Transmission

by Hari Kunzru

  That year Rajiv Rana was hot-hot. He impersonated moody loners, maverick police inspectors, ordinary joes turned have-ago heroes and gym-toned loverboys in a series of hits that made him India’s favourite tough guy, the idol of the chai stall and the school-yard. He started an affair with the only woman who seemed worthy, a former Miss World turned movie heroine who had skin like butter and a figure which inspired in him unprecedented feelings of jealousy and possessiveness. He asked her to marry him, and when she turned him down he asked her again, arriving at her apartment late at night with a full wedding orchestra, causing irate neighbours to phone the police. He showered her with gifts (she was indifferent), covertly threatened her co-stars (she was angry), had her name tattooed on his left buttock (she laughed), then made a terrible mistake which drove her away and turned him into Baby Aziz’s puppet.

  She was modelling bridal wear in a show at the Oberoi Hotel, a favour to the friend who had designed her Miss World gown. A group of young men started wolf-whistling when she came down the runway, their leader calling out that he loved her, asking when was coming the garam swimwear section. Rajiv was furious at the insult but equally concerned not to make a public scene. Having discovered the identity of the boy (the son of a wealthy tyre manufacturer), he allowed himself to be escorted from the building by his companions. Later, drunk and brooding, he made a series of phone calls, sounding off to anyone who would listen about disgraceful behaviour, lack of respect, reputation, punishment.

  The next morning, in the midst of a blinding hangover, he took a call from a whispering male voice. ‘Baba asks. Baba is looked after,’ it said, then hung up. That evening the television news reported that Rahul Subramanian, heir to the S.B. Radials fortune, had been found burned to death in his car in a slum area of the city.

  Rajiv went into his bathroom and vomited into his hand-carved marble sink.

  He did not leave the house for several days, during which time rumours about Subramanian’s death flew around Mumbai society, rumours which thankfully did not touch him. He went to see Qureishi, who claimed not to know what he was talking about, but suggested it might be helpful if he took a holiday, at least until he felt a little calmer. ‘You need relaxation,’ said the bookmaker. ‘You are our hero. We want what’s best for you.’

  The next few months were terrible. He considered confessing. But to whom? And to what? He hadn’t wanted the boy killed. He hadn’t asked anybody to do anything specific. At night he dreamed of flames and melting faces. He could not concentrate on work, walking out of Abs, a project produced by the team responsible for his greatest box-office successes. Miss World, bored by his increasingly erratic behaviour, was seen out on the town with a rising young model-turned-actor. When she stopped returning his calls, Rajiv arrived on the set of her latest romantic comedy and caused a scene. The movie magazines had a field day. Miss World gave Stardust an ‘everything is over between Rajiv and Me’ exclusive. Then Baby Aziz started calling in favours.

  It began gradually. Rajiv made personal appearances at functions organized by Aziz’s friends. He signed on for Look Out… Love Alert! A box-office bomb that it was ‘suggested’ would be useful for his career. If he questioned things or got angry, a call would come from the Gulf. ‘When we think of you,’ the wheezing voice would croon, ‘our hearts are filled with emotion. We would never want to reveal anything harmful to your public self.’

  The demands got heavier. He lent money without real hope of return. He agreed to store some crates (of machine parts, they told him) at one of his country properties. People in the industry began to whisper. When he complained that the rumours were damaging his image, Aziz was unsympathetic.

  ‘People always talk,’ he said. ‘You must learn to ignore it.’

  Rajiv Rana, accustomed to giving orders, got used to taking them. He had little choice about the restaurants and office parks he opened, the products he endorsed, the tinpot little weddings at which he had to sing. Aziz’s people were renting him out to the highest bidder like any other asset, a car or a woman. He endured the humiliation quietly until they told him to turn down Heroes of Kargil. It was too much. A wave of patriotic fervour was sweeping the country. The director was talented. The songs were great. There was even a completed script. The film was a sure-fire hit.

  He refused.

