And whip round.
His outstretched hands came neatly first on to one elbow then on to the other of the boy’s grimy, torn shirt. He gripped hard on the skeletal bones.
H. K. Verma went to seek guidance in just such an unthinking rush as, from the moment he banged down the telephone on Mr Srivastava, he had gone racing off after Mrs Popatkar. He was hardly aware what put the notion into his head.
He had been sitting in his office filling in the time before he was due to meet Jagmohan Nagpal by listening to some of the petitioners he had found waiting when he got back from Krishnakanta’s. It had seemed no different from any other day. He had received garlands. He had made promises. He had avoided committing himself. He had brought out appropriate words. He had denounced the unjust. He had – he supposed – garnered a few more votes for any future election. He had even, once or twice, been able to give useful advice.
But his heart had been even less in it than usual. Two thoughts had swum up time and again into his mind. The promise, as soon as Jagmohanji arrived, of power at last. And the threat – push it down as he might, argue against it as he might – of disaster.
Suddenly he had been unable to endure it a moment longer. He had risen to his feet, plunged for the door, almost knocking over an aged former Class Four Government servant clutching his tattered bundle of testimonials, and sought the freedom of the fresh air.
The crowded galli outside had been as oppressive. But there was a tall building near by whose roof looked out over the Ganges. He mounted its stone stairs in a bull-like run.
And on the parapet of the roof, an everyday enough sight, a man was sitting in meditation. Cross-legged, one arm resting flaccidly on a knee, the other passing through his fingers a long brown-beads rudraksha, he was looking sightlessly at the swift-flowing, mud-brown river far below. But seeing him caused the notion of seeking guidance to explode in his head in a shellburst of white light.
He knew at once, too, to whom he would go. To the Collector Swami.
He had as a boy known him when he had been Collector – that title dating from early British days when revenue collection was the principal task of any rural administrative officer – of Rajapur District where the family house had been. At retirement age, unexpectedly, this dry-as-dust official had taken sannyas, left family, home and wealth to live in a community in the holy city. Where now he was the spiritual leader. Collector Swami, so called.
‘Collector Swami, it is good of you to see me at so short notice.’
‘My son, what does notice, short or long, mean to one who sees the world of hours and minutes as no more than a cinema show?’
But now, suddenly, he found the thunderclap resolution he had come to at the sight of the meditating man had deserted him. All the while as he had stumbled down the long flights of stairs to ground level, almost run through the crowded gallis to the swami’s big old nearby house, had hurried through its passageways, past a dozen bewildering turnings, up the old wooden stairs, their time-eroded steps powdering away, the desire to be told whether what he had done was right or wrong had throbbed in him like a quivering headache. But now as soon as he had come into the presence of the Collector Swami, seated in a red velvet armchair that was more a throne, that pain-filled desire had left him. Only an empty blankness remained.
‘My son, you are wishing for the life which is not life.’
Was that a statement? Or a question? And did he want that?
No. No, though dimly he could see the attraction of such a non-life life. But, no, he was too wedded to reality to go along that hard path. Now, especially, when what he had wanted, ever since as little more than a schoolboy he had joined the party, was at last within his grasp. The chance to do good to his fellow men.
Except there was just only that fly-speck in his vision.
However, he lowered himself cross-legged to the carpet in front of the Collector Swami’s throne-chair. And, once down, he could not hold himself back from asking the direct question. Or asking it almost directly.
‘Collector Swami, I— That is, Collector Swami, I have a good friend . . .’
He found he could go no further.
‘Tell me about your good friend. He is in trouble, of course.’
‘No. Yes. Yes, Collector Swami, perhaps he is in bad trouble.’
On the swami’s face – head like a stone carving, rounded and massive – there played now the slightest of smiles.
‘Collector Swami, what if a man – if my friend, my friend only – had taken the life of— Of someone? If he had done it, had had to do it, because that person was standing in the way of a great good. Collector Swami, can that deed have been a good deed also? Can it? Can it?’
