The Sly Company of People Who Care

by Rahul Bhattacharya

  ‘Dis bai deh pun serious skunt, bai.’

  Turning to me he said as if handing back a term paper: ‘You are not doing well, Mr India. Not well at all.’

  He paused for a response. I didn’t give him any; I felt I was going to snap. I stared at his cratered face in silence.

  ‘Let me ask you again: what are your exact relations with the lady?’

  I tried to catch a glimpse of her. But he stood like a wall between us. I tried to subtly peer around him. He shifted to block my sight.

  ‘She is, she was my girlfriend, I guess.’

  ‘How long you know her?’

  ‘A couple of months.’

  ‘And in that time, you go with her to travel around Venezuela.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And come back from Eteringbang.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where you enter from?’

  ‘Enter where?’

  ‘Not she. Me en wan know dah.’

  The constable giggled.

  ‘Venezuela,’ the chief clarified.

  ‘From Guiria.’

  ‘Where is that?’

  ‘The ferry from Trinidad. It runs to—’

  ‘So you enter by boat from Trinidad, and you exit overland from Eteringbang?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘For tourism? With your new girlfriend?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He looked at the constable. ‘I seen a lot of joke, boy, but I ain’t seen such a joke in a long long time.’

  ‘You know the man?’

  He pointed with his baton.

  ‘No.’

  ‘If you say the girl is your girlfriend what the arse she doing with him?’

  ‘I told you she was my girl—’

  ‘Don’t tell me what you already told me.’

  ‘We split up. I think she met him only this morning. I don’t know, maybe they know each other. I’m not sure. Why don’t you ask them?’

  He shouted so loud the forest shook.

  ‘WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU CAN TELL ME WHAT I SHOULD DO?’

  I could feel every pair of eyes in the clearing searing into me. Out of sheer embarrassment I kept quiet.

  ‘Why you split up with her?’ the chief asked, his tone acquiring a momentum of aggression now.

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘What the arse does that mean?’

  ‘You know how it is, chief. We start to fight. Deliberately …’ I paused.

  ‘What the arse the man talking!’ He shouted: ‘Tell that skunt Simon to release the flight before I rearrange he goolies. And bring back this gentleman’s bags.

  ‘Sir,’ he turned to me and said, ‘you are being detained.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  His laughing red eyes were merely red now, devoid of expression.

  ‘You tell me one set of stupidness. Girlfriend, tourism, culture. O rass, boy. The things a man must hear on this job. Every day a next kunumunu must come along.’

  As the constable went to retrieve my bags, I felt a genuine nervousness, and with that a genuine anger.

  ‘You can’t bloody detain me,’ I said.

  The chief stopped pounding his fist into his hand. He raised his non-eyebrows, to make deep crevices in his glistening forehead.

  ‘You want to repeat that?’

  I remained silent.

  ‘Would you like to utter that sentence once more?’

  ‘I said you can’t detain me, it’s simple.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ he said, his voice deep. ‘You want me to check the book? Is going to make it worse for you.

  ‘So I ask again, would you like to repeat that sentence one more time?’

  I looked away, into the trees.

  ‘Good,’ he said at last. ‘You should be glad you get that right.’

  ‘Look, chief. I don’t mean to tell you what to do. It’s just that I have a flight to India day after. It’s the last day on my ticket and my visa. I’m just anxious about that.’

  He appeared interested in this piece of information.

  ‘You plan to carry the stuff up to India?’ He began convulsing with laughter. The constable returned with my bag.

  ‘The man want to carry the shit till India,’ he told the constable amid booming laughs.

  The constable began to laugh too, little squirting laughs, and those too built up to something like a convulsion.

  ‘The man should glad you ketch him out here, bossman. The man would land in Gwantanamo.’

  ‘Please tell me what’s going on,’ I said in the calmest, firmest manner I could.

  The chief and the constable were in a proper gyaff.

  ‘ … Smalltime fool like that,’ he said, flicking his thumb over his shoulder, referring, I assumed, to the man with Jan. ‘He can get past me?’

