by Mario Bolduc
Juliette went over to the consultant. “Who was that woman?”
“Excuse me?”
“Deborah Cournoyer, who is she, really?”
Patterson reacted to the question like a slap in the face. He sighed, looking around for a way out, and then sighed again to signal that he didn’t want to talk about it. But Juliette stared him down without blinking, and he had no choice.
“She was Philippe’s mistress for a number of years. In fact, right up to his death.”
“I don’t want this business suddenly coming out in public.” Now I know what she meant.
The prime minister’s favourite caterer had the young waitstaff from the Institut de l’hôtellerie slinking around on cat-feet. There were more flowers, bouquets of them, and a large photo of David, a holiday picture at least, and guests around the buffet table, hesitating between the sauerkraut and the tandoori chicken. Dennis Patterson had done things up grand, as always. Despite her grief, Béatrice was slipping from guest to guest like a bee among flowers: it was just another cocktail party really, a bit tragic of course, but the same rules of etiquette applied, nevertheless. Bernatchez fluttered from one businessman to another with his customary ease. Was this to be a last tribute to David or a chance at privileged access to the high commissioner? To ask the question was to answer it.
Juliette couldn’t stop thinking about what Patterson had said a few minutes before and about Deborah Cournoyer’s discreet presence at the funeral. Béatrice must have suffered from their relationship. Juliette watched her mingling with the guests and saw her in a new light. She forgave her mother-in-law’s insistence, her hurtful comments, her condescending attitude toward people in general, especially to Juliette. Must be a defence mechanism built up over the years. Was David in the know? Surely not. Béatrice could have used this woman to tarnish her deceased husband’s reputation, but obviously hadn’t. It was to her credit.
Suddenly, Juliette felt she’d had her fill of deconstructing the past, and she took advantage of the general melee to slip discreetly away to the kitchen. The fridge — there had to be some ice. Then her cellphone began to hum. This time it was really crackly on the line.
Max brought her up to date on what he’d found out about David’s fear and nervousness from Luiz and Adoor, the watchman; the call from Srinagar in the heart of Kashmir as war threatened between India and Pakistan; David’s return to Delhi with his well-kept secret most likely increasing his nervousness and fear. David apprehended what was about to happen: the kidnapping and torture, the explosion under the used Volvo.
“What do you get from that?”
“The attack wasn’t a blind, gratuitous, or isolated act. David was not simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, as Patterson and the High Commission people think.” David had been selected from among all the diplomats in Delhi for a reason. What that was, Max did not know, but he was going to find out, of that he was sure.
“Kashmir?”
“Maybe.”
That Indo-Pakistani wasps’ nest, where both terrorist groups operated — Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Taiba. Home of Jaish-e-Mohammed, of Harakat-ul-Ansar, and Al Badr martyrs. “A violence- and-horror competition in its rawest form.” Sponsored by Genghis Khan and his jihadis? Sure, why not?
“Maybe the Indian cops were right after all.”
“Khankashi plays the moderate, denounces 9/11, and pretends to distance himself from Al-Qaeda, while secretly fanning the flames. David’s his buddy, his confidant, so he gives him one more mission … in Kashmir, the lion’s den.”
Now it was Juliette’s turn to be puzzled, as her old theory surfaced again. “So David was charmed by the imam? But that’s not like him, not at all.” She was wondering more and more how well she really knew her husband.
“From here on, one of two things will happen,” said Max. “Either David comes back disillusioned, convinced he’s been used for his ‘diplomatic neutrality,’ and there’s a shouting-match in the mosque (‘I’m going to turn you in publicly, Khankashi’) — but denounce him for what? — no idea, maybe referring to the recent spate of terrorist attacks or his links to ISI. Genghis Khan is walking on hot coals, and David’s a troublesome witness, so there’s a phone call to one of his nut jobs.”
“Or …?”
“Or the Hindu extremists — say, Sri Bhargava, James Bond, for instance. The Hindutva fanatic.”
So far extremists on both sides have been banging away at each other while foreigners look on complacently. Maybe David violated this “convention of indifference.” Maybe.
“I have to get to Kashmir and retrace his steps,” said Max, “see what he saw, pick up his trail in Srinagar at the Hotel Mount View.”
Juliette no longer knew what to think.
“Be careful,” she said.
The porter at the Liverpool Guest House seemed to be as sleepy in the day as at night. Leaning over a greasy samosa that stained his receipts, he held the room key out to Max without even looking at him. On the terrace, travellers in pyjamas drifted to and fro in slow motion like lily pads floating lazily on a swamp. Not quite the same ones as the day before, but popped out of the same mould. Max was about to slide the key into the lock when he noticed something to his right, or rather someone. An Indian was looking over the message board where the hippies exchanged tips and news or exhibited their poetic talents. Discouraging to read.
Something about this Indian didn’t fit. He wasn’t an employee. Max was sure of that.
Despite his typically Indian look — shiny pants and belted shirt — he was peering hard as though searching for a jalebi recipe or a travelling companion to Annapurna, but what caught Max’s eye was the fact that he was too normal. That stood out. Something was definitely off.
