Between the Assassinations

by Aravind Adiga

  “Ever since Sardar Patel died, this country has gone down the drain,” he said, and the little boy nodded. “We live in the midst of chaos and corruption. We can only do our jobs and go home,” he said, and the little boy nodded.

  The teacher exhaled contentedly. He was deeply flattered; in all these years at the school, no student had ever felt the same outrage he had, at that colossal blunder of ’65. Lifting himself off the rocking chair, he pulled out a volume of Hindi poetry from a bookshelf. “I want this back, huh? And in perfect shape. Not one scratch or blotch on it.”

  The boy nodded. He looked around the house furtively. The poverty of his teacher’s house surprised him. The walls of the living room were bare, save for a lighted picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The paint was peeling, and stouthearted geckos ran all over the walls.

  As Girish flicked through the book, the two girls in red dresses took turns at shrieking into his ears, before screaming away into another room.

  A woman in a flowing green dress, patterned with white flowers, approached the boy with a glass of red cordial. The boy was confused by her face and could not answer her questions. She looked very young. Mr. D’Mello must have married very late in life, the boy thought. Perhaps he had been too shy to go near women in his young days.

  D’Mello frowned, and drew nearer to Girish.

  “Why are you grinning? Is something funny?”

  Girish shook his head.

  The teacher continued. He spoke of other things that made his blood boil. Once India had been ruled by three foreigners: England, France, and Portugal. Now their place was taken by three native-born thugs: Betrayal, Bungling, and Backstabbing. “The problem is here-” He tapped his ribs. “There is a beast inside us.”

  He began to tell Girish things he had told no one-not even his wife. His innocence of the true nature of schoolboys had lasted just three months into his life as a teacher. In those early days, he confessed to Girish, he stayed back after class to read up on the collection of Tagore’s poetry in the library. He read the pages carefully, stopping sometimes to close his eyes and fantasize that he was alive during the freedom struggle-in any one of those holy years when a man could attend a rally and see Gandhi spinning his wheel and Nehru addressing a crowd.

  When he got out of the library his head would be buzzing with images from Tagore. At that hour, electrolyzed by the setting sun, the brick wall around the school became a long plane of beaten gold. Banyan trees grew along the length of the wall; within their deep, dark canopies, tiny leaves glittered in long strings of silver, like rosaries held by the meditating tree. Mr. D’Mello passed. The whole earth seemed to be singing Tagore’s verses. He passed by the playground, which was set into a pit below the school. Debauched shouts jarred his reveries.

  “What is that shouting in the evenings?” he asked a colleague naïvely. The older teacher helped himself to a pinch of snuff. Inhaling the vile stuff from the edge of a stained handkerchief, he had grinned.

  “’Tripping. That is what is going on.”

  “’Tripping?”

  The more experienced teacher winked.

  “Don’t tell me it didn’t happen when you were at school…”

  From D’Mello’s expression he gathered that this was, indeed, not the case.

  “It’s the oldest game played by boys,” the old teacher said. “Go down and see for yourself. I don’t have the language to describe it.”

  He went down the next evening. The sounds became louder and louder as he descended the steps into the playground.

  The next morning, he summoned all the boys involved-all of them, even the victims-to his desk. He kept his voice calm with an effort. “What do you think this is, a moral school run by Catholics, or a whorehouse?” He hit them with such violence that morning.

  When he was done, he noticed that his right elbow was still shaking.

  The next evening, there was no noise from the playground. He recited Tagore out loud to protect himself from evil:

  Where the head is held high and the mind is without fear…

  A few days later, passing the playground, he saw his right elbow trembling again in recognition. The old, familiar black noise was rising from the playground.

  “That was when the scales fell off my eyes,” Mr. D’Mello said. “I had no more illusions about human nature.”

  He looked at Girish with concern. The little boy was stirring a large grin into the red cordial.

  “They haven’t done it to you, have they, Girish-when you play cricket with them in the evening? ’Tripping?”