  When Aziz called, he told him he didn’t understand the movie business. ‘I wouldn’t lecture you on how to run your affairs, so leave choice of roles to me.’ Aziz said he thought the treatment was biased. There was Shiv Sena money in the picture. ‘Bhai,’ he whispered, ‘you wouldn’t wish to inflame communal passions at such a time.’ Rajiv (Filmfare headline: I’m not political, I’m an entertainer) hung up on him.

  The next day Karim, his driver, was delivered to his front door in a sack. He was alive, but his ears and nose had been cut off. Rajiv had several lakhs of rupees couriered to the man’s hysterical wife, and when Aziz called again he listened, trying to hold the receiver steady in his shaking hand. The message was blunt. ‘You will not do this Kargil rubbish. Instead you will make yourself available for a new film. To be called Tender Tough. Like me. You will clear all dates completely. As a favour I will allow you to take one-third of your standard fee. This, you understand, is my gift, my friendship token. Do not worry yourself about artistic standards. Tender Tough will be a hit movie. You will be given best director, large budget. You will even have choice of co-star. Now you may thank me.’

  Rajiv mumbled something and left the house on a three-day bender, after which he had to pay money to a bar owner, a hotelier and a model whose facial bruises would prevent her from working for several weeks. A version of it made the gossip columns: Has Raju become Big Fist Number One?

  He turned down Kargil and saw the role go to his rival Salman Khan. His image was trashed. Having been a hero for so long, he had developed the habit of referring to himself in the third person, shortening himself to his initials, a fan’s affectionate nickname. But was ‘R. R.’ now to be the villain? Slumped in front of the giant plasma screen at his Juhu bungalow, he found relief in a sequence from High School Hearts, a film he had ignored when it was released the previous year. As the heroine learned her boyfriend had been killed in a traffic accident, her stricken face filled the frame. It seemed to radiate vulnerability, trust, a need to be protected. He groped for the remote, replaying the sequence again and again. The girl’s face turning, her eyes sparkling with glycerine-drop tears… He found himself in tears too, crying for innocence and purity, everything that had vanished from his own life. Everything this girl would surely be able to replace.

  He told Aziz that the actress he wanted for Tender Tough was Leela Zahir.

  The bathroom had an echo, but there was something else, electronic interference on the line, fragments of voices.

  ‘Isn’t this a matter for Iqbal?’ he asked, trying to concentrate on Aziz’s murmuring, which seemed to fade in and out of the interference.

  ‘This is your film, Rajiv-bhai. I have promoted it for you, out of consideration for your interests. If it collapses because of this silly girl you chose as your heroine, I think it’s obvious who should take the consequences.’

  ‘I know she’s being difficult, but what can I do? It’s out of my control.’

  ‘You must persuade her. She was your choice. The mother is coming. The two of you will have to work together.’

  ‘She won’t listen to anyone.’

  ‘If you feel you can absorb these costs, then so be it.’

  ‘Absorb – what do you mean?’

  ‘If this film does not happen, you must bear the burden. Iqbal will be able to give you an estimate.’

  ‘You can’t be serious.’

  Down the line came a stabbing sound which might have been laughter. Rajiv balled his fists, looking for something in the hard-surfaced bathroom to punch.

  ‘So you will persuade the girl.’

  ‘Yes, of course I will. I’ll make sure. Yes.’

&nb
sp; There was a logic to Arjun’s decision, if only the kind produced by vending-machine coffee, bacon-flavoured corn snacks and the hard 3 a.m. strip lights of bus-terminal waiting areas. It went like this: They think you’ll be going north. So what if he’d made a mistake? Instead of retracing his steps, he would carry on. Instead of north, south. Instead of Canada, Mexico. Log cabin goes to adobe hacienda. Find and replace.

