The Brothers K

by David James Duncan

  Grayson was a tall, pallid man, slender to the verge of emaciation, with a slightly bent, possibly broken nose, dark hair combed straight back, and an easy dignity that reminded Peter slightly of Papa. The elegant white suit struck Peter as an odd touch for a man of the people. But Indians in general and Muslims in particular did seem to have a high regard for outward signs of suzerainty, and the suit made Grayson stand out like a prince. He greeted Dessinger with a perfunctory embrace, and they began speaking directly into each other’s ears, probably to avoid being overheard. But after the shock of being pointed out by the mob wore off a little, Peter began to feel that the vigilantes were not as dangerous as they’d at first seemed. They were plainly on edge, and plainly interested in Peter’s group. But most of them looked more puzzled or concerned than angry. They also seemed to be tremendously interested in the radio Grayson was holding—which looked, by the way, identical to the one Dessinger had in his satchel. Peter couldn’t figure it out.

  The two men talked for a distressingly long time, then embraced again, and Dessinger started back toward the train, turning frequently to be sure he was not being followed. When he rejoined the Westerners, Peter was surprised to see that he was breathless, and dripping with nervous sweat. “It’s worse than we feared,” he said. “Grayson’s got this group in hand, as you can see. But they’re just one wing of a much larger mob, sent in to watch the back side of the station. And the word on the group out front is that they’re out for Western blood. Any Western blood. The Koran, I’m afraid, can be misread as an eye-for-an-eye sort of scripture.”

  “That’s it!” Waites said, reaching for his suitcases. “If you all won’t clear away from me, I’m clearin’ the hell away from you!”

  Dessinger grabbed his arm. “Given their mood, you’re no safer than anyone else. We’re gonna get through this, Waites. But we’ve got to stick together. Now listen. What Grayson wants you all to do is get off the train and greet him. And—this is crucial—he wants you to act as though you know him. He’s described you to the men out there as eccentric academics, and dear personal friends. His greeting will ensure your safety with this bunch till the train departs, believe me. And should the bigger group burst into the station while you’re out there, Grayson will lead you out the back and hide you. But hopefully they’ll stay out front. I’ll stay here to watch for them, keep an eye on your things, and so forth. So go to it. And remember to smile!”

  Struggling to erase the fear from their faces, Waites and Peter set out to do as they’d been told. But Kwester and Akasha, after whispering together, began donning their backpacks. “What are you doing?” Dessinger asked.

  “Just headin’ to ’Nagar,” Kwester said, hoisting his pack.

  Waites was incredulous. “You wanna get us all killed?” he roared.

  “Smile!” Dessinger reminded him, grinning hugely himself. “Kwester, Akasha, listen to me. I know it feels unreal, but this is a genuine life-and-death situation. Grayson can protect you, but only if you help. This charade has got to be convincing. And academics don’t travel around India in dirty old backpacks.”

  Grinning back just as hugely, Kwester said, “What you’re doin’ is cool. And we’ll join in, to help Pete and T Bar. But Akasha and me’re already protected—by my Master. I got nothing to add or subtract.”

  Still smiling, Dessinger said, “You’ll die in the streets.”

  “He’d better,” Waites fumed. “’Cause if I ever catch him I’ll kill him myself!”

  But Peter said nothing. He’d begun to admire Kwester’s mindless faith: it reminded him a little of Irwin. And Akasha was a bizarre, anger-dispelling sight altogether as she climbed down onto the station platform in her filthy fluorescent-orange backpack and clashingly clean pink sari. “For God’s sake get ahead of her!” Dessinger told the three men. “They’re Muslims, remember! And don’t forget you’re Robert’s dear old friends!”