  (Mr. D’Mello had already let d’Essa and his overdeveloped gang know: if they ever tried that on Girish, he would skin them alive. They would see what an ogre he really was.)

  He watched Girish with anxiety. The boy said nothing.

  Suddenly the boy put his cordial down, stood up, and advanced to his teacher with a folded piece of paper. The assistant headmaster opened it, prepared for the worst.

  It was a gift: a poem, in chaste Hindi.

  Monsoon.

  This is the wet and fiery season,

  When lightning follows after thunder.

  Each night, the sky shakes, and I wonder,

  What could be the reason

  God gave us this wet and fiery season?

  “Did you write this yourself? Is this what you were blushing about?”

  The boy nodded happily.

  Good Lord! he thought. In thirty years as a teacher no one had done anything like this for him.

  “Why is the rhyming scheme uneven?” D’Mello frowned. “You should be careful about such things…”

  The teacher pointed out the flaws of the poem one by one. The boy nodded his head attentively.

  “Shall I bring you another one tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Poetry is good, Girish, but…are you losing interest in quizzes?”

  The boy nodded.

  “I don’t want to go anymore, sir. I want to play cricket after class. I never get to play, because of the-”

  “You have to go to the quizzes!” Mr. D’Mello got up from his rocking chair. He explained: Any opportunity for fame in this small town had to be seized at once. Didn’t the boy understand?

  “First go to the quizzes, become famous, then you’ll get a big job, and then you can write poetry. What will your cricket get you, boy? How will it make you famous? You’ll never write poetry if you don’t get out of here, don’t you understand?”

  Girish nodded. He finished his cordial.

  “And, tomorrow, Girish…you’re going to Belmore. I don’t want any more discussion about that.”

  Girish nodded.

  After the boy left, Mr. D’Mello sat in his rocking chair and thought for a long time. It was no bad thing, he was thinking, Girish Rai’s newfound interest in poetry. Perhaps he could look out for a poetry contest for Girish to enter. The boy would win, of course-he would come back heaped in gold and silver. The Dawn Herald might put a picture of him on the back page. Mr. D’Mello would stand with his arms proudly on Girish’s shoulders. “The teacher who nourished the budding genius.” They would conquer Bangalore next, the teacher-and-pupil team that won the all-Karnataka state poetry contest. After that, what else- New Delhi! The President himself would award the two of them a medal. They would take an afternoon off, take a bus to Agra, and visit the Taj Mahal together. Anything was possible with a boy like Girish. Mr. D’Mello’s heart leapt up with joy, as it had not done for years, since his days as a young teacher. Just before he went to sleep in his chair he pressed his eyes shut and prayed fervently, Lord, only keep that boy pure.

  Next morning, at ten past ten, by the express order of the state government of Karnataka, a throng of innocent schoolboys from St. Alfonso’s with surnames from O to Z rushed into the welcoming arms of a theater of pornography. An old stucco angel crouched over the doorway of the theater, showering its dubious benediction on the onrushing boys.

  Once they got inside, they found they ha
d been tricked.

  The walls of Angel Talkies-those infamous murals of depravity-had been covered in black cloth. Not a single picture remained visible to the human eye. A deal had been struck between Mr. D’Mello and the theater management. The children would be shielded from the Murals of Sin.

  “Do not stand close to the black cloth!” Mr. D’Mello shouted out. “Do not touch the black cloth!” He had everything planned. Mr. Alvarez, Mr. Rogers, and Mr. Bhatt went among the students to keep them away from the posters. Two attendants from the theater helped in the arrangements. The boys were split into two groups. One group was marched to the upstairs auditorium, one herded downstairs. Before they could react, the boys would be sealed off inside the auditoriums. And so it was done: the plan worked perfectly. The boys were inside Angel Talkies, and they were going to watch nothing but the government films; Mr. D’Mello had won.

  The lights cut out inside the upstairs auditorium; a buzz of excitement from the boys. The screen glowed.

  A scratched and fading reel flickered into life.

  SAVE THE TIGER!

