Victoria Falls

by James Hornor

  After seeing my World Bank credentials, the only questions I received from the customs official were to find out where I was staying and my expected return date. He even seemed unconcerned when I told him that my return date was uncertain. The big surprise was that he didn’t ask me to open the $35,000 case. I had reported the cash on my customs form and apparently that was enough.

  As I walked out of the airport and headed for the taxi stand, the first thing I noticed was the heat and humidity. April and May are the end of summer in Kenya, but May in Bombay is one of the hottest months to be followed in July by the beginning of the monsoon. The airport is only about twenty miles north of the center of the city, but depending on the time of day, the trip can take over an hour.

  As you get closer to the city center, the mass of humanity inhabiting the heart of Bombay becomes more intense, and the vibrancy of the city begins to throb in your ears even within the cocoon of a closed car. It has always amazed me how millions of people can inhabit such a small space, and yet somehow Bombay thrives in spite of itself. Its moniker is “Gateway to India,” and as the major port city on the west coast, it seems to embrace all of the best (and the worst) of Indian culture.

  It is a mishmash of religions, architecture, socio-economic groups, and artistic expression. It has incredibly wealthy enclaves—such as the Taj Hotel—and slums that would rival the worst of any South American city. There are street gangs and drugs and a subculture of black market goods ranging from prostitution to electronics. The best and the worst of humanity are here, and if you are wise as an outsider, you remain intentional about the purpose of your visit and keep aware of what is going on around you.

  Raj Gulati knocked on the door of my hotel room exactly at 3:30. He was wearing a business suit, and despite the heat, he had on a tie. From the moment he walked in, he seemed preoccupied and somewhat uncomfortable with my questions.

  “Should I discuss Jonathan Samuel’s case with the judge or just give him the money?”

  “He will probably ask you a few questions. It’s hard to say.”

  “How do you know Nisar Malik? Is he a business partner?”

  “I’d rather not talk about Nisar. I agreed to set up this meeting, and for me that’s where this ends.”

  “How do you know the judge will show up? Or to put it another way, what do I do if he doesn’t show up?”

  “Here’s my card. If he doesn’t show up, contact me, and I’ll return the money.”

  Although the meeting with Raj was beginning to feel one-sided, what choice did I have? If I didn’t give him the $5,000, he could easily call the judge and cancel the meeting. I would return to Nairobi to tell Melissa that the whole thing had fallen through.

  I opened the case, counted out $5,000, and handed it to Raj. He took the money, gave me a quick bow, and exited. He seemed amateurish compared to Nisar, but if he set up the meeting, he had done his job. I sat on the bed and looked at my watch. I still had fifteen minutes before the judge arrived, and I thought back to the day I had first met Melissa at the Devil’s Pool. I remembered feeling inadequate as I stood on the bank witnessing her rescue. I was the spectator. The real action was in the current itself, with Melissa swimming for her life and the man of courage pulling her to safety.

  Now I had become that man. I was in Bombay on a rescue operation to save her brother, and Melissa was on the sidelines, helpless to do much more than to cheer me on. I heard the knock at the door. I quickly moved the case off to the side, walked across the room, and pulled open the door. To my surprise, there was not one man, but three men, although the man in the middle was clearly the judge.

  “May I come in?”

  As they entered, I offered all three men a chair. The judge sat down directly across from me, and after lighting a cigarette, and looking briefly around the room, he looked directly at me.

  “Tell me why I’m here today.”

  It was not the question I was expecting, although I hadn’t considered how the conversation might begin.

  “Didn’t Mr. Gulati tell you the purpose of the meeting?”

  “He told me that you had come to Bombay on behalf of your friend whose brother is awaiting trial for smuggling drugs. I’ve looked into the case and there’s very little I am able to do.”

  My mind was racing. Was this the preamble that every corrupt judge used before accepting a bribe, or did he honestly not know the purpose of the meeting? What had Raj told him, or more importantly, what instructions had Nisar given to Raj? I decided that ambiguity would be the safest course.

  “Raj made me aware that you might be in a position to help Jonathan Samuel, but apparently that may not be the case.”

  “Are you offering me a bribe?”

  If I said no, then I had come to Bombay for nothing. If I said yes, then either Jonathan would be freed and we would fly back together to Nairobi, or it was entrapment, and I would be arrested on the spot for a capital offense.

  “I am asking that you accept $30,000 US for helping Jonathan Samuel to be set free.”

  “Do you have the money here? May I see it?”

  I walked across the room and grabbed the case. All three men leaned forward in their chairs as I undid the latches.

  The judge glanced at the money and then with one finger directed the man to his left toward the bedside telephone. A part of me assumed that the judge was directing the man to call the prison to procure Jonathan’s release. But wouldn’t the judge make that call himself? It was at that moment that the man on the right removed a small tape recorder from his breast pocket and clicked it off. I had just been trapped into offering an Indian judge a bribe.

  I could hear the man on the phone speaking very softly in Hindi. The only thing I recognized was my room number, which he repeated several times. The judge pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and again looked directly at me.

  “Did your friend Raj not tell you that I am known in my court for disliking Americans and arrogant Brits?”

