The Death of Mr Love, page 19
‘They want the lights out,’ said Mitra. ‘They’re demanding that people observe the blackout.’
A café called Naaz had stayed open. A group of customers sat in darkness around the radio. The broadcast was postponed; Mrs Gandhi was still in a cabinet meeting. For the next twenty minutes there was a solemn music – Raga Durga, I think it was, played on a sarod, which ground and leapt, built on a repetitive phrase with a sudden hard note at the end of the line. Then Mrs Gandhi came on air to say that India had declared war on Pakistan.
Just before two, there was an air-raid alert over the city. We sat in the garden, staring into the sky. There was nothing left alive but the sobbing of the siren. It filled the air. The tall buildings behind us were dark shapes, eerily lit by the waning Id moon, which had become veiled in thin cloud. The noise of the siren seemed to flow between the buildings and over them, filling every crevice. The same moon was shining over the north, over the cities that had been raided, the cold desert, the soldiers at their posts. All over the north there must have been that same feeling of expectancy, and life squeezed out by the wailing of distant sirens on both sides of the border.
The war hotted up. President Nixon announced a ‘tilt to Pakistan.’ The USS Enterprise duly began steaming up the Bay of Bengal towards the disintegrating remains of East Pakistan.
We went to Moosa’s as frequently as before and listened to the news on Radio Pakistan. There was little war talk in the alleys. Not surprising, in view of their traditional links to the ‘enemy’. Many people, like Dost, had relatives in Karachi, and small towns dotted all the way to the borders of Iran and Afghanistan.
It was a time of parties. One heard rumours and gossip. In Hindu areas of the city, self-seeking politicians were trying to stir up resentment against the Muslims. There was wild talk of a two-pronged invasion of Bombay. An elite Pakistani force, armed to the teeth, would land from the sea, while the bazaars would spawn a ragged army of fanatics to take the defending Indians in the rear. Cynics said the real target of these rumours was Indira Gandhi and her New Congress. Her popularity, which was ebbing before the war, had soared. She was being likened in the press to Durga Ma, the Rani of Jhansi, Joan of Arc, Boadicea, or whatever other female warrior sprang to mind.
Some rumours were just ludicrous. On the Himalayan frontier, it was said, a network of first-class roads had been constructed and trucks passed continuously along them, running not on petrol or diesel but clarified butter. But the strangest tale of all originated from a tea-seller on Delhi railway station who swore that, two days before the outbreak of war in the west, he had been asked for four hundred and fifty cups of tea, which he had served to chimpanzees wearing Indian uniforms. The chimps, he was told in confidence, were trained to chuck grenades down the hatches of enemy tanks, although how they were supposed to differentiate between the two sides, no one could explain.
My father had high-ranking naval friends and one night, by which time the city had grown used to the displays of searchlights and anti-aircraft fire, I found myself at a party where a senior admiral was holding forth to a group which included an American who was introduced as the agricultural attaché from the US Consulate. ‘You know what I’d do if I were C-in-C in Eastern Command?’ said the sailor. ‘I’d send out two submarines – badoom! badoom! – and blast the Enterprise to the bottom. Mrs Gandhi would have to fire me, but in private she’d clap me on the back and say “Shabaash”.’ The American had to laugh it off, but I could see that he was itching to get to a phone and report this intelligence, if such it could be called. In the event he was still there, glass in hand, when the admiral received a phone call, put down the receiver looking shaken, and hurried away to his headquarters. Next morning we heard that our frigate Khukri had been sunk in the Arabian Sea by a Pakistani submarine.
There were disturbances in the moholla. Some youths had been set on and beaten by Hindus. There were reprisals. Even so, Mitra and I, Hindus both, did not believe we were at risk. Perhaps a week after Khukri was lost, we met Dost, as was our habit, at the adda. It was darker and quieter than usual. The alley’s sole street-lamp had fallen victim to the blackout, and the scene was lit by the faint supernatural light of the moon and the demonic glow of chillums. I found myself sitting next to a person who wore the heavy woollen robe that is commonly seen in the Middle East. He acknowledged my presence with the slightest of nods and the evening faded into luxurious hypnosis.