  Mr. D’Mello stood behind the seated boys along with the other teachers. He wiped his face with relief. It looked like everything was going to be okay, after all. After leaving him alone in peace for a few minutes, young Mr. Bhatt then moved up to the assistant headmaster and tried to make small talk.

  Ignoring young Mr. Bhatt, Mr. D’Mello kept his eyes to the screen. Photos of tiger cubs frolicking together flashed on the screen, and then a caption said, “If you don’t protect these cubs today, how can there be tigers tomorrow?”

  He yawned. Stucco angels stared at him from the four corners of the auditorium, long peels of faded paint rising from their noses and ears, like heat blisters. He hardly went to films anymore. Too expensive; he had to get tickets for the wife and the two little screamers too. But as a boy, hadn’t films been his whole life? This very theater, Angel Talkies, had been one of his favorite haunts; he would cut class and come here and sit alone and watch movies and dream. Now look at it. Even in the darkness the deterioration was unmistakable. The walls were foul, with large moisture stains. The seats had holes in them. The simultaneous advance of decay and decadence: the story of this theater was the story of the entire country.

  The screen went black. The audience tittered. “Silence!” Mr. D’Mello shouted.

  The title shot of the “bonus reel” came on.

  THE IMPORTANCE OF

  PHYSICAL WELL-BEING IN

  THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN

  Images of boys showering, bathing, running, and eating, each appropriately captioned, began flashing one by one. Mr. Bhatt came up to the assistant headmaster once again. This time he whispered deliberately:

  “It’s your turn to go now, if you want.”

  Mr. D’Mello understood the words, but not the hint of secrecy in the young man’s voice. At his own suggestion, the teachers were taking turns to patrol the black-clothed corri dor to make sure none of the overdeveloped boys slipped out to take a peek at the pornographic images. It had just been Gopalkrishna Bhatt’s turn to patrol the Murals of Sin. For a moment he was lost-then it all made sense. From the way the young man was grinning, Mr. D’Mello realized that he had taken a quick peek himself. He looked around: each of the teachers was suppressing a grin.

  Mr. D’Mello walked out of the auditorium full of contempt for his colleagues.

  He walked past the black-cloth-covered walls without feeling the slightest urge. How could Mr. Bhatt and Mr. Rogers have been so base to have done it? He walked past the whole length of the walls without the least temptation to lift up the black cloth.

  A light flickered on and off in a stairwell that led to an upper gallery. The walls of this gallery too were covered with black cloth. Mr. D’Mello dropped his mouth open and squinted at the upper gallery. No, he was not dreaming. Up there, he could make out a boy, his face averted, walking on tiptoe toward the black cloth. Julian d’Essa, he thought. Naturally. But then the boy’s face came into view, just as he lifted up a corner of the black cloth and peered.

  “Girish! What are you doing?”

  At the sound of Mr. D’Mello’s voice the boy turned. He froze. Teacher and student stared at each other.

  “I’m sorry, sir…I’m sorry…they…they…”

  There was giggling behind him; and suddenly he vanished, as if someone had dragged him away.

  Mr. D’Mello rushed up the stairs at once, to the upper gallery. He could climb only two steps. His chest burned. Stomach heaving and hands clutching the balustrade, he rested there for a moment. The naked bulb in the stairwell sputtered on and off, on and off. The assistant headmaster felt dizzy. In his chest the heartbeat felt fainter and fainter, a dissolving tablet. He tried to call to Girish for help, but the words would not come out. Reaching a hand for help, he caught a corner of the black cloth on the wall. It ripped and split open: hordes of copulating creatures frozen in postures of rapes, unlawful pleasures, and bestialities swarmed out and danced around his eyes in a taunting cavalcade, and a world of angelic delights that he had scorned until now flashed at him. He saw everything, and he understood everything, at last.

  Young Mr. Bhatt found him like that, lying on the stairs.

