessly considered just picking her up and nailing her to the wall; ending this nonsense, this continual needling of the order of things. The world was what it was. Uneven, unequal, unjust, unfair. Didn’t help to keep ranting about it. I did not move from the sofa because I could see an unwashed non-stick pan with the remnants of congealed egg in it lying on the dining-table and I knew in her current mood she’d hit me over the head with it.

  ‘Not different, mr peashooter, and not oddball! That’s precisely the situation in this country everywhere! The beast of big money has sliced everyone’s testicles from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. Kabir is in jail because some Kapoorsahib wants him there. Or wants some of the others in there. He, poor sucker, was just the driver. Masterminding how to avoid ramming into the truck ahead!’

  I said, ‘But why?’

  ‘But why what, you idiot?’

  ‘But why this elaborate charade to get some guys in jail?’

  ‘Because people are crooked and labyrinthine and elaborate! Tortuous routes are taken even for simple outcomes! What all do you do just to get laid? Because even if you are the beast of big money you can’t just open the jail door and fling people in! Remember how Kapoorsahib walked you in circles for months? Because there may be factors at play here that we have no damn idea about! Simply, my dear, how the hell do I know? Do I look like the bloody Interpol to you?’

  Not at all, my delicate one. Like a sweet bird of paradise flying on white lines of coke.

  I said, ‘So in a way, both Hathi Ram and you think the same thing. That there was no real contract to kill me. These guys have been basically fixed—for some reason that none of us know.’

  The sweet bird of paradise emitted a heart-stopping screech. ‘No! Hathi Ram and I do not think the same thing! He thinks they are hardcore criminals and it’s just as well they are being punished! And you know very well what I think!’

  No, I thought, you crazy banshee, I don’t! I don’t care any more what anyone thinks! I don’t know who ordered up the killers. Some politician, or Pakistan, or the police, or some rich man, or they thought it up themselves in a moment of happy impulse! And I don’t know why! I am just happy someone got to them before they got to me, and they have been firmly locked up behind bars for the last three years and no one wants to let them out! You may be right and they may be god’s own angels with perfume for piss, but I don’t want to test the thesis and have them wandering in the open again, trying to blow another hole in my buttocks!

  I said, ‘I hope you can manage to get them off.’

  Her band of smooth caramel inspired dishonesty.

  As if on cue the doorbell rang, and she flapped her way to the door. The two young crusaders walked in, faces grim, cheeks shaved to ceramic smoothness, files in their hands. They half hugged the sweet bird of paradise in warm solidarity, took off their black coats, loosened the knots at their throats, and sat down on the edge of the cane chairs, ready to best the state and its allies. I was accorded only a cursory nod. I was the moron who had created this human tragedy by almost getting murdered.

  I got up to leave.

  Sara said to them, ‘Let’s sit at the dining-table.’

  I said to them, ‘What’s common between naked mermaids and innocent killers?’

  They looked at me nonplussed. Sara turned to me with the eyes of an animal protecting her brood.

  I said, ‘I was just thinking of Uncle Kapoor.’

  All the way home I thought I had to accept the fact that I had hit the law of diminishing returns with Sara. There was only so much of this chest-beating I could take. The last few months had been tedious, ending not in a rosy crucifixion on the wall, but in my fatigued flight
. I had to figure a way of closing this chapter in my life. It had become a bad story. I no longer knew why I came to see her. And yet I could not keep away. Once, when I had managed to resolutely stay away for a week, she had messaged me two saucy words and I had rushed instantly to her flat. She had opened the door naked. It had transformed doorbell-ringing into a scrotum-tightening affair for me forever.

  Over time I had become unsure whether I was playing her or she, me. When I saw her with her two clean-cut boys I felt I too was just being toyed with. But she did want to fix the world. There could be no doubt about that. To go to jails and lawyers and courts, week after week, month after month, year after year—you had to be imbued with lunacy, or a sense of purpose! In her case it was most likely both. I had slowly become convinced that I was just a prop in her scheme of the universe. The cardboard tree around which she played out her moves. The man who provided the assassins, who provided the meaning. Some days I felt even the passion was manufactured. Part of the theatre, the real purpose of which lay off-stage. What it was, apart from lunacy and idealism, I had no idea.

  Now I felt this relationship would only be severed when the assassins had been accounted for—exonerated, sentenced, done away with.

  Till then my best hope was I would ring the bell and she would open the door naked.

  Guruji was naked but for his dhoti, though it was still only the end of February and slicingly cold. It was evening, minutes before the red of the sky fell to dark grey. From the terrace of the dera the fields all around were a sea of luminous green. In two weeks the wheat stalks would begin to ripen to burnt gold. Amid the waves of green could be seen splashes of sun, the delicate flowers of mustard. The lowing of cattle broke the air, and flurries of birds swept past calling out directions.