Black River, page 20
‘Gates, and outsiders,’ Chand says. ‘How did all of us live together all these years?’
‘We lived in the cracks outside the gates,’ Rabia says. ‘It was enough, for a while.’
‘May I call again tomorrow?’
‘Please,’ she says. ‘I’ll find a good programme on the radio.’
‘Yes,’ says Chand. ‘I like it a lot, your Radio Yesterday.’
He can hear her breathing. He nestles his phone closer to his ear, drawing comfort from this lightest of sounds, letting the easy silence stretch between them, until finally he says goodbye. His house is quiet, so still, so empty, without the light rise and fall of Rabia’s breath.
Rabia turns off the radio. The racket from her neighbours’ homes pours in—the blaring televisions, the family conversations and squabbles, the clatter of someone washing stainless steel plates in a stone sink. The sudden quietness of her room feels startling in the middle of this friendly hubbub, the spell of the old days not fully dispersed.
It has been years since she thought about their last few days on the black river that had sheltered and housed the three of them. She had folded her memories into a tightly knotted bundle, shoved it firmly into the back of the highest shelf of her mind.
One word. Stay.
It changed everything between them.
Two months after her husband’s death, a few of Khalid’s friends from the ambulance crew took Arshad with them on a short trip to offer prayers for his father’s soul at the shrine in Ajmer-sharif.
Rabia and Chand found themselves alone for the first time. It cast a constraint on their easy conversation. Her grief was ebbing, giving way to an underlying anger at her husband. Sometimes, when she was alone, she spoke it out aloud to Khalid, told him that he had committed not just a sinful act, but a selfish, thoughtless one. They had shared their lives, for better and for worse, and he had withheld this from her, this blackest of clouds, this dense fog of despair. ‘If you had only told me,’ she found herself saying to the whittled wooden toys he had left behind, to the silent flute he had left on their bed. ‘What right did you have to keep it to yourself?’
The first two nights after Arshad’s departure, Chand stayed away. Instead of cooking together, they lit separate fires. From her hut, she watched the light in his window, turned off her lamp only after he blew out his. On the third night, the rain poured down like sheets of glass, hard and unrelenting, and she was struggling to patch a bad leak in the thatch when Chand came in. He was soaking wet. He found an armful of straw, a few palm fronds left in one corner of the hut, and working steadily, patched the leak with her assistance.
He would have left, but she said, ‘There is enough food for both of us.’ They ate together, but in silence, neither able to break the awkwardness that hovered over them.
Chand helped her clear the dishes, as he had so often done. Thunder pealed overhead. Chand went to the door, and Rabia exclaimed when she saw the force of the storm.
‘It’s no matter,’ he said. ‘I’m already soaked, another drenching won’t hurt me.’
He was at the entrance of the hut. She came up behind him and pulled the door shut.
When she placed her hand in his, he could not say a word. He felt her fingers clasp his, felt the firmness of her grasp.
Rabia said, ‘Stay.’
She touched him first. She unfastened the carved wooden buttons of his kurta. She led him to the cot.
He made himself ask, so that she had time to pause, to change her mind, to say no, ‘You’re sure? You want this?’
Her mouth grazed his throat, travelled upwards. Her breath warmed the skin above his upper lip. She said, ‘I know what I want. Don’t you?’ and he was lost, or not lost, he was fully hers in that moment before she moved to the bed, leaning backwards, bringing him home.
She was warm and ready, and she gave as much as she took, and she was so real, so present, shivering in the rain that leaked from the gaps in the roof, warming herself and him with her eagerness, her need, her delight.
Much later, she said, ‘You have to know that this will never happen again.’
And he said, ‘If you say so. But I am glad it did happen. I spent years hoping it would.’
Control
Ombir walks into the station house, and he knows immediately. Two men cannot work together for so many years, in such close quarters, without becoming closer than siblings, than any family. They can feel each other’s ill temper, changes in mood, depression, anger. He can smell the change in the air even before he sees Bhim Sain at his desk, the exercise books open in front of him, the long rows and columns of figures next to the photographs of the children. Chunchun’s childish scrawls accompany each picture. Even upside down, across the width of their desk, he recognises that face. Munia, her face blurred as she ducks away, the trunk of the jamun tree visible behind her.