Silence.
H. K. Verma searched for an answer in the brooding and baleful eyes under the cliff-jut of the forehead.
Or was he expected to find that answer in himself? But it was to be told, told the answer, told the truth, that he had come scurrying to the man in the old, rubbed velvet throne-chair. He had answers enough himself. But each contradicted the other. Sometimes it was the Geeta and God Krishna’s charge to Arjun, There is a war that opens the doors of Heaven, Arjuna. Happy the warriors whose fate is to fight such a war. Sometimes it was the Indian Penal Code and the wiry little police officer who had travelled here all the way from Bombay.
He had to know which voice spoke right. Which of the many voices.
But now, without preliminary, Collector Swami spoke.
‘In the cinema of the world, if you are determined to stay there, it is each man’s duty to do what is right. To see this and to agree to it is easy. But, my son, that is not enough. The heart must feed upon that truth. It must feed as the insect feeds on the leaf. Until it has altogether taken up the green and it shows what food it has eaten in every smallest fibre of its body.’
Then silence. Brooding silence.
Infuriating silence. Deprived of the answer from outside, from above, H. K. Verma pushed himself to his feet, made a perfunctory namaskar, then trudged away.
The look of fear on the junky’s pinched and twitching face was plain to see.
‘Now, what it is you are wanting?’ Ghote shot the words out like so many open-handed slaps.
‘I— I—’
‘Yes? Talk. Talk. I am a police officer. Talk.’
‘Yeah. Know you are. Kinda heard you yesterday.’
The boy must be American. How did it happen that a young man from there could get into a state like this fellow? He smelt. The high, rotten smell of a long unwashed body. A boy from the land of hot showers in every home, of pools behind every house filled with twinkling bright blue water.
But something was wrong. The boy knew he was a police officer. He must have crept up when he had been talking to Mishra as they questioned the autorickshaw wallas. So he could not have been waiting to offer him brown sugar. No one would be that much of a fool.
‘Very well, so you are knowing I am police officer. Why then are you wanting to say something to me? Do not pretend. I was seeing you and damn well knowing what you were trying to decide to do.’
‘Okay, that’s what I was doing. Making up my mind. You see, I guess I know something you want to know.’
‘What? What it is?’
‘About . . .’
The boy gave him a cautious sideways look.
‘About someone you’re maybe interested in.’
‘Who is that?’
Could it be Mrs Popatkar? But how should this boy know what he had come to Banares to do? Yet perhaps it could be. He had been just on the other side of the line of autorickshaws. He could well have heard Mrs Popatkar’s name.
‘Well, who it is you think I am interested in?’
‘Come on, Inspector, you know. Well as I do.’
The boy was losing his fright more and more with every passing second. A growing slackness in the arms he still gripped.
He must have overheard a good deal, too. Even to know my rank. So how much
more?
‘All right. You are knowing I have come to Banares because of the murder of a lady by the name of Mrs Shoba Popatkar. Very well. You have something to tell about her?’
‘Could have. If it’s worth my while.’
‘Now you are asking for money?’
‘Heck, no. I’d want more than a guy like you could find.’
So, he has come to impudence. But all the same he is knowing I am investigating Shoba Popatkar murder, and he is believing at least he has something to tell I would want to hear. Pay no attention, then, to any of his cheeks.
‘Well, if you are not asking for money – and do not expect to get from me in any case – what it is you are asking?’
‘Just a little something you could find out for me, if you wanted.’
‘Yes?’
‘The fuzz here are kinda planning some sort of raid on the house of the guy I work for.’
‘And who is that?’
‘Guy called the Dom Raja. Know who I mean?’
So Mishra’s unending historical outpourings had been some use after all.
‘Yes, I am knowing. He is the in-charge at the big burning ghat, yes?’
‘That’s him. Dom Raja of the Manikarnika Ghat. You find out for me just when they plan to raid his house. I’ll tell you what someone here in Banares did the day of your murder. Deal?’
