The Death of Mr Love, page 44
It was like listening to Maya.
‘The trouble is, bhai, that people at ground-level, at least in India, often cannot read, and in any case don’t have money to spend on books. I had great difficulties trying to get schools to buy my books, because they were perceived as being political. Money was short, the business was in trouble. I felt defeated. I was bitter, full of resentment. At that time I was subsidising the work by printing political pamphlets. It turned out to be my future.’
Through political work, Mitra said, he had rediscovered his self-respect. ‘But not ordinary politics. I am not talking about fine-sounding principles and promises made to win votes, but sincere practical work. Your mother believed that, Bhalu. And that is why I chose to join the party. Where is the real social work being done, in politics? Congress Party? BJP? Forget it. Join those who get in among the janata (common people) and roll their sleeves up.’
He told us that he spent much of his time fighting for clean water and electricity to be made available to the shanty-dwellers, to control rents and the depredations of slum landlords.
‘I’ve heard that your party is anti-Muslim.’ It had to be said.
‘This is a misconception.’ He looked genuinely unhappy. ‘We work for our own people. I mean Maharashtrians. Most of the people living around here have similar backgrounds to me. But that does not make us against anyone else.’
‘Dost told me about the troubles.’
He made that little gesture, snatching at the air. Invisible flies.
‘Which troubles? Of troubles there is no shortage. 1993? The riots? What did Dost bhai tell you? It was all Hindu-instigated and the Muslims were the innocent victims?’
‘Someone started it. We saw the damage, the marks of fire, in Dongri,’ said Phoebe suddenly.
‘What has happened in this country?’ I asked. ‘How could the two of you be pulled apart? You used to be inseparable.’
‘It’s lifestyle, not politics, that divides us. Dost is a sweet fellow, but he’s what you might call a tapori, a time-pass man. Lack of gaandmirch.’ (No chilli up the arse.)
At least he still had that foul mouth which used to get him into trouble as a child.
‘Jula, I can’t believe you would condone violence,’ said Phoebe.
‘Come here,’ he said. ‘Let me show you something.’ He opened the door and led us out onto the balcony, causing the group of women and children who had been clustered outside to scatter in alarm. ‘They are curious about you,’ he said, laughing. ‘Fever’s beautiful golden hair. Now look . . .’ He pointed.
Stretching to the south was a desolation of huts and shanties. It stopped abruptly on the edge of a wide area of waste ground, marshy in places where the rainwater had pooled. On the far side, the slums began again.
‘Over there is a Muslim area, just as desperate as this. During the riots men on both sides started shooting across the no-man’s land. There are still bullet marks in this building. Yet I know my counterpart on that side. He is doing the same work as I do here and we often co-operate. Phoebe, I don’t condone violence. I don’t like it. But I have to live with it, just as all the people around here do. There was fault on both sides. Did Dost tell you about the Hindu family burnt to death in a chawl just like this one? I am not a bigot. But it must also be said that the Hindus in this country feel they have not had a good deal. What kind of democracy is it where the wishes of the majority are constantly ignored in order to appease minorities?’
‘What sort of wishes? Do you mean the ban on cow-slaughter?’ I asked. ‘I read somewhere that cowdung can cure stomach upsets.’
‘Yes,’ said Mitra. ‘And prevents heart attacks, improves memory, plus the mooing of cows alleviates certain mental conditions, the smell of a cow’s excrement kills tuberculosis germs. Also, it is pointed out that Lord Krishna was a cowherd and Buddha attained enlightenment after eating kheer.’
‘A sort of milky sweet pudding,’ I explained to Phoebe.
She said, ‘We had it at Dost’s restaurant the other night.’
‘Not only this,’ said Mitra, ‘but a Russian scientist whose name I forget has claimed that milk is helpful in combating the effects of atomic radiation. And that houses covered with cow dung are protected from radiation . . .’
‘And you believe all this?’ I asked.