‘When were you going to tell me, sir?’ Bhim Sain says.
Ombir hesitates. ‘I would have told you soon,’ he says finally. ‘Only wanted some time to be sure.’
‘We saw the woman’s body together, sir,’ Bhim Sain says. ‘I was by your side when the SSP went down into the well. You knew then? That Mansoor wasn’t the murderer?’ The rabbit is sleeping in her cage. Bhim Sain keeps his voice low so as to not wake her.
Ombir says, ‘I promise I would have told you. I interviewed this woman only two days ago, Bhim Sain.’
‘You’ve spoken to the SSP? We’re reopening the case?’
Ombir is silent.
Bhim Sain rises from the chair. ‘Sorry, sir. Please take your seat. I sat down without thinking. Laadli was exploring after you went out. I let her out to take the air, it’s not good for creatures like her to be cooped up all the time. She knocked the books over. I went to pick them up, and one of them had opened out, to the photographs. Their photos. The children’s photos.’
Ombir says, ‘I understand.’
‘The case cannot be reopened?’
‘It could have been,’ Ombir says. ‘But I gave Pilania sir my word that everything was in order. I assured him that the law had taken its course. It will be difficult now.’
Bhim Sain says, ‘All right, sir. You can’t do anything about this, I accept the situation. We can’t ask for a probe, you are correct. This man, sir, what do we do about this man? The woman in the canal …’
‘Bachni,’ Ombir says. ‘Her name was Bachni. She helped Dharam Bir with all that. The children, she helped him with those matters. Her friend told me everything. The dancer. Chunchun.’
Bhim Sain nods. ‘Bachni. The children he raped. And Munia. What did he do to Chand’s daughter?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ombir says. ‘I will speak to him myself.’
‘No, sir,’ Bhim Sain says. ‘Not alone. You say we can’t do anything, we can’t bring in the law now, all right. We can’t reopen the case, fine. We can’t tell the SSP, that also I accept. But we can do what is right ourselves. If we are not the law, who is?’
He’s striding out, still talking, before Ombir can stop him.
‘I know where he’ll be tonight,’ he says. ‘It’s not that late. He’s usually at the theka near the factory with his friends.’
‘Bhim Sain, calm down,’ Ombir says. ‘Don’t do anything in this state of mind.’
Bhim Sain is pulling the covers off the Harley, has the key in his hand.
‘Sir, I’m a father. Maybe you don’t understand what that means now, but you will, after your child is born. You ask the gods only for one thing. That nothing will harm your child. That’s all any parent wants, that their children should not be hurt.’
‘You’re not riding now,’ Ombir says. ‘Give me the keys.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘We are only going to talk to him, Bhim Sain. We’ll make a few inquiries. That is all. This is a direct order, you understand.’
Ombir kicks the Harley into gear, and the sound of the engine swells into the night. Bhim Sain says nothing as he hops onto the back of the motorcycle.
The theka, a shabby booze shop, is located behind the Sangam Soap and Heavenly Incense Factory, near the squat rectangle of a cement tank that holds stagnant green water.
Bhim Sain doesn’t waste time.
‘Theka is closed,’ he says brusquely. ‘You lot, get lost. Not you, Dharam Bir. The rest of the men can go.’
Dharam Bir lounges on the rim of the tank, looking from one policeman to the other. Three of his friends are on their feet, their hands on their belts.
‘Unusual time for a visit, Ombir,’ he says.
‘It is,’ Ombir says. ‘Best that we talk in private, Dharam Bir.’
‘Or talk tomorrow, or some other time during the week,’ Dharam Bir says. ‘I have a busy schedule at the factory these days.’
‘I think you’ll make time for us,’ Ombir says. He brings the ledger out of his backpack, holds it up in the air.
Dharam Bir doesn’t change position, but he says to his friends, ‘Go home. Anyway, it’s late. I’ll deal with these people myself.’
Ombir and Bhim Sain wait, Ombir patiently, Bhim Sain with palpable irritation, as the men leave. When Bhim Sain begins to speak, Ombir holds up a hand.
