by Hari Kunzru
In film circles, Faiza Zahir earned herself a reputation as a doting parent, a reputation she carefully nurtured through sentimental articles and mother-daughter magazine portraits. Seventeen-year-old Leela was often quoted on the subject of their mutual adoration. My maa is my best friend. I can’t bear to spend a day without seeing her. The absence of Mr Z. was occasionally the subject of malicious gossip, but on the whole the writers (and the millions of fans whose opinions they moulded) were awed by Leela’s beauty, the grace of her dancing, the way she had of conveying a sense that behind her perfect features and flawless skin was a well of emotion, an understanding of pain and tragedy.
Sometimes, Faiza found herself unnerved by her daughter’s increasing fame. She seemed to be floating free of all control. The money was flowing, they had extricated themselves from Zahir and his tedious steel factory, but at home Leela was withdrawn and Faiza jealous. The arguments became fierce, protracted.
‘I feel like I don’t even have a name! I’m not a person, just Leela Zahir’s mother!’
‘Well, I never wanted this!’
‘At least you could show me some gratitude!’
And so on, round and round. Sometimes one of them would smash something. Once the silly child swallowed some pills. Faiza had a discreet doctor and nothing ever came out in the press, but slumped on a waiting-room chair she did regret some of the things which had been necessary. That wizened old bag Gupta, for example. It must have been hard for a young girl. But she too had done difficult things. In this life, the sooner one ditched one’s silly notions about romance the better.
She took a shower in the poky little bathroom, then swung open the trunk and looked through her wardrobe for an appropriate on-set-in-Scotland outfit. When she had changed, she rang front desk to tell them to bring a car round.
It was one of those highland days when the sun filters down through the clouds in soft yellow threads and the world takes on a spiritual quality; when the moisture in the air refracts every beam of light, deviates every eyeline, opens up a gap in which things can exist unobserved.
Gaby had forgotten all about leaving. Shielding her eyes with a folder of production notes, she stood by a scaffolding tower, watching Leela Zahir dance her way along the battlements of Dimross Castle. Leela was dressed in emerald-green and carried a huge square of silk which billowed out behind her like a sail. She was followed by a squad of dancers in contrasting lilac, mirroring her moves as she pirouetted and swayed along the narrow walkway.
Loudspeakers had been rigged up at the base of the castle walls. Giant reflectors and thousand-watt lamps were trained at the battlements. The cracked asphalt of the castle car park was almost invisible beneath ranks of five-ton trucks and trailers and generators and catering vans, drawn up to besiege the girl in the green sari; an onslaught of sound and light. Rocky and Vivek were perched behind a camera on a hydraulic crane. Each time Rocky called action, the tiny platform reared towards the girl, who turned to face it and flung her arms wide in a gesture of ecstasy. Between takes the lights were dimmed, and figures appeared from behind turrets and crenellations to adjust clothing and make-up, to bring Miss Zahir a drink of water and a folding chair. Then the whole process was repeated, the amplified violins and high-pitched female voice, the blast of light, the moment of abandon.
It was extraordinary. Gaby had been on many film sets, but even from a distance she could feel Leela’s power over the camera. It was as if she had drawn this aggregate of people and equipment to her by force of will. The crew, like all crews bored and cynical as a matter of professional principle, seemed hypnotized.
This shot completed, they moved on to the next, positioning the camera to capture close-ups of Leela at the head of her troupe of dancers. Gaby skirted gingerly around a huddle of electricians wrestling lengths of cable into a distribution box, trying to spot Iqbal. If Leela was suddenly feeling her film-star self again, she might also be able to do a few interviews. In front of the visitors’ centre, an L-shaped wooden building which housed a ticket booth, the Scotch Mist Souvenir Shop and the Jac-o’-Bite Snackbar, there was a crowd of spectators, about equally divided between locals, press and Asian fans. A length of plastic tape separated them from the crew, but several of the photographers were wandering around the perimeter, taking telephoto shots of Leela and crouching down in front of laptops to wire them back to their agencies. They had varying degrees of success. As she watched, one stood up and skimmed his machine into the loch. It disappeared with a dull splash.