‘I do believe,’ he said, ‘that if our leaders in Delhi and elsewhere cared as much about fundamental human rights as those of cows, they might be worth voting for. On the other hand,’ a mischievous smile crept over his face, ‘I am very fond of cows. Remember, like Krishna, I was a cowherd too . . . although Gaulan and Chandri and that naughty wandering Pandri never inspired me to utter the Bhagavad Gita.’
There was a knock on the door, and a woman came in, with dishes of food, which she set on the table. Smiled shyly, drew her sari across her face, and went out again.
‘My wife is at work,’ Mitra explained, ‘so the neighbours kindly look after me. Come, let us eat.’
The meal was very simple. Rice, dal and a little vegetable, with chapattis wrapped in a cloth to keep hot. A complete contrast to the rich biryanis and gurda kalejis of the Jam-i-Jam.
‘The pickle is homemade,’ said Mitra. ‘Do you recognise these little green things . . . they look like peas?’
Karvanda berries.
‘Jula, we’ve been to Ambona and seen the house,’ said Fever. ‘No one has lived there since us . . .’ I liked that us. ‘My painting of Rosie is still on the wall!’
He said, ‘It’s been left to rot. Nobody knows why. They say it was some senior police-wallah who bought it, many years ago. After your parents left, Bhalu.’
So, at last, our story came out. As he listened, Mitra grew amazed, then angry. He made us tell the story again, going over each detail. Every incident. At last he said, ‘I would love to nail the bahinchod who did this to your mother, Phoebe. And your mother, Bhalu. But I’m afraid I agree with Dost. It’s a waste of time raking up the dead past. And it could be dangerous. Better to forget it.’
‘Wait,’ she cried, ‘how can I just forget it? How can you just ignore everything we’ve told you?’
‘I don’t ignore it, behan, but there’s nothing I can do.’
‘By doing nothing, you allow it to go on. You encourage it.’
On the way back, Phoebe was silent. Glum. Murad took us back by a different route. Somewhere in the Girgaum area, we were held up by a traffic cop. From ahead came the sound of chanting.
Ganpati bappa morya
purjya varsha laukarya
Ganpati geley gavala
chaiin pade re amhala
A truck appeared, fantastically painted and carrying an even more fantastic cargo, the huge elephant-headed Ganesh, perhaps fifteen feet tall, decorated with ornaments, flowers and lights. Two old conical speakers were blaring out religious songs. Walking behind came men banging double-ended drums and cymbals. In a few more weeks it would be his annual festival and this image would be carried again in an even bigger procession to Chowpatty beach, taken out into the sea and submerged for ever. Strangely enough, this most popular of festivals (for India’s most popular deity) was more or less invented by the Independence campaigner, Lokmanya Tilak, who saw in it a way to rouse nationalist fervour disguised as religious celebration.
‘Stop!’ said Phoebe, suddenly. ‘I want to walk in the procession.’
There was no arguing, so Murad and I watched her disappear into the throng of celebrants following the truck, and crawled along behind. From time to time I caught a glimpse of her among the crowd, laughing, a flash of blonde hair. But then I lost sight of her. I thought she would be gone no more than a few minutes, but half an hour passed and she did not return.
‘I’ll get out and look for her,’ I told Murad. ‘You follow.’
So I found myself in the middle of the Ganesh worshippers, smiling faces, women distributing prasad. I could see no sign of Phoebe. I ran from one end of the procession to the other, and threaded my way across it a dozen times, but could not find her.
By the time Ganesh, on his truck, reached the open space where fund-raising speeches were to be made, the crowd had thinned and there could no longer be any doubt. Phoebe had vanished.
BOMBAY IN 1999
Several hours later, back at the hotel, there was still no sign of Phoebe. I did not know what to do. Dost telephoned me, after a sheepish Murad carried the news back to Dongri. ‘Don’t panic,’ he said. ‘There is probably some straightforward explanation. Maybe she decided to go shopping.’
But I knew that was impossible. It got to seven, eight o’clock. Five hours since she had disappeared. I felt sick. My mind was churning with awful things that might have happened to her. I kept thinking of cases Zafyque had described to me, that his human rights organisation had investigated, of people who had gone missing in custody; how their relatives had to go and plead for news from the very men who had possibly murdered them. Finally, I rang the British Consulate, but got a message saying the office was closed.