‘Not yet, if you don’t mind. Wait until their bikes have gone all the way up the road. Dharam Bir-ji, I would be most obliged if you tell your friends not to wait for you. Unless you’d prefer to have this talk at the station house.’
Dharam Bir glares at Ombir, but he nods his assent. ‘Here is better,’ he says. ‘No problem.’
The man in charge of the theka glances at Bhim Sain and abandons the sorting of bottles and glasses. He locks the steel bars on the small window grille, pulling the corrugated shutter down with a jerky, harsh rattle, leaves as swiftly as his ancient Bajaj scooter will allow.
It’s only the three of them now. Ombir waits, lengthening the silence.
‘So much drama, Ombir?’ Dharam Bir says. ‘Chalo, I don’t mind. Ask what you like.’
Bhim Sain moves forward. Ombir places a hand on his colleague’s arm, gently forcing him back.
‘I met a friend of yours the other day,’ he says. ‘What was her name? Chameli, Champa—no, Chunchun. Quite a talented dancer she was. Had a way with the crowd. Happened to stop by her home to ask for some information. I needed a few details, clearing up paperwork for one of our cases.’
Dharam Bir watches him steadily. The man is in darkness for the most part, but his face is well lit in the flare of the Petromax lanterns in front of the closed liquor store. His hands are near his pockets. Ombir guesses he has a knife, perhaps a gun, but probably no more than a country pistol.
‘These signatures, if you’d take a look,’ he continues. ‘It seems like your handwriting to me. It is, isn’t it?’
Dharam Bir does not move forward.
‘If it is, so what?’
‘Dharam Bir-ji, not to offend you or anything. But these signatures are next to the photographs of children, you understand? And against each photograph, there is also the signature of another person. A woman called Bachni. And one of these photographs is of a child, Munia. It so happens that within the space of a few days, Bachni was found floating in a canal, and the child was found—everyone knows where she was found. It makes me curious, that’s all.’
Dharam Bir sits up, straddling the cement rim, and laughs.
‘You cops,’ he says. ‘You think you own this place, blundering around with your useless questions. I thought you were smarter than the average village policeman, Ombir, but you’re every bit as thick as the rest of your kind. If you want to ask something, ask it straight. Don’t mess around with me.’
Ombir can feel the nerves jumping in Bhim Sain’s arm. He tightens his grip a trifle, releases the pressure slowly, hoping that Bhim Sain can understand his silent signal: Don’t lose your temper.
‘You knew this Bachni well?’
‘Extremely well,’ Dharam Bir says. His smile is broad and reminiscent. ‘She was an excellent businesswoman. Perhaps too ambitious for her own health. She knew too much about too many people in this village, and she was careless in her use of that knowledge.’
Ombir says, frowning down at the pages, ‘What is the purpose of this ledger?’
Dharam Bir stands up, stretching lazily, takes a swig from his bottle of Thums Up. Ombir smells the battery acid tang of hooch.
‘The purpose of this ledger,’ he says, mimicking Ombir, ‘is none of your business.’
Bhim Sain shakes off Ombir’s hand, takes a few steps towards Dharam Bir.
‘Everything that happens in this village is our business. If a cow farts and I make it my business or Ombir sir makes it his business, it’s our business.’
Dharam Bir says, ‘You two make me laugh. Bachni had three skills: she made powerful allies, she made powerful enemies, and she was expert at fucking them both. And sometimes she got fucked back by someone who was sick of being squeezed like an orange. I know what you’re after. I was with Chunchun the day that Mansoor strung up Chand’s kid.’
‘Let me guess,’ says Ombir. ‘You were with Chunchun the night Bachni died as well.’
‘I don’t know when the whore died,’ Dharam Bir says. ‘But Chunchun and I spent a lot of time together this month. She started out as a common five-hundred-rupee randi, but she’s improved over the years.’
The collar of Ombir’s uniform is stiff with sweat. It makes his neck itch, and he’s aware that his temper is beginning to fray.
‘One woman, two alibis,’ he says. ‘That’s convenient.’