  DAY TWO (EVENING): MARKET AND MAIDAN

  The Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Maidan (formerly King George V Memorial Maidan) is an open ground in the center of Kittur. In the evenings, it fills up with people playing cricket, flying kites, and teaching their children to ride bicycles. At the edges of the maidan, ice cream and ice candy sellers peddle their wares. All major political rallies in Kittur are held in the maidan. The Hyder Ali Road leads from the maidan to Central Market, Kittur’s largest market for fresh produce. The Town Hall of Kittur, the new law court, the Havelock Henry District Hospital, and both the premier hotels in Kittur-the Hotel Premier Intercontinental and the Taj Mahal International-are within walking distance of the market. In 1988, the first temple meant exclusively for the use of Kittur’s Hoyka community opened for worship in the vicinity of the maidan.

  WITH HAIR LIKE that, and eyes like those, he could easily have passed himself off as a holy man, and earned a living sitting cross-legged on a saffron cloth near the temple. That was what the shopkeepers at the market said. Yet all this crazy fellow did, morning and evening, was crouch on the central railing of the Hyder Ali Road and stare at the passing buses and cars. In the sunset, his hair-a gorgon’s head of brown curls-shone like bronze, and his irises glowed. While the evening lasted, he was like a Sufi poet, full of mystic fire. Some of the shopkeepers could tell stories about him: one evening they had seen him on the back of a black bull, riding it down the main road, swinging his hands and shouting, as if the Lord Shiva himself were riding into town on his bull, Nandi.

  Sometimes he behaved like a rational man, crossing the road carefully, or sitting patiently outside the Kittamma Devi Temple with the other homeless, as they waited for the leftovers of meals from weddings or thread ceremonies to be scraped into their clustered hands. At other times he would be seen picking through piles of dog shit.

  No one knew his name, religion, or caste, so no one made any attempt to talk to him. Only one man, a cripple with a wooden leg who came to the temple in the evenings once or twice a month, would stop to give him food.

  “Why do you pretend not to know this fellow?” the cripple would shout, pointing one of his crutches at the fellow with the brown curls. “You’ve seen him so many times before! He used to be the king of the number five bus!”

  For a moment the attention of the market would turn to the wild man; but he would only squat and stare at a wall, his back to them and the city.

  Two years ago, he had come to Kittur with a name, a caste, and a brother.

  “I am Keshava, son of Lakshminarayana, the barber of Gurupura Village,” he had said at least six times on his way to Kittur, to bus conductors, toll gatherers, and strangers who asked. This formula, a bag of bedding tucked beneath his arm, and
the light pressure of his brother’s fingers at his elbow whenever they were in a crowd were all he had brought with him.

  His brother had ten rupees, a bag of bedding that he too tucked under his right arm, and the address of a relative written on a paper chit that he kept crushed in his left hand.

  The two brothers had arrived in Kittur on the five p.m. bus. They got off at the bus station; it was their first visit to a town. Right in the middle of the Hyder Ali Road, in the center of the biggest road in all of Kittur, the conductor had told them that their six rupees and twenty paise would take them no farther. Buses charged around them, with men in khaki uniforms hanging from their doors, whistles in their mouths that they blew on screechingly, shouting at the passengers, “Stop gaping at the girls, you sons of bitches! We’re running late!”

  Keshava held on to the hem of his brother’s shirt. Two cycles swerved around him, nearly running over his feet; in every direction, cycles, autorickshaws, and cars threatened to crush his toes. It was as if he were at the beach, with the road shifting beneath him like sand beneath the waves.

  After a while, they summoned up the courage to approach a bystander, a man whose lips were discolored by vitiligo.

  “Where is Central Market, uncle?”

  “Oh, that…It’s down by the Bunder.”

  “How far is the Bunder from here?”

  The stranger directed them to an autorickshaw driver, who was massaging his gums with a finger.

  “We need to go to the market,” Vittal said.

  The driver stared at them, his finger still in his mouth, revealing his long gums. He examined the moist tip of his finger. “Lakshmi Market or Central Market?”

  “Central Market.”

  “How many of you?”