Ghote felt an uprising of outrage. Did this little American riff-raff – only he was not in fact so little, half a head taller than himself – did he think he was going to tell him when a drugs raid was going to take place just in exchange for something he had most probably altogether made up?
‘You come with me,’ he snapped. ‘I think what you are daring to call the fuzz would want one word with you.’
And the boy slipped from his grasp.
A single quick ducking motion and the thin elbows he had been keeping a grip on – only it had been a grip that had gradually relaxed – had slipped from under his hands. Then the boy was running hard away.
He felt a complete fool. Was he no longer capable of bringing in a little miscreant like this?
The boy was dodging and dipping through the dozens of waiting passengers, the family parties squatting in sprawling circles, the sleepers flat on their backs, the vendors of cold drinks, of plaster idols of the gods, of things to eat, of bright-coloured magazines.
Round the boy went, as Ghote followed, through the patient lines waiting to buy tickets, to make reservations, to hire bed-rolls. Once he almost sent flying a bereaved new arrival holding in front of himself a roses-draped urn of ashes ready to immerse in the waiting Ganges.
But almost at once Ghote realized he stood no chance. He was in strange territory while the boy would know the station and its twists and turns back-to-front. He stopped, panting for breath, and stood cursing himself.
If he had had the sense to keep a better grip on the damn riff-raff he could have slapped the answer out of him in two–three minutes.
What someone here in Banares did the day of your murder. Which someone? And what had they done? On the day of the murder? So it had not been a matter of following Mrs Popatkar on to the Rajdani Express, trailing her in Bombay, waiting for the opportunity. But could it be someone who had gone to Bombay by air? That way, although there was no direct flight and you had to go to Calcutta first, you could easily arrive before the train. You could lie in wait.
But who could it have been who had done that? The man with the Bhojpuri accent. Almost certainly. Confirmation at least that he himself was in the right place now. In sacred Banares, where you had to beware of whores and holymen, let alone those slimy steps to the ghats and the holy bulls sitting sullenly everywhere.
No, now the more he thought about it the more he felt the American boy did really know something worth hearing. He had had something to offer. Someone even.
But what? Who?
7
It came to H. K. Verma almost as a death blow.
Jagmohan Nagpal’s dip in the Ganges had been a complete success. The photographers had clicked and clicked. Jagmohanji descending the steps of the Dasawamedh Ghat among all the crowds, his hand thrust out giving to a decent-looking beggar. None of your repellent sores-covered creatures. Click, click. Jagmohanji sitting cross-legged under the wide, rattan-covered umbrella of one of the pandas – those big umbrellas always looking good in a photo – listening with inclined head to the holy words. Click, click, click. Jagmohanji, divested of his clothes, all but enough to conceal his lank old man’s middle, about to enter the river, a woman in a green sari squatting at just the right spot in the background, hands clasped in prayer. Click, click, click, click. Jagmohanji in the river gazing fixedly out towards the far bank. Click, click, click, click, click.
Only what had he been thinking of then? Of his soul? Or of how he was to say what he had come to say?
Even the Hotel de Paris lunch had been a success, the table he had eventually reserved, all ready despite the earliness of the hour, the setting perfect, the waiters assiduous. ‘Yes, yes, I am always liking this place. I am often coming when I am in your ages-old city.’ Generous amounts of political gossip as they had eaten. How tickling to hear such scandalous snippets about people soon to be Cabinet colleagues. And how much Jagmohanji had enjoyed the food, as if eating and eating only was what he had come all the way from Delhi to do. Nothing could have gone better.
Then, afterwards, sitting in two long chairs outside looking on to the gardens, altogether safe from being overheard. Some excellent sweetmeats in a basket on the table between them, Banares specialities, squares of pista barfi with silver top and bottom, crisp bars of nuts-rich chikky, creamy coconut chumchum. Now, he had thought, now at any moment it will come. The formal offer from the High Command Minister for Social Upliftment.