She found the producer with a red-faced man in a Barbour jacket, who stood leaning raffishly on a walking stick that was almost as tall as himself. The man’s brown corduroy trousers were tucked ostentatiously into a pair of thick socks, which in turn disappeared into a pair of stout brown leather boots. Iqbal was at his most insinuating, unctuously pointing out aspects of the production and describing the context of the scene in progress. ‘Very emotional song, My Lord,’ he was saying. ‘Heart strings will be tugged and guts wrenched, no doubt about it.’
This was, Gaby supposed, the Laird of wherever they were, the owner of Dimross Castle. As she approached, Iqbal waved to Rajiv Rana, who came sauntering up to be introduced. He was in costume, sporting an outfit of what could only be described as disco tweed, a riot of marshy-greens and acid-yellows topped with a deerstalker hat. There was an awkward moment as he caught sight of her and hesitated. The bastard was actually looking around for an escape route. Gaby was stunned. Who did he think he was? She had been doing him the favour, not the other way round. She controlled her anger and waited while Rajiv was introduced to the red-faced man.
‘This is the Lord of Dimross. My Lord, this is our hero, Mr Rajiv Rana.’
‘Lord,’ said Rajiv. ‘It’s an honour to meet you. What a cool place you have.’
‘Um, thank you.’ Dimross turned rapidly to Gabriella. Beneath his fogeyish exterior he was probably in his early forties. He looked pleased to see her.
‘And who might this charming lady be?’
Iqbal made a vague gesture with his hands. ‘Our publicity girl, Camilla – Jamila-ah –’
‘Gabriella Caro. How do you do?’
Dimross shook her hand vigorously. ‘Dimross. How do you do? Call me Kenny. Are you part of this outfit, then?’
‘I work for a public-relations company in London. You’re very lucky to live in such a beautiful place.’
‘Thank you, my dear. Of course there was nothing here at all eighty years ago. Just a pile of rubble.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Oh, yes. Absolutely true. Once upon a time there was some kind of fortification on the rocks over there, but it all collapsed. Or was it razed? I can never remember. My grandfather was something of a romantic. Sword in the stone and all that. Made a lot of money in coal and got it into his head that he ought to have a family seat. So he bought the title and most of the land hereabouts and built the place from the ground up. Rather successfully, if one does say so oneself
Gabriella was disappointed. ‘I thought it was medieval.’
Dimross looked perversely pleased by this. ‘Shows what an eye the old man had. It’s far more picturesque than any of the real ones, and the tourists certainly don’t know the difference. British heritage at its best, I’d say.’
Rajiv and Iqbal seemed annoyed that they were being ignored. Rajiv put an arm around Dimross’s shoulders and asked him if he hunted. Dimross gingerly removed it before he replied.
‘Well, depends what you mean. I own a grouse moor. And occasionally one shoots rabbits, that kind of thing.’
Rajiv promised him that if he were ever in India they would go hunting together. As a celebrity he could, he hinted, get government permits for certain species which were normally off limits. When he launched into a description of a shotgun he coveted, Gabriella had an opportunity to speak to Iqbal.
‘You’ll have to ask the mother,’ he said. ‘Everything goes through her now.’
She found Mrs Zahir e
nthroned on a folding chair, her face almost hidden behind a vast pair of dark glasses. One of the runners hovered nervously as she held a conversation with a man who was plainly a reporter. She peered at Gaby, who realized that her appearance was being assessed. A sour whiff of hostility rose up from the chair. Mrs Zahir finished the interview, shooed the man away, and snapped open her phone.
‘What pretty shoes,’ she said.
‘Thank you. What a pretty top.’
The atmosphere of malice was complete.