Stars, spread thinly across a cold blue sky, the sour, exquisite stench of hashish, the acrid goat-stench of the robe beside me all joined and became one thing. I could have expressed it all in one word, if I had known the word. And the word expanded itself into a portfolio of images, none necessarily bearing any relation to any other. This was not a dirty bazaar lane in India, it was all bazaar lanes from all time. I imagined huge wooden waterwheels turning slowly in green water, and knew they were Babylonian. These goat droppings had been dunged several thousand years ago. A clamour in the distance was the same old quarrel that had been going on between men since the beginning.
Later, in the streets. About one in the morning. The area was deserted, few people about. The lanes were mostly lined by tiny shops and businesses, shuttered up for the night. Across the main road in Bhendi Bazaar, a couple of hundred yards away, life went on. You could always get something to eat, whatever time of day or night it was. There was always somewhere to sit and have tea, or kebabs. We were heading for refreshment, Mitra leading the way, Dost and I some way behind, when we came upon a group of youths revving a scooter.
Something was said, I didn’t catch what.
They set upon Mitra. He disappeared in a confusion of fists and open-handed slaps. One was trying to kick him.
We ran towards them. Dost grabbed one of the attackers and threw him to one side. I was trying to pull another one away. Mitra’s glasses had come off. There was blood around his nose, but he was still shouting at them.
Dost yelled, ‘Stop! This guy is my friend. I take responsibility for him.’
‘And who the fuck are you?’
‘Put it this way,’ said Dost. ‘I’m called Mohammed Khan.’
‘Then you’re a fucking Hindu lover,’ called another voice.
The man who had spoken first took a step forward. In his hand was a knife. He said, ‘I don’t think you’re a Muslim.’
Then Dost did something incredibly brave. He stood in front of Mitra and said, ‘Okay, so you have to kill me. But first look at this . . .’
He undid his pyjama string.
For a moment anything could have happened. Then one of them laughed and the tension went out of the scene.
‘It’s a poor fucking thing,’ said Dost, re-tying his shalwar. ‘There are enough people who really hate us, but you have to pick on a couple who are our friends.’
We were still there, all of us, a group of arguing youths, when the police arrived.
We were arrested and taken to the police station, where we stood (there was nowhere to sit) in a cage along with various other miscreants. Beggars, a pair of drunks, a red-eyed man who seemed demented. ‘I am a Rudra, I tell you. Look at me. I am a Rudra.’ From time to time he fell on the floor, and convulsed. Someone banged on the bars of the cage, but nobody came.
Several hours later, they took us out for questioning. We asked to stay together but they led Dost away first. Mitra and I were put in a room with filthy walls that had once been blue. A calendar of Ganesh hung from a nail.
A plain-clothes policeman began questioning us.
‘You are Hindus. What are you doing in this area at night? Who did you come to see? What is your business here?’
‘I was working late,’ said Mitra. ‘My friend was with me. We were walking to catch a bus . . .’
He stolidly refused to budge from this story. Eventually, when they had ascertained that he really did work round the corner, he was allowed to go.
‘What about me?’ I said. ‘I was with him.’
‘With you it’s not so simple.’
I remained in the room all night. They let me out once, to visit a hole-in-the-floor which was brimming with excrement.
It was mid-morning when another policeman came to see me. He was an older man, also in plain clothes. He must have been someone important because he had an escort of two uniformed officers, and was treated with enormous deference by my previous questioner. Tea, on a tray with a plate of biscuits, was fetched for him. Would he need a tape recorder? He declined the machine and sat sipping his tea, staring at me.
At last he turned to his subordinates and asked them to wait outside the door.
‘I know your family,’ was the first thing he said to me.
My immediate feeling was relief. He would surely bring this nonsense to an end.
‘You’re troublemakers.’
My illusions vanished. He had not come to help me.