Dharam Bir comes closer, facing down Bhim Sain.
‘Tamasha over. If you have a warrant, take me down to the station. Saluja, my boss, would love to hear that you’ve called one of his top men in for questioning, but I have no problem with answering your questions. Once you have that warrant. And if you don’t, I’m going home. This was amusing, but we’re done here.’
Bhim Sain says, ‘One more question. What did you do to the kids? To Munia?’
‘Do? To Munia? Nothing. I just liked watching her when Chand was away. To the others? I’m a generous man, Bhim Sain. That ledger lists all the donations I’ve made to children and their families over the years, no? Chocolates, Coke, clothes, whatever was needed.’
He laughs in Bhim Sain’s face. ‘Charity,’ he says. ‘You ask around. Most of the parents take the cash themselves. They don’t ask foolish questions. You shouldn’t either.’
‘Bhim Sain!’ Ombir calls in warning, but he’s too late.
Bhim Sain throws a punch. It should have connected, but Dharam Bir’s ready for it, leans out of the way, something in his right hand glinting. An old-fashioned razor, a cut-throat, the blade slashing at Bhim Sain’s unguarded face. Bhim Sain screams, staggers back, blood seeping through the hand he uses to cover his ripped cheek.
‘Fuck your questions,’ Dharam Bir says. ‘That’s a warning, Ombir. Tell this thick-skulled dolt to leave me alone, don’t poke your nose into my affairs, or next time—’
Ombir hits him. They hear the crack as the bones in his nose break. His head jerks and he grunts in pain, bleeding freely.
‘Have you gone mad? When Saluja hears about this, he’ll fuck you both so hard you won’t be able to sit down for a month.’
Bhim Sain says, ‘It’s a small cut, Dharam Bir. You should have tried harder. Big mistake. I’m asking you again. What did you do to those kids?’
‘You are crazy,’ Dharam Bir says with conviction. Bhim Sain pulls out his favourite baton, a small, lead-weighted cosh, whirls it professionally, takes Dharam Bir down in two quick blows. The man is staggering despite his bulk, he’s toppling, and Ombir can’t hold it in any more. It comes up. The rage. The frustration. The long, sleepless hours and days. The tension that’s been eating at him like termites taking a house apart from the inside, everything rises boiling to the surface. He kicks Dharam Bir in the ribs, choosing his spot so as to knock the breath out of the big man.
‘You fuckers,’ Dharam Bir manages to say, and then they’re on him. Bhim Sain uses the side of his boots like a club to the back of his head. Ombir kicks until he is sure he has shattered a few ribs, then he shifts to the other side, for symmetry. They don’t speak, they don’t yell, they don’t look at each other. They work in unison, a team, and when Dharam Bir finally screams, Bhim Sain kneels down, eye level with the man, stuffs an empty plastic pouch of hooch in his mouth to stop the sounds, says, ‘You should have answered his questions and mine when you had the chance. You should have.’
Ombir will always remember this with shame. It is Bhim Sain who says, ‘Sir, stop.’
He stops. The bloody mist clears from his vision. He looks down at the man on the ground, motionless, broken.
‘Sir, do you want him dead?’ It’s a clinical question.
He kneels down, takes Dharam Bir’s pulse. Still beating. Considers his choices as reaction starts to set in, tremors racing through his body. It’s the same for Bhim Sain, he can see the sheen of sweat on the other man’s forehead, can see his trembling hands. They both have splashes of Dharam Bir’s blood on their uniforms. He feels soiled. It’s not a good thing, to lose control. He despises officers who allow that to happen.
‘No,’ he says at last. ‘He won’t talk about this later.’
The theka owner and his friends will know, but that won’t matter. Bhim Sain forces a strip of wire through the window of the theka owner’s Maruti van that is parked nearby, then fishes out one of the universal spare keys they carry in their backpacks.
‘With your permission, I’ll leave this gaandu at the hospital. They’ll see to him. They owe me a few favours.’
‘Is he only unconscious or in a full coma?’
‘Doesn’t matter either way, does it, sir? If Saluja makes too much trouble for us, my father will smooth it over. I’ll tell him about the children.’