Gabriella waited while Mrs Zahir had a conversation with some kind of astrologer about the placement of her chair in relation to a nearby spotlight. She was concerned that the radiation was disrupting her connection to the healing energies of the universe. Ought she to move? The answer appeared to be yes, and the runner was duly instructed to shift the chair. Safely repo-sitioned two metres to the left, she turned her attention to Gaby, who explained what she wanted. After a ritual raising of difficulties, a phone call was eventually put through to Leela on the battlements. Yes, she was willing to talk to the press. Yes, in a group. Photos. All fine. Gaby set off to spread the good news.
She looked into the souvenir shop, tightly packed with kilted teddybears, tins of shortbread and books of soft-focus pictures. There were Glencoe Massacre board games and kits from which you could build a small cardboard croft. There was a cuddly midge. The best location for a press conference would clearly be the snack-bar. She borrowed one of the runners, told him to set out a table and went off to procure a microphone.
An hour later things had got completely out of hand.
One by one the vehicles had turned into the car park, ten, fifteen, twenty of them – outside-broadcast vans, taxis shared by squabbling newspaper people. They were from Taipei and Moscow and Frankfurt and LA. They had been told to get here as quickly as they could. The press pack, more or less manageable before, now numbered nearly 200. Backed into a corner by a jostling crowd who all had questions, special requirements and reasons for demanding priority over the others, Gaby found herself simultaneously trying to move the conference to the hotel and call her office for support. Finally she grabbed a particularly irritating tabloid reporter by the lapels and asked her what the hell they were all doing there.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ she told Dan Bridgeman a few minutes later. ‘There’s a tape. Of the terrorist. No, I don’t know what he’s saying, but apparently it’s a message to her.’
By this time filming was impossible. Leela had fled inside the castle. Rocky was throwing a fit, screaming at anyone who came into range to clear his set. Gaby found that if she retreated behind the snackbar counter it was at least possible to limit the number of people who could get at her. Unhelpfully, Iqbal forced his way through and started to berate her for losing control of the situation. She did her best to be polite. Outside, the production manager failed to stop a pair of photographers rushing the bridge on to the island, and a brief fistfight took place between some riggers and a Portuguese news crew who had moved a reflector.
Standing at the counter facing the mêlée, Gaby felt like she was working the Saturday-night shift at the bar in hell. Miss Film Buzz was trying to attract her attention, waving and smiling ingratiatingly. From somewhere the woman had acquired a tam-o’-shanter hat, which perched in her hair like a Black Watch bird’s-nest. Through the window Gaby caught a momentary glimpse of Rajiv Rana, surrounded by a group of Asian teens. They seemed to be trying to remove his shirt.
Finally she made a break for it, telling anyone who caught on to her clothing that the press conference would now take place at the Clansman’s Lodge Hotel. She found Rob D. and growled at him to turn round one of the production vans, ready for a getaway. They managed to bundle Leela inside before being spotted, but Rob still had to inch his way on to the main road through a crowd of people holding cameras up to the windows and tapping on the glass.
Flash and shutterwhine. Leela sinking down in her seat. Her mother grinning and making clipped little royal waves at the lenses.
At the hotel, the manager bolted the doors. On the front lawn a line of TV reporters set up for pieces to camera, using the lake as a backdrop. Gaby took phone calls and tried to get a copy of the terrorist’s tape.
‘We need to see it before we can do anything… No, I’m not going to promise you that, but it’s in your interests because nothing’s going to happen until we see it… yes… yes…’
Eventually one of the cameramen took pity on her and posted a VHS through the letterbox. The production team crowded into Iqbal’s suite and closed the door. With the curtains closed and twenty people inside, the heat was stifling. At first Leela did not want to watch. Tve seen it,’ she said. Then she gave in and sat down cross-legged at the end of the bed, holding her mother’s hand. Vivek put the tape into the machine and pressed play.
A gaunt Indian face appeared on the screen. A hand reached forward to adjust the frame. The quality of the image was low, but Gaby could see he wore glasses and was quite young, in his early twenties perhaps. He was hunched in his seat, knees drawn up towards his chest. It was impossible to tell where he was located. Interior. An apartment?
He didn’t look much like an international terrorist.