‘Your mother writes propagandist rubbish. I know what she is trying to do. She should be careful. I have a file this thick!’ He pounded the desk and grasped an imaginary dossier at least two inches thick. ‘And now here’s her son. The next generation. Why are you in this area? Don’t you know we’re at war?’
‘This is India,’ I said. ‘The people who live here are Indians.’
‘Are they? Do you know how many agents Pakistan has in this neighbourhood? Your father is ex-Navy. You meet some important people. People who know the movements of our ships. You meet them, then you come here. Why?’
‘I was with my friend,’ I said. ‘He’s a Hindu.’
‘I know where you were the night Khukri was sunk,’ said the policeman. ‘But where were you the night before?’
I was silent. Dared not tell him about Moosa’s.
‘I know where you were,’ said the policeman. ‘I take an interest. I know all about you. Count yourself lucky that I don’t charge you with something a lot more serious than smoking charas with guttersnipes.’
He got up and left.
At lunchtime, my father’s lawyer came and I was released.
Mitra said, ‘You bastard, Dost. Your dick saved my life.’
His spectacles were mended with tape. We were sitting on the roof of our building in Cuffe Parade.
‘How come you got out before either of us?’ I asked him.
‘Why are you surprised?’ said Dost. ‘It was my area. You know how it is with the police in this city. It’s either danda or dhanda.’ (Truncheons or bribes.)
‘Now I owe two lives,’ Mitra told me later, with a serious look on his face. ‘One to your mother, now another to Dost.’
About two months after this, my mother announced, out of the blue, that she had arranged for me to do a post-graduate course in film studies at the University of Sussex in England. The term did not start until the autumn, but I was to leave immediately.
OXYMORON (SUSSEX, JANUARY 1999)
It wasn’t until I’d finished writing these recollections of Jula that I discovered we didn’t have Phoebe’s address or phone number.
‘Not my fault,’ Katy said. ‘It was you who had the long tête-à-tête.’
I rang my sisters. No good. Must have been an oversight. Still, she had all my information and was bound to ring soon. Weeks went by and the papers grew dusty on my desk. Mysteriously and abruptly as she re-entered it, Phoebe had once again vanished from my life.
‘She must have left something. Card? Note? Scrap of paper? Something scribbled on the back of an envelope?’ I said as we sat, three months later, ticking people off our Christmas card list.
‘Bhalu, she hardly talked to me. It was you she was interested in. If you want to know, I found her attitude to me rather offensive. As if I was some sort of interloper.’
Jealousy was so much not in Katy’s repertoire, that I found this little burst of pique rather flattering. The one time I had strayed, in my leery London days, she forgave me without fuss. And when she gave me cause to be jealous I felt instead only a kind of numb fascination, and never told her that I knew, or what I knew. Sexual jealousy was a stranger to our marriage (now there’s an ironic choice of words), and having women squabble over me was a new experience. New, and not at all unpleasant. Bloody fool, I thought, you’re deluding yourself.
Three months without a word. I had begun the long labour of cataloguing Maya’s books. Other than that, my routine went on pretty much unchanged. It would have been just before Christmas that the post brought, along with the usual crop of bills and junk, a letter from Bombay.
Blitz is no longer in existence; it is now Cinéblitz. I went myself to their office and met a Mr Vohra, a decent man, who allowed me to see the archives. I checked all issues released during April 1959, and there was no mention of such a murder. I checked up until August, and back till January. I can assure you that there was no such murder reported as you describe.
I had forgotten my query. I could barely remember Retribution or why I had been so fascinated by it. Even the personal revelations of The Eel Fisher seemed distant to me, another of Maya’s stories, an exercise in fiction using herself as a model. There had been no murder, no Mister Love. As to the mystery of why she had never returned to live in India, since her death there were going to be no answers, and it no longer seemed important.
A dark, frozen morning in early January. Well before dawn. We were sitting in the kitchen, warming our hands round mugs of tea.
‘Bhalu, you’ll have to get the Moron out,’ said Katy. ‘If Piglet’s coming to lunch, I’ve got to get it in the oven before we go. There won’t be time later.’