  I couldn’t even speak, so I just nodded my head. Nisar must have instructed Raj to arrange a meeting with one of the toughest judges in Bombay, and I had walked into the setup.

  “Did you know that my sister went to college for two years in the United States?”

  He didn’t wait for my reply.

  “She was not treated well in the dormitory where she lived. In fact, she was harassed to the point that she finally returned home.”

  “I’m sorry that happened. Not all students from India are treated that way.”

  “And now your friend screws up, and you think all that is required is to bribe a judge with $30,000 and all will be forgotten?”

  “I was trying to help a friend.”

  “How about the poor people from the state of Maharashtra who became addicted to the drugs that your friend smuggled into Bombay? Are they left to suffer while your friend is released?”

  “I’m sorry about the drugs.”

  Suddenly I didn’t know what I was saying. I wanted to sound sympathetic, but my responses were coming off as insincere.

  “There are a few judges in Maharashtra who might take a bribe, but instead I will take your money and distribute it in the neighborhoods that have been ravaged by illegal narcotics.”

  I couldn’t imagine him actually doing that, but as he said it he pulled the case onto his lap and carefully snapped it shut.

  “We’ll think of it as America’s contribution to Bombay’s war on crime.”

  He now got up, took the case, and headed for the bathroom. I heard the door latch and the man who had the tape recorder and I were left alone. The man who had made the calls was standing guard in front of the door.

  “Do you know how screwed you are?”

  I was surprised that he had said anything to me.

  “They are going to take you directly to Arthur Road Jail and lock you up. Look, do you have any other cash?”

  For a moment I thought he was going to ask for any other money I might still have so that he c
ould take it, but instead he began to whisper.

  “When the judge comes out, ask to use the bathroom. He may want me to go in there with you. Either way, take the largest bills you have, roll them up and stick them up your rear as far as they will go. Believe me, where you are going, the only language of reprieve will be cash.”

  The judge was making his way out of the bathroom, and he was still holding onto the case. He came back over and sat down.

  “May I use the bathroom?”

  “Sure, but Amar will go with you.”

  Amar and I both got up and headed to the bathroom. I had three one-hundred dollar bills in my wallet and some small bills that probably totaled another hundred.

  As he closed the door and bolted us in, I’m sure he could see that I was shaking.

  “Roll up the three hundreds as tight as they will go, and stick them up there. You’ll know they are safe when they are pulled up in the opposite direction.”

  With both of my hands shaking so much that I could barely handle the money, I rolled up the bills and inserted them as far as they would go. I felt ashamed and violated as I fumbled with each bill. Instead of turning away, Amar continued to watch the entire process. After several tries I could feel them get pulled deeper inside.

  “Do you have a pen?”

  He pulled out a pen from the same pocket where he had hidden the recorder. I took the rest of the money out of my wallet and handed it to him.

  “I want you to make three phone calls for me. The first one will be to my daughter’s dormitory at NYU. She won’t be there until next week, but you need to speak directly to her.”

  I scribbled the number on the back of one of my business cards and wrote “Jenny Monroe” next to it.

  “Tell her that I am on special mission for the World Bank, and I don’t know when I will be able to contact her. Tell her that I said not to worry.”

  I still had a receipt from The Norfolk, and on the receipt was the phone number of the hotel.

  “Call this number in Nairobi. Ask for Mrs. Monroe in Room 17. Tell her that I’ve been arrested and I need her help. If you know where I am going to jail, give her that information as well. Finally, call this third number in America. Ask for Teresa Benjamin and tell her all that you know about my arrest.”

  Amar stuffed the cards, the receipt and the cash into his side pocket and then shook my hand.

  We could hear men’s voices on the other side of the door, and as Amar undid the latch I could see the judge talking to all four of them. They were big. Two of them had beards, and they looked more like street thugs than police officers. The judge handed them something—I guessed it was money from the case—and gave them instructions in Hindi.

  One of the men walked towards me, pulling out handcuffs from a black bag that hung from his belt. After quickly frisking me, he held my two hands in front of me and snapped on the cuffs. The cuff on my left wrist was already pinching the bone just above my hand. Once the cuffs were on, the judge walked over to me, and I thought for a moment that he was about to hit me.

  “I told them that you like to help drug dealers who come to Bombay to make a profit off the backs of the Indian people. Shame on you. You are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.”

  He picked up the case and headed for the door.

  “By the way, Mr. Monroe, for the fifteen flights down to the lobby, I told these men that you preferred to take the stairs.”

  It was the only time that he had addressed me by my name, and it confirmed that I had not been part of some bizarre mistake. Nisar had instructed Raj to contact one of the cruelest judges in Bombay, and he had just walked out the door with the money I had carefully saved for Jenny’s second year at NYU.

  Until we got out into the hallway and headed towards the stairwell, I had no idea what the judge meant when he said I preferred the stairs. Once we got into the stairwell, the men instructed me to sit on the top stair, and the two men who were now below me each grabbed an ankle. Before I had time to consider what might be next, the two men with my ankles began to pull me down the stairs.