This is personally for Miss Leela Zahir,’ he began. His voice was thin and uncertain. ‘Anyone else watching this who is fortunate enough to know her, please would you pass it on? It is important. So, um, thank you, Miss Zahir, for your attention. I hope it reaches you because something might happen to prevent me explaining in person and I want you to know how sorry I am. Of course I don’t claim responsibility for everything bad in the – sorry, forget that. I know I have associated your good name with – oh, I should say first that my own name is Arjun Mehta. I grew up in New Delhi but I am presently NRI in America. Sorry. I am doing all this in the wrong order. I want to say first, before everything, ever since your first movie I have been such a big fan of yours. I saw Naughty Naughty, Lovely Lovely eight times and of course I saw all the others also, most of them more than three but less than seven times. You are my heroine. You are the kind of girl I would like to – in my dreams only of course – I’m not – I’m only – I mean, all this must sound strange, well – crazy really, to you. I’m not crazy. My online poll scores indicate not. And I’m not a terrorist. Oh, this is going badly. I’m sorry. That’s what I want to say. I’m so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you, because you mean everything to me. But I was going to lose my job. I made a bad decision. Virugenix is a top international company, and all I wanted was a chance to show my capabilities and instead they told me I would lose my job and Darryl Gant, who is head of Ghostbusters and if you ask me a very difficult man, an angry man, Darryl Gant wouldn’t listen. How could I tell him? If I lose this job, I have to go back to my parents in disgrace. Although of course I’m a much bigger disgrace now. What will happen to them? And my sister also, who is going to marry this fool of a Bengali and run off to Australia. I tried to tell him. I offered to work for nothing. But they still said I have to go because of first in and first out and being foreign national and all. I meant to cause a little disruption, just a small problem, because then I could step in and solve it and be the hero. But instead I am here and they are calling me terrorist and FBI most wanted and I’m scared, Miss Zahir. I feel I can tell you this. You’re an understanding person. It shows in your eyes, especially in Home of the Heart. You know what I’m talking about because you are sensitive and also beautiful, this I can tell from your performance. I used your pictures and your songs without permission because they are irresistible and – and I’m sorry. That’s all really.’
He reached forward and switched off the camera. The screen went blank, then started showing old news footage, material the journalist had dubbed over when copying the tape. Everyone in the room started talking at once. He was damaging the film industry, this sisterfucker, besmirching the image of India. The maniac. The pervert. To Gaby the speech seemed sad, pathetic even. The boy had the haunted
face of someone who knows his link to the world is extremely tenuous.
The only person who had said nothing was Leela Zahir. She was still staring at the screen, watching tanks move through a Middle Eastern town. She looked as if she were about to cry. Feeling someone watching her, she glanced up and managed a forced little smile. Gaby found it hard to know what was more depressing, the boy on the tape or this girl, this famous movie star who was so love-starved that some weird fan s devotion could touch her like this. Suddenly her situation was obvious. What kind of a life did she have, shackled to that bitch of a mother, shoved around by this team of idiots?
‘He looks quite sweet,’ she said tentatively.
Gaby shrugged and pretended to do something with her phone.
As the arguments progressed, Leela announced that she was feeling overcome, and asked her mother if she could go to her room. As she scuttled out, hiding behind her hair, she briefly took Gaby’s hand and squeezed it. Gaby felt a sinking sensation in her stomach, the sensation she always felt when someone made an emotional demand on her. Oh, God, the girl wasn’t going to drag her into her mess, was she?
Iqbal ordered most of the crew out of the room. Gaby sat down on the bed but took no part in the discussion, which was mostly conducted in Hindi. Through it all, Rajiv Rana, still in the torn remains of his costume, paced up and down by the window, murmuring, ‘Shit, oh shit.’ ‘Salim-bhai,’ he burst out at one point, ‘you must tell Baba none of this is my fault, OK?’ At the end Iqbal told her what had been decided. ‘We will,’ he said, ‘be releasing immediate press statement. Leela Zahir pleads with the terrorist to give up to proper authorities forthwith and if he is her true fan to stop using her pictures to damage international commerce. He is copyright infringer and criminal and must be giving up right now.’