Instead of going in, Max pretended to have forgotten something in the lobby. The porter had finished his samosa and was perusing the register with the energy of one halfway between life and death. At the bottom of the stairs, however, just in front of the door to the street, was another Indian, definitely not a beggar or a shoeshine boy, but dressed the same as the other and with the same fake debonair attitude. This one had something else going on that Max would have recognized anywhere, anytime … he was a cop, just like the terrace guy. There were probably two more already in his room with guns drawn.
Max was just able to slip past the counter without being seen and dive for the stairway on his left. It led to the roof. Being painfully silent, he climbed the stairs one by one till he faced a door. He pushed it open and was blinded by the sun. After shielding his eyes, he saw five more of them in khaki uniform, and, as he turned to go back down, he found himself face to face with the plainclothes cop from the street. That was it. The only possible way out was to bluff.
“Look, sahibji, you’re making a serious mistake. It isn’t what you think.” Then lightning forked through his head and everything went black. Another blow sent him to the floor. The cop he hadn’t seen coming gave him a massive blow without even taking a wind-up. Max tasted blood and tried to protect his face with his arm, but it didn’t help. It was raining hammer blows non-stop.
Lying on the terrace floor, Max didn’t even have the strength to moan. The beating had happened without a word being spoken, almost like a ritual. He was barely conscious. He saw boots approaching, probably a havaldar, his footsteps echoing on the tiles as though his head were jammed inside a church bell. He waited for the boot to finish him off, but the voice said, “Okay, the masquerade’s finished, O’Brien.”
25
Juliette and Vandana fell into each other’s arms and then set off for coffee and a chat, the way Juliette had done so often with David. Before leaving for India, they’d lived at the Somerset in the Glebe district, an apartment block swarming with Western members of Parliament when it was in session. The rest of the time, it housed wandering diplomats. A life that was reminiscent of, David liked to say, b
eing “young” again. She was right. He would never get old.
“Mr. Bernatchez asked me to come with him,” Vandana explained, “For the conference …”
She had said too much, and regretted it. But Juliette smiled. “No, no, I understand. You don’t need to feel bad because you’re standing in for him. Anyhow, you’re better off here than there at the moment, aren’t you?”
Vandana’s face clouded over, and there was a long silence before she said, “The people running my country have gone completely crazy.”
They’re firing mortars all along the Line of Control, she explained, killing the usual innocent victims: a young woman and five civilians in Garkhal, thirty kilometres from Jammu. At Naugam, in southwestern Srinagar, an Islamist militant was killed by Indian soldiers. It was the same on the Pakistani side — civilians caught in the crossfire, and the media were mostly watching Kazakhstan in the former USSR, especially the city of Almaty, where the regional summit on Asian security was being held. Atal Vajpayee and Perez Musharraf were the stars right now, of course. They alone out of the sixteen heads of state could stop this war.
Talking international politics is her way to keep from crying about David, thought Juliette. Besides, she was glad to see her friend, whom she’d always liked. In Delhi, the young woman had been the first one to visit their home in Maharani Bagh and set Iqbal straight before he stepped too far out of place (“Domestics expect to be treated as such. Otherwise, they think we actually don’t respect them.”). Juliette had balked at that, coming from a background where equality was the rule, and she was finding it hard to adjust to a country where inequality was the basis of society. Vandana often guided the couple around the mohallas and government stores on the weekends. She was able to deflate some of the rug merchants’ usual self-assurance, and furniture salesmen used the division key on their calculators more often. David and Juliette had managed to save a lot of money because of her.
Later, at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Juliette had relied on her to correct her Hindi pronunciation. Vandana was the first to tell them about the similarities and common roots between Hindi and French. Both of them were derived from the mythical Indo-European language, which in India had become Sanskrit, thence to the Mediterranean Basin and Greek, Latin, and so on … Two, seven, nine, ten. Do, saat, nau, das.
“Few oppose the war. For a peace march in New Delhi,” she explained, “four hundred people are nothing. And we’re in the homeland of Mahatma Gandhi!”
Major/great + soul (âme) = large soul.
Maha + Atma = Mahatma.
“Meanwhile, embassies lie empty now: Iran, Israel, South Korea …” There was no hiding Vandana’s disgust. “The leaders of the BJP really want to sock it to the Pakistanis.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about Kathmandu?” Juliette asked.
That startled Vandana, though she was expecting it sooner or later. She lowered her eyes. “I don’t know. To protect David, I suppose, or rather myself. When I found out he’d lied, I was afraid.” Her eyes were moist as she looked up at Juliette. “I shouldn’t have done that, I know.”
Juliette took her hand for reassurance. No one dear to her heart should feel responsible for David’s death. “It wouldn’t have changed anything, Vandana, not a thing.” Then she said, “I’m pregnant. ‘A new universe created out of the ruins of the old,’ is how to see it, according to the Mahabharata.”
Vandana seemed happy, and she grabbed Juliette’s hand and squeezed it. Then, not able to bear it, she turned away. “They’ve arrested Max O’Brien. Bernatchez told me just after I landed.”
Yet again, the world collapsed around Juliette’s head.
