EQMM, May 2011

by Dell Magazine Authors

  A tall, saturnine man in a trenchcoat stood by our table. Magnus glanced up, and then went back to staring at the taller of the two waitresses. Clearly our visitor was no normal human. I'd have told him to get lost, but we needed the money.

  "I am,” I said. “C.J. Grey. What can I do for you?"

  Copyright © 2011 by Donna Andrews

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Passport to Crime: THE WAIT by Sunny Singh

  * * * *

  * * * *

  A true citizen of the world, Sunny Singh was born in Varanasi, India, was graduated from Brandeis University in 1990 with a degree in English and American Literature, and went on to earn a master's degree in Spanish Language, Literature, and Culture from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and a PhD from the Universitat de Barcelona. She is a winner of Spain's Mar de Letras Prize and now lives in London, whereshe teaches creative writing at London Metropolitan University.

  Mrs. Sharma waits for her husband to come home every day. Returning from the college where she teaches, she takes up her usual post on an easy chair on her veranda. The chair is placed to give her a clear view beyond the metal grille gate right up to the end of the street. She will see him when he turns up the street to walk towards the house.

  When she looks back at her life, she has done nothing but wait. First, for her father's olive green uniform and the toys he would bring her on his infrequent trips home. And then for the blue of her husband's Air Force colours. She married her husband because her father said that Air Force officers ran a lower risk of getting killed in battle. Back when the country was fighting three wars in a decade, these were considerations that mattered to a young girl of a marriageable age.

  But then the country went to war again. Soon after, the telegram arrived. Her husband wasn't dead, though. Air Force officers don't die that frequently in battle. But he was missing, presumed taken prisoner. So she waited.

  Then came liberation—of a country, of prisoners of war, of enemy soldiers in our jails. And still she waited. There was no liberation for her. Every day, she watches for that blue uniform to walk up the street, holding a bunch of flowers or a bag of jalebis. Or even empty-handed. And she waits still, as she has every day, for the past thirty years.

  Far across the border, Squadron Leader A. K. Sharma had allegedly escaped from the military prison that had been his home for the past thirty years. He had even apparently called the embassy, although no one could imagine how.

  "If he tells me where he is, I will put him in my car and drive him across the border,” L. “Matty” Mathan, formerly a captain in the Indian army and presently the Consul for Passports and Visas at the Indian High Commission, whispered to his wife.

  "Will that be appropriate?” Anita's mouth was close against Matty's ear, her breath tickling the sensitive skin there. He felt an involuntary sexual response as they sat on the edge of the bathtub, the shower running behind them to hide the sounds of their conversation from the inevitable bugs.

  "Probably not. Smashing through the border is probably an international incident, especially if you are driving a diplomatic car.” Matty smiled wryly, slipping his arm around Anita's waist. “But he is a serviceman. Damn it, we even served in the same sector. . . .” His whisper sounded loud.

  Anita put her head on his shoulder. The phone call in the afternoon had revived memories she had buried deep inside: of Matty going to war, of standing in the doorway for interminable hours, of her stomach hollowing at the sight of every army jeep. The inevitable prayer: God, don't let them stop at her house. And then the guilt when the solemn officer halted at a neighbour's house instead. She would wait for confirmation and then gather herself. Another soldier was dead. Another messenger of death had visited, leaving devastation in its wake. She, along with the other wives, would go to help clean up the debris. And Matty? Of daredevil reputation, and no news? She never expected a letter from him. Instead she scanned the casualty lists in the newspapers every morning, looking for friends and acquaintances. And almost casually, noncommittally, for Matty.

  Decades ago, she had buried the guilt of seeing him home safe when so many others grieved still or waited. Buried that sour emotion deep under the joy and relief. She had learned to soothe and calm, and only be afraid alone, late at night, when Matty lay breathing heavily, asleep next to her. Matty no longer went to war, she knew. Instead they played childish games with listening devices and shower-muffled conversations. She doesn't mind whispering over the running water or loud music. Snuggled close together, their cheeks rubbing together, hot breath rustling in their hair and caressing their ears, their practical conversations have the romance of furtive erotic interludes.