  Foisting great grins up onto their faces, the three men barged obediently past Akasha, circled the train car, and the instant Grayson saw them he threw his arms up in delight. As the Westerners drew closer, the mob confused and frightened Peter by literally backing away from them, as if they were lepers or something. But except for that the charade seemed to go well enough. T Bar and Kwester both did excellent imitations of a warm reunion with Grayson, embracing him repeatedly, beaming idiotically into his eyes. In Akasha’s case the Islamic onlookers and the prodigious pink prow made embrace more problematic: Grayson settled for a courtly handshake. But when Peter’s turn came he marveled at the perfect believability of Grayson’s performance—his body rock-steady as they hugged, his eyes filled with what really seemed to be delight. “Very good,” he murmured. “That’s fine. But I’m afraid we’re not out of it yet. Let’s keep it muzzy with affection.”

  Peter nodded and kept smiling, though to his eye the crowd still appeared more confused or worried than angry. Another thing that made no sense: a lot of the restless muttering was definitely in Marathi, and Peter twice thought he heard reference to some sort of cricket team or test match—unlikely topics for a bunch of bloody-minded vigilantes. But before he could begin to sort his conflicting impressions the situation changed with terrifying speed:

  Another train—a small one, just six cars and an engine—came clattering into the station on the second track, blocking the Westerners’ route back to their own. And just as the train stopped rolling, Grayson’s radio squawked in his hand, some sort of news commentator began chattering, and at the first burst of verbiage the vigilantes turned as one man to listen and their anxiety seemed to increase tenfold. Peter didn’t understand it at all. When the broadcast ended, Grayson shook his head at the crowd, spoke several more sentences to them, and Peter recognized, but couldn’t decipher, fluent Urdu. But whatever Grayson said this time obviously distressed rather than calmed the crowd. In fact, most of them were now glaring furiously, right at T Bar. “What did you tell them?” Waites gasped.

  “Silence!” Grayson snapped, stepping up close to the Westerners—

  and the bottom fell out: though he still managed a forced smile and the blade was not yet open, he was palming a switchblade. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t expect this. But the mood here is lethal. We’ve got to get out. Kwester, Akasha. Me too, I’m afraid. This is the White Train. Wait till it gathers speed, then board the last car!”

  “My luggage!” Waites protested.

  “They think Dessinger’s one of them. It’s safe with him. We’ll meet him just down the line in Khuldabad. Now get ready.”

  But Kwester was shaking his head. “This kill-a-hippie shit is bullshit. We’re goin’ to ’Nagar, man. I got nothin’ to add or subtract.” And with that he and Akasha took each other by the hand, turned to the crowd of vigilantes, walked straight into them—and the Muslims parted like the Red Sea. Peter felt he should stop them, should dash into the crowd and drag the two idiots back out by their hair, if he had to. But before he could make himself move, the Red Sea closed. The little express train began rolling. Kwester and Akasha disappeared round a corner. “Don’t turn your backs,” Grayson murmured. “Watch out for knives, and for thrown rocks.”

  The train rolled faster. The last car approached. One of the Muslims shouted something at them. Grayson shouted something back. The Indians let out a rumble, and began to advance. “Holy fuck!” piped Waites.

  “Now!” Grayson shouted. “The White Train!”

  The three of them ran for it, leaping onto the steps of the last car. But before Peter climbed inside he leaned back and looked one last time at the receding crowd. And every last one of them was wearing the same incomprehensible expression: a look more of sadness, or even grief, than anger.

  The train gathered speed.

  Peter climbed up into the car—yet another third-class job—and found Grayson sitting beside a burly, disagreeable-looking Indian who, despite the blistering heat, was wearing a hideous black-and-white-plaid polyester sport coat. Peter plunked dow
n beside T Bar, who sat on the bench facing them. “Look at my damned hands!” Waites gasped.