And what had Jagmohan said?
‘But I must be telling you the good news. Yes, we have succeeded after all to resolve our differences with those fellows. They are not going to cross the floor. Our troubles are all ended.’
‘Not going to cross the floor?’
He had barely been able to get the words out.
‘And— And, Jagmohanji, this is meaning that you— That High Command is no longer needing . . .’
He had come to a halt then. Some things were too terrible to be uttered aloud.
‘Well, yes, of course, my friend. That is the situation. Actually. Please remember, though, we will always be most grateful for your good offer. But it is quite unnecessary now, Bhagwan be thanked.’
It seemed as if the whole world had, in a moment, lost all its colour.
Gone. Gone his one chance of joining Government. Gone all that he had hoped for over so many years. Gone the Ministry, and all he had seen himself doing there. Social Upliftment. He had had hopes, true hopes, high hopes. They had been a distant shining before him all through the wilderness years. From his young manhood when his father had proudly presented him to KK till today.
Gone. Gone. All gone.
And so – it had been some time before the thought had come to him, stupefied as he was – so he had done that for nothing. He had done what he had done in Bombay for nothing. There had been no need. None at all. None.
The realization, creeping up to him like a soft-footed thug, had made him clutch suddenly at the thick wooden sides of his chair and hold tight with abruptly sweat-slippery palms. Otherwise, he felt, he might have toppled to the paving-stones.
There it was. The fact. He had not needed to have done that, to have gone like a madman to Bombay and . . . and done what he had done.
What would it matter now if Mrs Popatkar had broadcast to the highest heavens that KK had lost faith in what the party had stood for? Had lost the faith proclaimed ever since, as long ago as 1934 when Gandhiji had failed to persuade his fellow Congress leaders to prefer the method of truth and non-violence to so-called legitimate means, he had set up his own breakaway party.
That secret buried in the Recollections might be
all but forgotten in five–ten years when perhaps his next chance might come. If he was here in this life to take it. But at this time, at this time as it seemed until just a minute ago, it would have blasted all his hopes into nothing.
Yes, he had committed a murder for nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Jagmohan was still speaking, but he paid no heed. He hardly realized the malicious devil – he cares just only for his own enjoyments – had been adding something more. Some more platitudes.
What was he to do? Everything had changed. The world had changed. He was no longer living the same life as he had been till only a minute ago. The life where he had gone to Bombay, battling past each and every difficulty, fixedly set on one thing only. On not letting Mrs Shoba Popatkar tell what it was she had read in the Recollections. The life where, tracking her down at last in all the hulla-gulla of that appalling Dadar, he had argued with her, had pleaded, had at last reached out with rage-impelled hands and squeezed and squeezed at her throat until she shut up. Until she had been shut up. For ever. The life in which he had killed Mrs Shoba Popatkar, freedom fighter, former Minister for Railways, shouter-out aloud of each and every truth she had come to know.
Only one thing to do, Ghote thought. Just one thing only. Get hold of Mishra and ask him where the white junky he knows so much about is likely to be found. Because whatever the boy has got hold of – if he has got hold of anything – it is my only hope of learning who in Banares went to Bombay and strangled Mrs Shoba Popatkar. If I cannot find the boy before another day or two at the most I will have to go back myself. Bloody Banares with its whores, its bulls, its steps and its holymen will have beaten me. I will find myself slinking home like a kicked dog only.
But at least Mishra, in the course of heaping on to him every possible fact and fancy about the city of his birth, had mentioned where he lived. He hurried out into the station forecourt and grabbed a taxi.
It was, at it turned out, Mishra’s granddaughter, a tiny three-year-old slip of a thing clinging to her mother’s sari but bright-eyed as a little nut-nibbling, tree-scrambling gilhari, who answered his request.
Doing Wrong (Inspector Ghote) Page 6