  He turned to me.

  ‘Cooliepeople got big business, you know. Massive.’ He spread his hands before his ample face and shook them. ‘You hear the name Roger Khan?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You work for he?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Of course I know that!’ he laughed. ‘Cause you smalltime. All you smalltime.’ He flicked his thumb over his shoulder again. ‘Coolieman tryin fuh squeeze through a lil thing like blackman. Show how much the competition strong.’

  He addressed the constable mentorishly.

  ‘Watch, I know how them mind work. Them think that the beauty queen get ketch with makeup, so is too stupid for anyone to use makeup again. So they think makeup the safest place. The girl thinkin this is not Timehri, is just Eteringbang, easy pickings.’

  He paused.

  ‘There is a term for this behaviour. Ya’al hear it?’

  He looked at the constable, then at me. Neither said anything.

  ‘Reverse psychology.’

  The constable said, ‘Yeah.’

  I nodded.

  ‘I ain’t turn chief just so. Y’understand? They thinking, Miss Guyana get ketch with the powder in she cosmetics, so cosmetics done, nobody would think to use it again. Reverse psychology, boy, reverse psychology.’

  He considered this for a few seconds. Then he began to beat his baton against his palm, sizing me up top to tail.

  ‘Sir, how many kilos would you like to declare?’

  I smiled, suspecting this might be a wind-up after all.

  He ignored the smile.

  He looked at his watch. He assessed the action around him, and almost involuntarily I did it with him.

  On the airstrip two planes had already departed, and a third was taxiing. At the station, the last of the passengers were getting processed, waiting in the queue for immigration.

  I now saw Jan and the man being led up the stairs by a pair of officers. Her face was obscured by her hair. I could see the sun glint off her silver bracelet as her hand slid along the banister.

  No, it did not actually feel like a wind-up.

  My mind burned. How to extricate myself? She swivelled before me in such a variety of ways, in a variety of emotions, the phone and the vehicle, the hundred bill two days ago, now in a careless burgundy negligee, now with ice lolly marks on her mouth, now in stilettos with a flare in her eyes, that I felt I was hurtling punchdrunk through a masquerade. I had a strange flashback: the putagee lawyer from the earliest days. I saw his face vividly before me, ruddy and cussed with fleshy cheeks, grey hair peeping out of his nostrils, a strong face, equipped, chapped lips to which he raised whisky and coconut. I’m not concerned with innocence or guilt. Anyone can kill their baby.

  ‘Yes, sir, so how many kilos will that be?’

  It took me a few seconds to return to the situation.

  ‘You checked my bags yourself, chief. You can check them again. I got nothing.’

  ‘You could be a body packer. You hear the word? You belly, you arse, all kind of funny place, lined up thick thick thick with snow.’

  ‘What did they tell you, chief?’ I asked with utmost humility. ‘Why don’t you let me s
peak to her?’

  ‘Why don’t you shut up and let me decide how to proceed?’

  He turned to the constable.

  ‘Next thing the man tell me let they siddung, give praise to the Lord, eat a meal an discuss they strategy.’

  ‘Chief, I told you the whole story.’

  ‘That sure was a story, boy. A bundle of pu-re, un-dil-uted, un-adul-ter-ated skunt.’

  ‘It’s true,’ I continued. ‘I haven’t spoken to the girl for a day now. I never seen that man in my life. I have no idea what is going on.’

  ‘She call your name. That is enough for us to investigate you in the manner we see fit.’

  ‘But you checked my bags. You can check them again. I told you what happen—’

  ‘We get handcuff for the man?’ he asked the constable.

  The constable chuckled.

  ‘What you skinnin you teeth for, chap? We got handcuffs for the man or not?’

  ‘Not sure, chief.’

  ‘Well, haul you ass up and check nuh, man. The fella getting fidgety here.’

  ‘Yeah, chief.’

  He left.

  I drew a little closer to the chief. I thought to put my arm on his shoulder, but thought the better of it.