  It seemed to impress him that they were shaking. But what impressed Peter was that his own were not. To him, the crowd never had felt truly threatening. What felt far more threatening to him was his own confusion now: he was wobbly with it, physically off balance with it, though he was sitting still. Because he’d heard Marathi. He’d heard a man refer to cricket. He could have spoken directly to that man. He’d spent his life studying the scriptures and languages of these people. And there he’d stood beside T Bar, the Aspiring Sweatshop Entrepreneur, as mute as if the crowd were words in a book …

  Grayson asked the burly Indian a question in Urdu. The man smiled—which made his face even more disagreeable—but answered the question, and several more, at length. Grayson turned to Peter and Waites. “Our first stop will be a place called Dadagaon,” he said, “which is not on the way to Khuldabad at all. My apologies. Apparently we switched tracks as we were leaving Aurangabad station. But this gentleman assures me that his taxi is parked at Dadagaon station, and that, for a hundred and fifty rupees (I haggled him down from three hundred) he can ferry all three of us over to Khuldabad well before Dessinger and your luggage arrive.”

  T Bar looked as though he’d received a sudden faith healing. “Fantastic!” he cackled.

  “Yes. You’re in luck,” Grayson said without enthusiasm. “But now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to borrow the engineer’s wireless and ask the Aurangabad police to try and help Kwester and Akasha. Though the police too are Muslim. And they may well be beyond help.”

  Waites tried to work a furrow of concern into his Teflon forehead. “I tried to stop ’em,” he groused. “I told ’em they were nuts …”

  But Grayson was already gone, the burly Indian obviously spoke no English, and Peter had his head down between his knees, as if trying not to faint or throw up.

  Dadagaon to gully/new journey

  Dadagaon, it turned out, was hardly a town, let alone a city. With a single paved exception the streets weren’t even streets: they were bullock-cart-rutted dirt lanes between tiny mud-colored houses. The train station was a whitewashed building about the size of a baseball dugout, with yet another Wild West device—a hitching post—out front. There was no one and nothing inside the doorless building. But there was a single black four-door sedan parked at the hitching post. “Are we lucky or what?” T Bar marveled.

  Peter had begun to suspect the answer to that might be “what.” But he was too queasy to do anything but float along on the current.

  Grayson took the front seat, Peter and Waites the back, and the burly Indian pulled onto the single paved strand and barreled out of town in seconds. “This is more like it!” Waites crowed, sticking his head out into the breeze. But they hadn’t gone more than three or four miles when the driver turned down a dirt side road. “Shortcut,” Grayson said quickly. “We discussed the route.”

  They drove past a few abandoned huts, dozens of drought-smitten fields and one skinny boy herding a few skinnier goats. Then the driver turned down a dusty, rock-strewn gully. “What the hell?” T Bar grunted.

  “It’s all right,” Grayson said. “We discussed it.”

  But moments after he reassured them the driver parked in the shade of a solitary neem tree, shut off the engine, and reached in his jacket. “Not car trouble!” Waites groaned.

  “No,” Grayson said, turning round to face them. “This is rather a different sort of trouble.”

  The burly Indian drew his hand out of his jacket. He was holding a revolver. Waites was so confused, and so incurably racist, that he yelled “Watch out!” at Grayson. But Peter—to the amazement of everyone, Grayson especially—let out a burst of what sounded like genuine, delighted laughter.

  “Bas!” snapped the Indian.

  “He means shuttup,” Grayson told Peter. “But have I missed something?”

  “It’s just—” Peter began. “It’s just the mind! Good God, the mind! It’s such an unbelievably good liar!”

  “All right, okay, I get it,” T Bar cut in. “This is you guys’ idea of a joke. But let me tell ya, I’m not findin’ this butthead’s cap gun a bit funny. An’ if he doesn’t get it outta my face fast, I’m gonna break his fuckin’—”

  “Natu!” Grayson barked, pointing at a grapefruit-sized rock outside the car. A split second later the gun roared, the rock spat dust and bounced several feet, their ears were ringing, the barrel was right back in T Bar’s face, and the driver was wearing a grin as hideous as his jacket. Waites turned pale—a considerable feat in the Deccan heat.

  “This is Natu, gentlemen,” Grayson said. “He speaks no English. He has no sense of humor. And his gun is going to stay where it is. So for your own sakes, behave. The loss of the hippies has put us in a foul mood.”

  “You mean they’re already dead?” T Bar gasped.

  Grayson smiled. “For our purposes, yes.”