Nine o’clock. News time in England. I turned on the television, thinking that if Phoebe had been involved in an accident, it might have been reported. Endless channels of Hindi film music with all-singing-all-dancing videos. A business report. Flipping through, looking for news, it did nothing to lighten my mood when I heard a voice ask, ‘Are you seriously saying that if the police are corrupt it is we, not they, who are to blame?’
Two men sat facing one another in a studio: the interviewer, who had put the question, and his guest, described by a caption as LUKE ORTO, JOURNALIST, a man whose pleasant demeanour seemed to me wholly at odds with what he was saying.
ORTO
I am saying that corruption is an evil of society as a whole, not of any particular profession. It only exists because people are willing to offer bribes.
INTERVIEWER
And the police themselves bear no responsibility for taking bribes?
ORTO
Would they be corrupt if we did not tempt them? If you were a constable or subinspector with fifteen years’ service, living in a rundown chawl, earning a pittance – less than a municipal peon! – you might be tempted too.
Our blackmailer, was he one of these underpaid slum-dwelling unfortunates? Had Sybil gone to him and begged him to take money in order to keep her name out of the papers?
INTERVIEWER
Honest people living in equally bad conditions say they do not want to pay bribes. The police demand them. We hear endless stories of police cruelty.
ORTO
We know there are a few policemen who will do anything for money, even act as hitmen. The answer is not to damn the whole force. We must bring the culprits before the Anti-Corruption Bureau.
INTERVIEWER
What about these ‘encounters’ we hear so much about?
ORTO
Cops don’t become ‘encounter specialists’ because they like killing. It’s their job and it becomes second nature. Someone has to do it.
INTERVIEWER
What? Go out looking for gunfights? Like the Wild West? Like Wyatt Earp?
ORTO
Our police have no choice. They are forced to resort to encounters because the court process is so long and tedious and the rate of conviction is so low. The laws we inherited from the British favour criminals. But our police boys are winning the war. Terrorists and gangsters have been taught, bullet for bullet, that if they come to Bombay, the only way they are leaving is in a coffin. I believe that if our police were freed of political shackles and given a free hand, overnight they would turn Bombay into a law-abiding, crime-free city.
‘Luke Orto,’ said the interviewer, concluding the session, ‘is the editor of Society Samachar.’ Then, with a Freudian slip of the brain, added, ‘He writes on many subjects but with authority and passion only on the police.’
I dreamed that I was lying in my bed at the Rudolf Hotel. The room was in darkness. There was a scratching, a scrabbling at my door. Something with claws trying to get in. In the dream, I lay in my bed, not wanting to wake, terrified of whatever was outside. Again it came, the sound of nails scraping on old wood.
‘Bhalu, it’s me. Let me in.’
I jumped up and opened the door. She staggered, almost fell, into the room. I caught her and she flopped against me. ‘Phoebe! What happened? Are you all right? I was beginning to panic.’
‘Mustn’t do that. Panic is vulgar,’ she said with a strange chuckle and I realised that she was drunk.
I turned on the bedside light. It was past three in the morning. Outside, incredibly, there was still music: Arabs sitting on the seawall, having one of their all-night parties. Phoebe looked a mess. Her eye make-up had run. She sat on the end of my bed, in the summer dress she had worn to visit Mitra.
‘Got a drink?’ she asked. ‘We need to celebrate.’
Underneath the raffishness, there was something defiant in her tone, like a child that knows it has done wrong.
‘Why did you run away like that?’
She got out a cigarette, found her lighter, and struggled for an infuriatingly long time to produce a flame. ‘You should be proud of me,’ she said at last, exhaling smoke. ‘I’ve solved the problem.’
‘How? Where did you go?’
‘To the police headquarters.’
‘What?’ If she’d said Shaw’s Bookshop, Lewes, I could not have been more surprised.