  Without the use of my hands, I had no way to cushion each successive fall. And the concrete edge of each stair dug into my lower back. It was everything I could do to keep my head leaning forward so that the stairs did not slam into the back of my skull, but the two men walking down behind me would occasionally put their shoe on my forehead so that I could not lean forward.

  They were talking and laughing in Hindi, and at one point, after four or five flights, they asked me in English if I wanted to reconsider the elevator. When I didn’t reply one of them said, “Show him the elevator!” And with that the four of them lifted me over the railing, threatening to drop me into the vacuum of space that extended down for another eleven floors.

  Two of them grabbed the chain on my handcuffs so that I was swinging back and forth, fully extended above the abyss, held only by the cuffs. The pain in my wrists and the lower part of my hands was excruciating. At one point they stopped and pulled me back over the railing until one of them screamed “Not your floor?” With hysterical laughter they swung me back over and repeated “the elevator” several times.

  Finally they resumed pulling me down the stairs and I could feel the vertebrae being smashed in my lower back. I had bruises all up and down my back and legs and the back of my head was bleeding.

  When we reached the lobby level of the stairway, I tried to get up, but there was a sharp pain in the upper part of my legs and lower back that convinced me I was partially paralyzed. The men unclasped the cuffs, draped my arms over their shoulders, and led me out to a waiting car. A few people looked up, but for all they knew, I was drunk and being assisted by friends.

  Two of the men sat in the front of the car and I was placed in the middle of the back seat, flanked by the other two. Because of the damage to my lower back and the small space I was given, I couldn’t get comfortable. I discovered that moving forward a little on the seat provided some relief, but the man on the passenger side of the front seat warned me once to sit back. I did move back a few inches, but that was apparently not enough. He suddenly came over the seat and landed two ferocious punches to my nose and eye so that now there was blood all over my face and down the front of my shirt. For a moment I thought I would pass out from the pain, but even in that delirium I could still hear him shouting, “Do you want another one? I said, sit back!” The men to my left and right seemed oblivious to the blood, which was now covering part of the seat, and because of the handcuffs, I was only able to wipe some of it from my nose and eye.

  After about thirty minutes we arrived at what appeared to be a police station, and I was ceremoniously carried inside into a small anteroom. The same man who hit me in the face presented the officer on duty with a letter—presumably from the judge—and then came in and sat next to me, never offering any assistance with the blood that had started to coagulate around my left eye.

  With my right eye, I could see that I was at a station in a part of Bombay known as Kanjurmarg, and for almost thirty minutes I stared at a commendation that had been awarded to the Kanjurmarg Police in 1988 for lowering the crime rate from the two previous years. The chief of police was in the picture along with a judge. It was impossible to determine if the judge in the photo was my judge from earlier that day.

  Finally, the officer in charge appeared, and the man who hit me helped him get me into a cell. The two of them flanked me—I still could not walk—and dragged me through two heavily barred security barriers to a small cell that had a toilet and a cot, but no sink. There was a blanket on the cot, but it looked like it had not been cleaned in well over a year. As the two of them clanged the cell door behind them, the officer had a slight grin, as if he was about to say something. Instead, my thug friend gave me a parting thought for the evening.

  “Enjoy Kanjurmarg. This place is paradise compared to Arthur Road, and you’ll be there soon enough.”

  I had heard about Arthur Road Jai
l. It had the reputation of being the worst hellhole prison in India and one of the worst prisons in the world. If that was where I was headed, maybe I was lucky to spend my first night alone. I knelt down next to the toilet and removed my shirt. The front of it was covered with blood, but the back had a few places that had not been torn apart by the ride down the stairs. There was a little bit of water in the bottom of the toilet, and I carefully dipped my shirt into the water and began to dab away the dried blood on my face and the back of my head.

  There was no mirror, but after wiping away as much blood as I could, I used the shirt as a compress to put on my eye that had swollen shut. My nose was broken and though the bleeding had stopped, there was still blood coagulated in my nostrils; the makeshift compress provided some relief to my nose as well.

  I crawled over to the cot, and lying on my side, I was able to wedge part of the blanket up against the wall to provide some support for my back. I hadn’t eaten since having a sandwich on the plane, and I was tired and maimed from the stairs. As I began a restless night, I thought of Melissa, probably dancing on the Delamere Terrace with Gerard Hugel. At least I had managed to have Amar get a message to her, and with all of her ingenuity and resourcefulness she would undoubtedly find a way to get me out of Bombay and back to Nairobi. Since all of this had been done for her, it was her turn to reciprocate, and I had to believe that she would respond with the same kindness and generosity that I had shown her since the day we first met.

  I was awakened the next morning by the sharp clang of prison doors, and a young man (probably not more than twenty) appeared in my cell with a small plate of poha and some coffee. He also had a small cup, and in the cup were three ice cubes. I thanked him profusely and managed to find out that his name was Sunil. I wasn’t sure if the ice cubes were his idea or not, but I immediately wrapped two of the cubes in my shirt and applied the compress to my left eye, which was now completely swollen shut. I touched around my nose and it felt bulbous as if it were now twice its original size. The blows to the back of my head had resulted in a raging headache that kept me awake for part of the night, so I pressed the third cube into the base of my skull.