  But a single phone call resuscitated the dead fears. War was back and she could not keep Matty out of it.

  With an effort, she calmed the butterflies in her stomach and slid her hand into Matty's. “I think you should start looking for another job. This will kill off your career completely.” She smiled at her thin joke as Matty pulled her tight in his arms.

  "Thank you,” he whispered. “It could be a trap, of course."

  "Because of the delegation that came? For the prisons?"

  "Yes. And because Mrs. Sharma came for dinner here."

  "But only for two hours. She needed her own people,” Anita blurted, her voice rising in protest. Matty put his fingers on her lips.

  "Yes, service people,” she hissed. “After all, it's enemy territory. Looking for her husband after so long. How could they . . .” She trailed off.

  She had known how to cope with the open war, where soldiers went off and never came back, where the enemy was identifiable and placed in clearly demarcated sectors, where the news of battles came on the radio, and casualty lists were published in the daily newspapers. But this new war she didn't understand. With bugs, and unofficial assaults, kidnappings, and secret tortures that didn't meet international conventions. She tried to remember what she could of that dinner with Mrs. Sharma.

  She remembered the roly-poly woman who had come with a delegation of families to check the prisons. With grey streaks in her neatly bound hair, a cotton sari that seemed crumpled even at breakfast. Anita couldn't believe Mrs. Sharma was an army wife. Such a frump! Then she had caught a glimpse of the sad, droopy eyes and scolded herself for her thoughts. If Matty hadn't returned, she wondered, would she have grown into Mrs. Sharma too? Aged before her time, ravaged and continually bereaved?

  Matty hadn't wanted her to meet the delegation. “I don't want you to be sad, Anita,” he had told her over dinner. She had known he was right.

  From Islamabad, Mrs. Sharma and the delegation had gone to Quetta, and Multan, and Karachi, with Matty always as their guide. They had met innumerable prisoners, spoken to every possible person, searching for their relatives who had been seen in POW camps at the time of the war, and had never come home.

  Matty had returned frazzled and silent from the trips. He told her nothing of what he had seen. But he had had nightmares for weeks, thrashed about in his sleep, his breathing harsh and ragged, his teeth clenched (by training, she noted) to prevent any words or cries. At times, he had moaned, a hollow sound full of horrors unknown to her that revisited his mind as he slept. In the mornings, his eyes were bloodshot and bleak.

  Anita had wanted to ask him what he had seen. But nothing could be said until their drive up to Murree. There, deep amongst the fir trees, outside the embassy-rented bungalow, where bugs couldn't be placed and their shadowers were over a hundred yards away, Matty had told her.

  "Oh God, that was a risk,” she had whispered, shocked and frightened. “What if they find your message? What makes you think they will even let him keep the magazine?"

  "It was stupid, I know. But I am sure I met Sharma back in ‘sixty-five. We flew out of his base."

  "But you don't even know if it was him . . . and what if we get PNG-ed?” Anita had argued. “Or even if he will understand what you wrote. He might not even remember. Even I don
't remember your call sign from that war. And I am married to you. How could you?"

  "I can't tell you why. There are no guarantees anyway, but there is always a chance."

  She had simply buried her head in his shoulder, holding him tightly as he stroked her hair.

  "Will you mind very much if we got PNG-ed?” he asked after a while. “You can leave your things with the mission, you know. They will send it home after us. It isn't like closing down for war.” She had laughed against his scratchy green sweater and called him silly.

  Standing close together, held by the cold mountain air and scent of pines, they could have been in any of the many cantonment towns they had called home in the first years of their marriage. But as he spoke, Matty had to remind himself that they were both in enemy territory. And Anita was his only companion, his only ally. She needed to know, had a right to know. So he left nothing out, telling her about the stench, the filth, and the pain. About men who lived within the high walls and had retreated into insanity for relief. Of prisoners who couldn't believe that he could be from their homeland and wanted proof, even as they dismissed each explanation as an elaborate ruse. About the man his own age: a man with ashen skin stretched taut over what must once have been handsome features, who had collapsed at the sight of Mrs. Sharma and wept dryly into her sari, clutching the cotton in his fists. And finally, about Abu, the tall Pathan.