26
The pain in his face, especially his nose, was excruciating. The cops had really done a number on him. He still had on the same clothes, and his shirt was stained brown with dried blood. Any glimpse of daylight blinded him. Max O’Brien turned his head just a few centimetres, and the effort it required was colossal. He could make out a white wall and a solid door. He thought he was in hospital, but the hammering of boots on the metal floor brought back to him a reality he knew only too well. He was in prison, not a hospital.
An Indian prison.
Here in these cells they piled up foreigners and fed them disgusting slop they had to pay for out of their own pockets. Corrupt guards and bureaucrats — he felt abandoned by all. Soon he’d find out if all those clichés in movies were actually true. He was probably in Tihar, the same place they’d imprisoned Genghis Khan. At once, he stopped struggling. What was the point? When he woke again a few hours later, it was night. It had to be the next day, and the cell was lit by a naked, yellowish bulb, which made everything seem like a funeral wake. He could hear boots in the corridor once more, but muffled this time. Near the bed was a tray of food that had become a playground for cockroaches, overpopulated like the whole country.
His head still hurt, but the pain had become more diffuse and came in waves like the sea when the tide ran out. At least now he could breathe, and he could smell curry. He retched for a good long time, hoping he could drown all the parasites. He knew he wasn’t alone, even before his eyes were fully open. He raised the lids, which, surprisingly, didn’t hurt anymore. A familiar silhouette sketched itself against the white of the wall. An unseen guard announced that he was awake, and the silhouette turned round. He made out William Sandmill of the High Commission, not knowing if that was a good thing or bad. What did it matter, anyway? Another man appeared behind him, sweaty and wiping his brow. Sandmill bent over Max, smelling of cologne and wearing a Bulova with a metal bracelet, striped tie, and wrinkled suit. Little splashes of colour and light here and there showed that reality was imposing its presence. Max tried to get up, but his head throbbed. Sandmill put a hand on his shoulder as a signal to stop moving.
He smiled. “Mr. O’Brien. Have they been treating you well, not caused any trouble?”
Treated well? How would he know? He’d been unconscious since … um … when, exactly?
“Two days.”
Sandmill pointed to another man putting away his handkerchief. “Josh Walkins, RCMP.” So this was the Canadian government’s token presence kept on the sidelines by the Indian police. “I’ve got some good news,” Sandmill went on, “You’re being shipped home. The High Commission’s reminded the Ministry of Home Affairs that our two countries have an extradition treaty, so it got fast-tracked.”
This was Walkins’s cue. “You’re lucky, O’Brien. Here in India, counterfeiting and fraud are serious crimes, especially in a country on the verge of war and all that …”
Max still didn’t get it. “So why am I being sent home?”
“Because you belong to us,” said a third man from behind the other two, “and you won’t be going anywhere after that.” Max would have known that voice anywhere, as Sandmill and Walkins stepped aside to let the third party look him over with a triumphant grin. Max closed his eyes and his headache returned, worse than ever. There was something more repulsive than an Indian prison, after all: Luc Roberge.
The detective pointed across the cell to his suitcases. “I picked them up for you at the Hotel Oberoi. You can’t say I don’t look after you.”
The traffic was sheer hell. The road to the airport was jammed with taxis, trucks, government cars, and all sorts of vehicles — destination “some place peaceful.” The word was out since morning from every embassy. Washington, London, Berlin, and Auckland had all ordered their diplomats and expats to leave; the same with Ottawa.
“Visa-hunting season is open,” declared Sandmill, who was at the wheel. “People will do anything to get out of here.”
This explained the choked roads, cars filled with anxious families, kids jammed into backseats, suitcases hastily crammed inside and pushing up against the roof of every car in a fanfare of horns from impatient drivers.
Walkins was sitting in the front, and he swivelled
round to address Roberge. “Can’t really blame these poor buggers. In Almaty, Vajpayee and Musharraf never even spoke to each other, no matter what Beijing or Moscow say.”
“China’s kicking itself for helping Pakistan build the bomb in 1998,” explained Sandmill, “and now the place is so unstable that no one’s in charge, least of all President Musharraf.”
“And that’s before you add in Kashmir as well.”
More dead, tens of dead, hundreds of dead, even thousands or millions if the two countries carried out their nuclear threats.
The day before, Minister Advani adopted a harsher tone. If Pakistan wished to avoid being bombed, it would immediately hand over twenty terrorists they were holding — extremists whom Musharraf and Inter-Services Intelligence were protecting.
Roberge shrugged. He couldn’t care less. He finally had Max O’Brien sitting right next to him. So what if the world went up in a mushroom cloud? He had his man and nothing else mattered.
“The Americans can’t do a thing,” Sandmill shot back. “There’s no point in trying to cool the situation down. It won’t happen. It never does.”
Walkins frowned. “Strategically, they need to get involved because of Afghanistan. The Pakistanis mustn’t abandon their western frontier to go fight India on the other side of the country.”
“Still, there’s no way their mediation can work. On the one hand, India wants Pakistan to stop jihadis from crossing into Kashmir …”
“As if Islamabad could control anything in the country anyway, especially in Azad Kashmir!”
“… and on the other hand, they deny even having any terrorists in their country in the first place.”