‘What about all this?’ I asked, waving an arm. It was Twelfth Night, the last day of Christmas, when decorations must finally come down and trees go to the bonfire.
‘Piglet won’t mind,’ she said.
The cottage was still strung with streamers, tinsel, paper chains. In a corner of the living room, our Christmas tree was gently weeping needles. On a wooden chest nearby, under a string of twinkling lights, stood the crib. None of us were religious, but we’d always had the crib. The twins assembled it each year on a base of stones that signified the Judaean desert. They would make a hut of twigs woven together with bits of straw, and into it place oxen, camels, sheep, wise men and the Holy Family, clay figures they had made and painted years ago, for a school project. It was always ceremonially declared open to the music of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor, a custom whose origin was lost in the mists of family folklore. The story most often told was that I & I, aged perhaps eight, had been busying themselves with stones and straw, when Maya put the record on.
Isobel asked, ‘Granny, why is the music so sad?’
Maya replied, ‘Because Mendelssohn was a Jew.’
The twins thought the lamenting violin was a perfect music for bare stony slopes and a story that ended so tragically.
This year, our ‘bacchantes’, as Panaghiotis fondly called them, had come and gone. The house bore traces – discarded clothes, left-behind mobile phone, a sack full of washing – of their whirl-wind passage. They were off with friends and boyfriend, respectively.
Katy and I missed them. And Maya.
It was still dark when I went out, breath steaming, to do the business with the Moron. Katy’s horse. His name, really, was Oxymoron, so-called because his feet seemed to be in constant contradiction to one another. He didn’t exactly trip over them, but the next nearest thing a quadruped can manage. So we knew him, affectionately, as the Moron.
He whiffled in the darkness when he heard me coming. Knew very well I’d have a mint for him. We had got him from a rescue centre. The people said he’d been used to pull a cart and Katy said he must have been beaten a lot, because he was head shy and leery of people, especially men. When he first arrived, getting a head-collar on him was a nightmare. So I made special efforts to be nice. I’d take a pocket full of mints with me when I went to the stable, or into the field to catch him. Gradually, we became friends.
Now he let me slide the head-collar up round his nose, buckle the strap. No problem. Prehensile lips descended to my palm and lifted the sweet. His ears flicked forward, perhaps in embarrassment, as I began admonishing him in the silly voice that people seem to reserve for horses and very small children. ‘Joo gonna be a gooboy today, eh? Hoozgonnabe a gooboy?’ The Moron rolled his eyes, and went back to his haynet. Katy had been training him to trot and canter without skittering sideways, to approach a jump and not pull up in blowing, snorting confusion. The ‘flat work’, whatever it was (did the Moron have flat feet?) was followed by ‘grid work’, which involved setting up ever-changing combinations of jumps – poles set on oildrums – in the field and taking him through them. She had been utterly patient.
‘Katy’s worked hard on you, hasn’t she?’ I pushed his rump to spin him round, attached the lead rope and led him out so Katy could get him ready for his big day. This morning, they were going to jump in competition for the first time.
SHE: Bhalu, have you seen my good jodhpurs?
ME: No. And how many times do I have to tell you they are named after the town of Jodhpur, pronounced with a long O, as in Joe? There is no what-rot-pot-got-hot sound in Hindi.’
SHE: Get on with all your Indian pretensions. You never used to object when I called them jodhpurs – when you were trying to get inside them.
An indoor gymkhana at any time of year, but especially in the winter, is a fearsome affair. This one took place in a huge barn, with wooden walls. When we arrived, it took some doing to coax the Moron out of his trailer – almost as hard as persuading him to enter it in the first place. But after that there was not much more I could do. Katy and the Moron vanished into the warm-up. I stationed myself in the spectators’ gallery, surrounded by Pony Club mothers in ultra-waxed Barbours. Once the competition got going, they grew excited and began yelling at their daughters: things like, ‘Kick on, Samantha, kick on!’ and ‘Smack him!’