  Waites’s brain was whirring almost audibly. It didn’t help. “Your purposes! You, you mean you’re the vigilantes?”

  Grayson started to laugh. But again, so did Peter. It stopped Grayson cold. “Is this hysteria? Or do you actually purport to be enjoying yourself?”

  Peter understood that he was making the man angry, that their danger was real. But he couldn’t help himself. Some kind of light had broken out inside him. “Such a liar!” he repeated. “It’s wonderful, really. How it throws you in a pit and makes you think it’s a beautiful palace. How it twists even love for truth into pettiness and worry and fear. How it—”

  “I can’t take this!” T Bar gasped, clawing at his string tie, then clutching at his throat. “Stuff like this, I get asthma! An’ my medicine’s in my suitcase, my suitcase is gettin’ away, wonderful liar, beautiful palace, I don’t get any of this. So somebody! Please! Just tell me!”

  Grayson turned to Peter. “Perhaps he’d take it best,” he said wryly, “if you described the basic situation.”

  Peter gave it a try. “The good news, T Bar,” he began, speaking with great earnestness, but also with a sense of wonder that made every word virtually incomprehensible to Waites, “is that there was no Muslim boy killed in Aurangabad, there were no race riots, those weren’t vigilantes at the station, Kwester and Akasha are safely on their way to ’Nagar, and Dessinger and Grayson, or whatever their names may be, are two of the greatest impromptu actors we’ll ever live to see.”

  Waites just kept wheezing and gawking, but Grayson was clearly flattered by this beginning. “We do enjoy our work,” he remarked, studying T Bar’s panic as if it was a canvas he’d just painted. Which in a sense it was.

  “The other news,” Peter continued, “and it’s also good, if you can just accept it for the blessing it is, is that we needed this to happen. Because face it, T Bar. It never could’ve worked if we weren’t such nincompoops. It didn’t work on Kwester and Akasha. But you and I have been stumbling around India with bags over our heads. Yours had penny-apiece trout flies sticking in it, and mine had medieval poetry scribbled all over it, but neither had eye or air holes. And when you’re stumbling around that stupidly, when you’re suffocating like that, T Bar, then the greatest thing that can happen is to have the damn bag ripped away. And that’s just what’s happening! That’s exactly what Grayson and Dessinger are doing for us!”

  Grayson was smiling broadly now, but T Bar just kept wheezing.

  “Forget your trout flies a minute,” Peter told him, “and think about some of the bait we swallowed today. Like about this guy.” He nodded at Grayson. “Think about the exact kind of fear that Dessinger slipped into us. Then think of the portrait he drew of this British convert to Islam. This mysterious Sufi. This sage counsel to the Indian Parliament, beloved by all Aurangabadians, with his three loving wives and herd of happy offspring!”

  Grayson began to laugh. So did Peter. T Bar gaped at them as if they’d both sprouted moose antlers. “How handy for us that he happened to break
up race riots for a hobby!” Peter cried. “Prob’ly spends his weekends leading groups of autistic kids up Mount Everest too, don’t you s’pose? And as we roll into the strife-torn station, praise Allah, there he is—the white man in the white suit in the brown crowd! ‘Just his greeting will save you!’ Dessinger tells us. So we leave everything. We dump everything we own for the great white life-giving hug!”

  Grayson was roaring now—and Waites was hyperventilating.

  “But now here’s the great part, T Bar,” Peter said, “and the part that Grayson and Dessinger maybe never planned on. Since we left everything behind, including our damned head bags, the whole stupid situation really is life-giving! Or could be. This moment is a knife, T Bar. But you’ve got to take a deep breath, calm yourself, and grab it by the handle, not the blade. Because if you look at it one way, yes, Dessinger probably is plowing through our suitcases even as we speak. But if none of this had happened, just think what we’d—”

  It took Waites maybe three seconds to fully comprehend the phrase “plowing through our suitcases.” He then grabbed it firmly—by the blade—and started roaring with rage. But it took Natu no seconds at all to comprehend the roar, grab his revolver by the barrel, and thwack T Bar hard in the forehead.