  It was the kind of tactic that had worked for Rajiv Rana in Run from Injustice. In Bend he bought a ticket for the next southbound bus, and, as night turned to day and then faded towards night again, he watched the strip of America by the side of the interstate change from green to brown and back to green, until the sky closed down to a misty grey and drops of moisture streaked the safety glass and suddenly there were whitecaps on open water and they were driving across the Golden Gate into San Francisco. In that city he ate a microwaved quesadilla which wilted its plastic plate and purchased a newspaper which concentrated on sports and freak weather occurrences, making no mention of either Leela or him.

  He stood in a long line at the ticket office, where harassed clerks were issuing tickets by hand, then boarded a bus headed for San Diego. Hour by hour California lost its trees and flattened itself into a dusty plain lined with strip malls and fields of bright green lettuces through which Latino pickers moved in ragged gangs. In some places the crops were grown under glass or covered with plastic sheeting that glared in the sunlight, passing the window in blinding flashes which persisted until the sun went down and the disposable settlements and tentative landscapes vanished, leaving only illuminated franchise signs and a constant stream of headlights, as if the rest, the physical, was supplementary to the reality of still and moving light.

  He never knew the name of the place where they made the rest-stop. It looked like every other bus terminal in America. It was long after midnight. The concessions were shuttered up, and the Traveler’s Aid booth unattended. In one corner a video-game arcade chirped and growled. Rows of plastic contour chairs faced bays into which the arriving buses pushed their noses; above each was a monitor displaying arrival and departure times. Some of the chairs had coin-op TVs bolted to the armrests, and here and there people were feeding them money, receiving tiny black-and-white flickers in return. Arjun’s eye for American class distinctions had sharpened. Many of the waiting people were obese, the paradoxical sign of poverty in this paradoxical place. Others, dirty and ill cared for, slept with their arms wrapped tightly round plastic sacks of clothing. A man with a beard and a cap saying ‘Mustache Rides 5c’ called out hey baby hey at every woman who went by. Another jogged his legs up and down, his bird-like head darting nervously from left to right as if searching for an attacker.

  Arjun picked up his bag and went to the rest room, where he washed his face and changed his shirt. There were ten minutes before the bus was due to leave again. He went to the bank of telephones on the wall and was about to dial his calling-card number when he realized it was early afternoon in India and Priti would still be at work. He dialled anyway. Malini picked up, sounding excited to hear from him. Then someone else took the receiver away from her.

  ‘Bro? Sweet as! Where have you been? I’ve been calling and calling.’

  ‘I – I’ve been away. I’m not at home now.’

  ‘I’ve got so much to tell you. Hey, everything is totally chaotic at work. All our systems went down. The entire place. It was madness! My manager would have been tearing his hair out if the old baldie still had any. I told you about him, right? The baldie? You must be working hard hard with all this virus business. But guess what – I’m not! Are you jealous? They had to give us the day off.’ She lowered her voice conspiratorially. ‘I spent most of it with Ramu. Oh, Arjun, so much has happened. I haven’t even told you about Ramu. I will but you have to promise not to say anything to Ma and especially not to Pa.’

  It was all too much, the happiness in her voice, the excitement. He held the receiver away from his face so she would not hear him crying.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ she said, and he heard the sounds of her shutting herself in a bedroom.

  ‘Ramu is – you know he’s not like anyone else. He’s intelligent and he’s kind, and he’s not an idiot like most of the other guys at work. He’s so funny. I know you’d like him. And his brother is in Australia. Actually in Australia. He lives in Bondi, next to the beach. What do you think of that? If we went, we could go surfing. Arjun? Are you there?’

  He tried to control his ragged breathing. ‘Yes, I’m here.’

  ‘Arjun, I think I love him. We want to get married.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s spoken to his father and they’re going to come and talk to Ma and Pa.’

  ‘Married?’

  ‘What do you say, Bro? Are you happy for me? Arjun?’

  ‘Where’s he from?’

  ‘Kolkota. They’re Chaudhuris. Arjun, don’t talk like Ma. Aren’t you even a little happy for me?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Well, you could sound more like it. When we get married, Ramu wants us to move to Australia. Actually to go and live there.’

  ‘What about our parents?’