‘Now you’re cross.’ She rasped my cheek with a nail. ‘Where do you keep your whisky?’ She got up, did an unsteady little dance over to my suitcase, and began rummaging among my underwear. ‘Honestly Bhalu, how many weeks and you still haven’t unpacked.’
I didn’t say so, but I had just re-packed. I had decided that I must go home. Almost a month and there had been no word from Katy, no reply whenever I had tried to phone her.
‘We’d run out of ideas,’ Phoebe said, splashing a gargantuan measure into my toothmug. ‘I knew you wouldn’t agree. So I had to do it myself.’
‘By do it, you mean go to the police?’
‘Yes. Sorry I tricked you, but you’d only have tried to stop me.’
She’s lying, I thought. ‘You don’t even know where the police headquarters are.’
‘True. So what I did was, I nipped into that noisy carnival and out the other side and found a taxi. Just asked it to take me there.’
‘But why? What did you do there?’Visions of her lobbing bricks through windows.
‘I laid a complaint.’
‘Against whom? For what?’The ephemeral hope presented itself that perhaps she’d been cheated by a shopkeeper. Or subjected to the harassment that the press euphemistically (thereby mitigating its nastiness) called ‘Eve-teasing’.
‘Against the man who blackmailed my mother.’
Her story, so far as I could follow it (she kept interrupting herself with irritating and irrelevant digressions) was this: after giving Murad and me the slip, she got the taxi to drop her outside the police HQ (rifle-toting constables at the door – did you call them pandas? – no, pandus), walked in and demanded to see the Commissioner. The bemused officials at the reception desk told her it was impossible, but she refused to leave. She said that she had a serious complaint and only the Commissioner himself could hear it. So they put her in a room where she waited until, eventually, an officer came to talk to her.
‘He was very sweet,’ she said, having as much difficulty uttering the word as I had believing it. ‘He said he was sorry to have kept me waiting and asked me if I’d like tea, or a cold drink. So I had some tea and I was quite impressed that it came in a pot – on a tray with a blue-and-white china milk jug . . .’
‘Yes, yes,’ I said, desperate to get her back to the point. ‘So what did you tell him?’
‘Don’t be silly What do you think? The whole story.’
‘The whole story? Everything?’
‘Yes. He listened very politely, but he seemed a bit embarrassed. As if he was too nice to say he didn’t believe me.’
‘Well, why are you surprised?’
‘Don’t be cross, Bhalu. I have got it all sorted out. Anyway, my first officer said it was a very serious matter and he would have to call in a senior colleague. So they sent for more tea. And samosas. And this other policeman came. Very good-looking. Big brown eyes, and one of those absurd moustaches they all seem to have . . .’
The new arrival – she seemed very struck by his looks; each time she mentioned how handsome he was I experienced a stab in the ribs from that monster whose eyes matched hers – asked her to repeat her story while he took notes.
‘So you told him why we are here?’
‘Of course. I had to tell him everything.’
‘Was that wise?’
She thought about this, drawing deeply on her cigarette. ‘What else could I do? We had got nowhere. I was disappointed when Dost refused to help us. Then, when Jula told us to give up, I just couldn’t bear it any more. I said to these policemen, “It may be a long time ago, but a horribly cruel crime was committed and the person who did it has never been brought to account”.’
‘So what did they say to that?’
‘That they were very sorry such a thing had happened. Not all policemen were like the one who had dealt with my mother. I still had the feeling they didn’t believe a word, but they said they’d look into it and get back to me.’
‘They’ll get back? How? You told them where we’re staying?’
‘I didn’t have to. They already knew.’
If I had sentiments about what she had done, the craziness of walking into the lion’s den and informing the lion that it was under investigation, I kept them to myself. There was only one other question.
‘Why are you so late?’
‘Oh.’ She laughed. ‘The Chief Inspector I talked to – the good-looking one – he took me out to dinner. Then afterwards we went dancing . . . Oh, look at that face! What a scowl! Bhalu, you can’t go on being a big brother to me for ever.’