  Abu was the guard at the Multan jail and watched implacably from a distance as Matty and the delegation painstakingly went through the lists of foreign prisoners. On the third day, as Matty left the building, he had spoken up: “Janab captain sahib, weren't you in the Sialkot sector? With the special-ops unit?"

  Matty had paused, put his briefcase on the ground next to Abu, who stood guard along the side of the corridor, and crouched to adjust his shoelace. He thought for only an instant before answering. His cover story, in any case, included a past in the army. “Yes, you were there too?"

  "Taken prisoner after battle with the Sikh Paltan.” Abu had grinned.

  "We treated you well, Abu miyan, didn't we?” Matty had said, picking up his briefcase. “Now help us find our men.” There had been time for no further words as the jail superintendent accompanying the delegation came up, and Matty had to walk on.

  * * * *

  The next day, as he entered the prison gates, he looked for Abu but couldn't find him. In the courtyard where the foreign prisoners had been assembled, he tried to get information about each of them even as the delegation members walked amongst them with time-worn photographs of their loved ones.

  "Have you seen this man,” they repeated over and over again, holding out black-and-white fragments of memory before unseeing, haunted, terrified eyes. Each time a little flicker of hope would flash through them, slicing through the pain of the years, through the torture of the not-knowing. The huddled figure before them would stare blankly, or sometimes flash a frightened glance at the guards, before shaking his head. “We don't know."

  From the rickety table the prison authorities had provided for him to take notes about the prisoners, Matty kept an eye on the delegation, marvelling at their resilience, their determination. He had been concerned about bringing Mrs. Sharma, the only woman amongst the kin, into the prison. Would the prisoners jeer at her, or turn nasty, he had wondered. Instead, her pale, crumpled sari, her soft voice, her gentle demeanour seemed to calm them. No one spoke to her, he noticed, simply shaking their heads as she held out her husband's photograph before them.

  She worried him, this woman with her soft voice and sad eyes. “There is no hope,” he wanted to yell at her, shake her by the shoulders. “Look around you, your husband would be better dead than living such horror,” he would scream at her mentally. “There is no hope!” But then he would think of Anita, his photograph in hand, searching, continually searching, and ice would grip his insides. It would take all his control to put aside that image and concentrate on the papers before him.

  The prisoners would watch her continuously as Mrs. Sharma moved around the courtyard. Even when they refused to speak to her, refused to look directly at her when she spoke to them. Hungrily, furtively, they followed her with their eyes. Once Matty began to wonder what she reminded them of, but then resolutely stopped his mind from going down that particular path. They watched her, pathetic, hungry, sometimes wistful. That is why no one was prepared for Prisoner Number 351.

  * * * *

  Mrs. Sharma had held back her anguish for days. When the offer to travel with the delegation, to look for Abhayan, had been made, it had seemed a beacon of hope. If not Abhayan, then at least she could bring back some news of what had happened to him. All she had was a report from the Times of India, January 12, 1972, a cutting folded and refolded many times, and photocopied again and again, with a list of prisoners of war in Pakistan's jails. Her husband's name was seventeenth on the list.

  And from three years later, a photograph from an American magazine on human rights in jails around the world. Behind the barbed wire, surrounded by starved men in tattered clothing, she was sure, was her husband. The fifth one from the right, pushed up against the barbed wire, his right palm held outward. She had gotten the photograph enlarged and seen what she knew she would. On the inside of his wrist, just under the barbed wire, visible in the enlargement, was a small, blue, V-shaped tattoo. V! For her name.

  "Now I am branded. Are you quite convinced that I won't be unfaithful,” Abhayan had joked at the Dusshera fair when he had gotten the wizened Gujarati hag to imprint her initial on his skin forever. It had to be the same tattoo, even though the photographer who had enlarged the print had expressed his doubts. “Madam, it could be a printer's smudge. . . ."

  "In an American magazine?” She had been incredulous. “Do you know how high their standards are? It isn't like our magazines here."

  That tattoo had sustained her over the years, always hoping for his return, always hoping he would come back.