  ‘Is that all you can say? I tell you I find the man of my life and you say what about our parents?’

  ‘It’s very bad, Priti. Things have gone badly.’

  ‘You’re so selfish sometimes. Why does everything have to be about you?’

  There was a long silence. He realized she could hear his ragged breathing. She knew something was wrong.

  ‘Arjun? What’s happened?’

  ‘It’s complicated. And it means I might not be around in the future, so – so, well, Australia is out, OK? You have to promise me you’ll stay and look after Ma and Pa.’

  Now it was her turn to be quiet.

  ‘Sis?’

  Her shouting distorted the signal. ‘Oh my God. Why are you saying this? This is so typical. You get to go away and be a bigshot in America. Just because I’m a girl I have to stay and play nursemaid? You’re – you’re a drongo. A sexist drongo. Why shouldn’t you look after them when they get old, eh? Why not you? You’re as bad as Papa.’

  ‘Priti, please. I’m scared.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve done something. I screwed up. And it means I might not be coming back.’

  ‘Arjun?’

  ‘What will happen to them if both of us aren’t there?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Sis.’

  ‘Oh, Arjun, I knew something was wrong. You’ve been so strange.’

  ‘I made a mistake, OK. A big mistake. And there’s no way to put it right.’

  ‘I don’t understand. What are you saying?’

  ‘You’ll find out. They may come and ask you questions, so it’s better that you don’t know anything. I love you, OK? And you must tell Ma and Pa that I love them too.’

  ‘But what’s it about?’

  Arjun could not answer. He held the phone loosely in one hand, his mouth hanging open like a fish’s as he watched his face appear on screens all around the bus terminal. Madness or a bad dream. Trapped on the other side of the glass. A news report. Cyberterror suspect: FBI releases picture.

  Slowly he put the pay-phone handset back in the cradle and turned to face the wall.

  In the picture he was smiling, wearing a striped shirt and making the thumbs-up sign. It had been cropped from a snapshot taken at Jimmy’s Brewhouse in Redmond. Taken with Chris’s camera. Which meant they had been talking to Chris.

  Sorry, Chris.

  He risked a glance back at the TV, which had exchanged his face for images of long lines at an airport check-in. After that there was a comment from a scowling Republican congressman in a striped tie, and then her, Leela Zahir, dancing on a desk in High School Hearts. Not her best film, or even (bobbed hair and a lemon-yellow jumpsuit) her best look, but she still brought his heart into his mouth. Ten seconds of yearning and then over to sports, body-
armoured gorillas piling up on the goal line, a seven-foot teenager jumping for a hoop.

  What now?

  ‘You all done there, buddy?’ Pointing at the phone was an elderly African-American wearing a t-shirt advertising a community regeneration programme. Make a difference for Dinwood. For a moment Arjun did not understand. You done for buddy. You down there. He spoke again. ‘You going to use that?’ Arjun shook his head and stepped away. The short walk to the nearest vacant seat was agonizing. Surely around the hall a hundred visual cortices were processing the configuration of his face, subconsciously linking shapes and colours to the mugshot on the news bulletin. Any second now would come the tap on his shoulder, the stern voice telling him to keep his hands in plain view. He hunched up, lowering his head into his jacket, not daring to look up in case he caught someone’s eye.

  By the time his bus was announced, the world around him had become both painfully close and infinitely distant. Noises were amplified, every rustling magazine and crying child a potential police siren. At the same time he was cut off from all the other waiting people, the homeless woman in the shower cap, the buzz-cut young army sergeant and the lady with the perm and the puzzle book, as if by a plexiglas panel.

  He boarded the bus and sat down in his seat, his guts vibrating as the driver started the engine. He felt faint and realized he was unconsciously holding his breath. He had to concentrate, let it in, out again. Around him people were settling down, a tattooed Hispanic man wadding a jacket behind his head for a pillow, a mother feeding corn chips to her baby daughter. No one was paying any attention to him. It was like magic, a status quo as fragile as a soap-bubble. One move and they would be on him in a pack.