  ‘Listen, chief. Let me see the girl, please. I can help you with this.’

  ‘You going to see her. The man coming with handcuffs for you just now.’

  ‘This is the situation. Everything will crash. I will lose my ticket to India. I’m out of money. It costs more than two thousand dollars. US. I will have overstayed my visa. That will mean my presence in Guyana will be illegal. Please let me see her.’

  ‘You think that is my concern? Your blasted ticket and visa?’

  ‘Just think, chief. If you hold me wrongly, it could become a big thing. I am an Indian national, the high commission will get involved, they know me well – I’m registered with them. And the high commissioner knows the president well. They will ask why you held me without proof. It will make trouble for everyone. Me. You. Everybody.’

  He laughed. Then he fixed me with a red-eye stare for an entire minute. I could not tell whether he was working something out or trying to intimidate me. At any rate, I was a little intimidated. In the background I could hear an Islander fluttering away into the sky.

  I could not match his stare. I looked at the station beyond him.

  ‘Trouble … Trouble,’ he said finally. ‘Trouble trouble trouble.’

  He laughed again.

  ‘We in the profession of trouble, pardner. You follow me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It ain’t hard to make trouble. You follow me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ain’t hard at all. You got no idea how much trouble I could make for you if I want. Do you?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘What is hard is to cir-cum-vent trouble. You know is which word? Cir-cum-vent.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That take a little, eh, in-vest-ment. You with me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Instinctively I began to reach for my wallet.

  He slapped my wrist with a rapid flick of the baton.

  It stunned me. I felt stupid. And then a sharp pain kicked in.

  ‘We going to search you bags again,’ he said. ‘Search them good, rip em up, crack open the wheels, mash up everything. The constable going to strip-search you. If we find something you going fry, boy, you going bun, you understand?’

  ‘He won’t fin—’

  ‘Sir, may I suggest that you shut your hole.

  ‘If he find something you bun. Follow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When we finish taking apart your bags, when he done with you strip-search, when all of that done, then you go for your passport, right.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘You got US?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Fold the bill and put it in there. Do it with your hands inside your handbag, right.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Come over to me and hand over the passport for examination, right.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Make it a big bill, good?’

  ‘I got a fifty.’

  ‘Is all you got?’

  ‘Maybe a twenty too.’

  ‘Good.’

  With that he turned around, towards the station. I watched the folds of his neck, and beyond that the louvres in the station windows and the door leading in. I tried to discern any movement. Soon a figure emerged from the door, momentarily exciting me.

  It was the constable.

  He walked jauntily towards us, handcuffless.

  ‘Negative, chief.’

  ‘We going to bust the man just now,’ the chief replied, firing up the constable with a sense of mission. ‘Send Crappo over a.s.a.p. for the bag. And you take the man and strip him down, good. Report me in three minutes.’

  Things happened quickly.

  The constable led me behind the station to a little enclosure in the bottom house. Pasted on the wall here was the faded liner of Guyanese Girls Gone Wild, a porn film that had taken the country by storm. Beside it a marijuana leaf was painted in blood red.

  ‘Please strip for me, sir,’ he requested politely.

  I did, down to my underwear.

  He examined, one by one, my T-shirt, my jeans, my shoes and socks.

  All the while he kept softly singing Tick Tack, a big Guyanese soca. Tick tack, on she bumper … The words came in and out as he bent down and stood up with a garment, tick tack … He leant towards me and snapped the elastic of my underwear and peered inside casually. He walked around to the back and snapped the elastic again.

  ‘Alright, sir. You may get dressed.’

  We walked back, from the other side this time. Admiral Rambarran shot me a perplexed look as we passed. I half caught it, looked away.

  Out on the grass the chief and Crappo stood over the remains of my bags.

  ‘Legal,’ the strip-searcher declared. Chief dismissed them.

  I began to gather my things into the ravaged bags. I did as per instruction with the passport. I handed it over. How much did 14,000 dollars mean to him. A half-month salary? Less? More? Would he share it around?