  But the past few days had shaken her. Half-mad men collected in dirty courtyards, wearing nothing but filthy, tattered rags. She had seen their food—dry rotis with some nondescript liquid. Abhayan would hate it here, she thought, with his finicky taste in clothing and his gargantuan appetite for food. She knew that the prisoners shared other details with Captain Mathan. (Mr. Mathan, she corrected herself. She couldn't give him away.) She had heard snatches of conversations, half-sobbed details about beatings and starvation as they spoke haltingly, and steadfastly refused to hear more. Once she caught herself wishing that Abhayan were dead instead of living in such an awful place, but she stopped herself. Just in time.

  Then the incident with the prisoner happened. Prisoner Number 351. His right arm placed in a filthy, stained plaster cast, his eyes haunted and hopeful. She had already showed him Abhayan's picture dozens of times and he had never reacted, not even with a nod. “Please just see it. His name is Abhayan Sharma. Squadron Leader Abhayan Sharma. Have you seen him?” she had pleaded, holding the photograph before him. “He is my husband. Abhayan Sharma. Have you heard that name?"

  He had never responded, staring ahead with unseeing eyes. “Have you heard that name?” she had repeated countless times. They had been told that prisoner number 351 was mad, had been so for years. He never spoke to anyone, never cried or moaned. He walked slowly with the other prisoners, day after day, when they were led into the courtyard. And once there, he would settle where he was told and withdraw into some world deep inside himself. Once, on the first day, his eyes had briefly flickered up to Matty. Then he had dropped back into his private, isolated world.

  * * * *

  On the fifth day, Mrs. Sharma had decided not to stop to wave the faded photograph at Prisoner Number 351. Hesitating slightly, she walked past him, kneeling before the next man, asking her usual, unanswerable question, “Squadron Leader Abhayan Sharma . . . have you seen him? Heard that name?"

  She never noticed when Prisoner Number 351 pulled himself to his feet, trembling and shuddering a
s if unaccustomed to the effort. Painfully, slowly, he stumbled towards Mrs. Sharma, who was still kneeling some yards away. With an enormous effort, he lunged towards her, trying to cover the distance with an awkward leap. A strangled, half-wild sound tore free from his throat.

  Matty, looking up from his notes only at the sound of the animal moan that broke the silence in the courtyard, sprang to his feet. “Careful, ma'am.” At his cry, the guards broke into a run, moving swiftly from their posts by the iron gates that led away from the courtyard.

  But Prisoner Number 351 had fallen to the ground near Mrs. Sharma, his outstretched hand reaching out to grab an edge of her sari. Harsh moans ripped from his throat, his gnarled fingers clutching at the cotton fabric.

  Matty reached the couple first, trying to release the stunned woman from the writhing man. Bending down to pull away the clutched sari, he saw the tears coursing down the grimy cheeks. Stunned by the raw pain in eyes that had held nothing for the past days, he paused.

  In that instant, the guards were upon them, struggling to pull the prisoner away, hitting his back and hands with their boots and batons. Putting his arm around Mrs. Sharma's shoulders, Matty tried ineffectually to stop the beatings. “Leave it, chhodo, stop it.” Until the ordering voice barked out from his throat: “Stop! Bas!” The guards, instinctively reacting to the authority in his voice, stepped back.

  "Are you all right?” Matty asked Mrs. Sharma, self-consciously withdrawing the arm that he had protectively flung around her shoulders.

  She nodded, her eyes full of tears. With a visible effort she tried to steady herself.

  Bending down again, Matty tried to release the folds of her sari that were still clutched in the unbending fingers. Prisoner Number 351 was silent now, the arm with the filthy cast pulled protectively against his chest. Tears still ran down his cheeks. But his eyes were full of an unspoken hunger.

  "Please, let go,” Matty whispered, moving his fingers firmly over the fist. Prisoner Number 351 wavered for an instant, his eyes devouring the sari-clad figure. Then the fiery eyes grew dim, focussing at a point in the far distance. His shoulders slumped as his fingers uncurled. And he withdrew again into a world of his own.