  He flicked through my back pages, releasing baritone hmms. I didn’t notice when he, to use the newspaper term, relieved the passport of its cash.

  He handed it back to me.

  ‘Don’t do nothing bad now, straight home right, no unlawful behaviour, no whores, no drugs, nothing, you hear? G’lang quick, the last flight leaving.’

  The end was so abrupt, I felt lost, clueless.

  The chief looked relaxed.

  ‘What about her?’ I asked.

  ‘We going to take care of that,’ he said amiably.

  ‘Please tell me what they told you, chief.’

  He surveyed things around him with his hands clasped at the back, talking as he did, as if instructing a minion.

  ‘She say the man fix she up. Put drugs pun she. She called your name. She say you would know that she ain’t done nothing wrong.’

  ‘Oh.’

  He said nothing.

  I felt by turns flushed, drained, limp. I was shot through with shame and heroism. My heart beat hard. I tried to reach for the grand gesture.

  ‘Maybe she’s telling the truth, chief.’

  ‘Put drugs pun she! Is what every blasted mule does say. You say she only just meet him. Why the arse she give him she bag?’

  ‘It could be innocent.’

  ‘She does need money?’

  ‘That doesn’t—’

  ‘Trust me, chap, I seen things. Is always wha they say.’

  There was a long silence. He was stretching his neck, making big shining sausages every time he rolled back his head.

  ‘Chief. If I stay, can I find a way to get back by tomorrow?’

  ‘Boy. You testing me now. You testing me bad. O fuck, boy. You best beat out of here before I change my mind.’

  ‘I
t’s not so simple.’

  ‘What is not simple? You either part of it or you are not.’

  His loud voice ascended almost to a shout.

  ‘I—’

  ‘ARE YOU A PART OF THIS OR NOT?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you best beat out this moment or go in there and grab onto she bubby like a kunumunu.’

  ‘Can I go up and see her for a minute?’

  He stared at me.

  ‘Sure. You can go see her. But you ain’t stepping back out.’

  I considered the words the best I could. I thought of them first as a threat. But they were not a threat, not at all. They were an offer. The choice is yours, that is what he was telling me.

  The blood rushed to my head as I bent to lift my bags. The rest was spots. Some were perfectly formed and of immaculate clarity. Some were pulsing blurs. I trod them all, sometimes floated over them. I remember the constable waving me off with a pleasant ‘watch it, right’. I’m sure he said it once, but it rang in my head five, six times.

  I tripped on the way to the plane. There was a buzz of curiosity as I climbed aboard. People, sweating shapeless people, tried to ask, I could hear their silent voices, but as we taxied and climbed the noise defeated their curiosity. I sat behind the pilot in a broken seat. It was like a punishment chair. Everything inside was in soft focus. In a bid for sharpness I concentrated on two dials. One was altitude, one was speed. I stared tight at them till their needles loomed close to my eyes like fine silver daggers, beautifully defined and gleaming. There were red markers on each dial, at 9000 ft and 175 knots. The needles climbed towards the markers. Neither got there. They came to rest at 7500 ft and 150 knots and thereafter there was no movement in them. The sun poured in very strong. The rays kept getting trapped in our aerial box, amplified. Soon people fainted to sleep. And I myself was not there.

  I was on another plane, in another flight. I was returning from the miracle of Kaieteur to GT, that strange creation, transplanted people on a fake coast. The guide was clutching his short hair. ‘Pure, man, pure.’ The ill American groaned, sickening groans. It was a hotbox up here in the sky. I heard the horns and words of Maga Dog, sweet and vicious, turning cycles, stabbing truths, a proverb in reverb, turn around bite you, with the American’s sick groans, with the hair-clutching guide saying ‘pure, man, pure’ and the drone of the engine.

  My passport was still in my hand, stuck to my palm like wet cloth. I shook it off. I reached for my bag to return it to its envelope. Her two sketches were inside, facing each other in a kiss. I shrank from the sight. My head pained. I wanted to vomit. I tried to pull out of the old flight and the new flight. I looked through the porthole.