by Cary Groner
“All I’m saying is that they’re going to want her to look good,” Finley said. “No scabs, no bruises, no hollow, haunted eyes. They’ll feed her and probably even find her something to wash her hair with. So yes, do what you have to do to get her out. But don’t scream at the RNA and don’t fall apart, because then you won’t be any good to her. Okay?”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Peter borrowed a detailed topographical map of the area, went back to his house, and called Sangita again. Ramesh had come home, so she brought him over. Ramesh knew the name of the guerrillas’ village, but it wasn’t on the map. Nevertheless, by finding a couple of towns he knew, then triangulating, he was able to show Peter about where the compound should be. Peter folded the map and put it in his pocket.
When he arrived for his meeting with Colonel Sengupta, Peter found the man and his assistants standing in a room, watching television. The colonel eyed Peter coldly and gestured toward the set. Peter turned to look.
Adhiraj had moved swiftly. On the screen, set against a neutral backdrop of forest, was the image he’d been dreading. Alex was dressed in clean, pressed camouflage fatigues and a headband. A Kalashnikov sat on a table in front of her. She spoke briefly in Nepali, then repeated herself in English.
“This struggle is not about ideology, it’s about income disparity,” she said, and Peter realized where he’d heard those words. He’d written her first speech for her the night he’d been pontificating on the way to the pizza parlor.
His daughter was unthreatening, convincing, and extremely telegenic. Peter was relieved that Finley had been right in one way, at least; Alex looked like she’d been fed and reasonably well cared for. Adhiraj had obviously figured out one way to get more attention in the United States.
“When you have ninety-five percent of the population living on less than three hundred dollars a year, and the other five percent rolling around in Bentleys, this is what you get,” Alex continued, stopping briefly to adjust the microphone on the table in front of her. She rested her right hand on the stock of the rifle; then, tellingly, she pulled it away. It was her one misstep, but she quickly hit her stride again. “I’ve joined this cause not because I hate the king, and not because I love violence. I have joined because I love the Nepali people, and I hate what the royal family and its minions in the RNA are doing to them. This is a call to all Americans and all people of the international community, to see which side is in the right here and take a stand.”
Jesus Christ, thought Peter.
“Turn it off,” said Sengupta, and one of the others did. Sengupta turned to face Peter. “This is who you want us to rescue? A stupid girl who is killing our own soldiers?”
“She’s not killing anyone.”
“Words like this encourage the enemy, and the enemy kills us. We lost two hundred in raids last week. She might as well have pulled the trigger herself.”
“She is a hostage doing what hostages do, which is cooperate.”
The colonel and his adjutants exchanged glances. “Come with me,” he said. “Captain, join us.” The two men escorted Peter down the hall to another room. They led him inside and shut the metal door.
The room held an old Steelcase table and several battered chairs. The only light was from a frosted-glass window at the end, which made it feel chilly even though it wasn’t. Sengupta extended his hand toward a chair, and Peter sat.
“That was far more than cooperation,” Sengupta said. “That was commitment, revolutionary fervor.”
“With all due respect, Colonel, that was acting,” said Peter. “If you’d seen her in drama club, you’d understand.”
Sengupta exhaled in exasperation. “Where is the compound?”
Peter was about to pull out the map, but something in the way Sengupta had asked the question gave him pause. “What are you going to do when you find out?”
“These people are terrorists. It is now clear that your daughter is a terrorist.”
“For God’s sake, she’s been there less than a week,” Peter replied. “She’s seventeen years old.”
“Seventeen is young in your country but not here,” Sengupta said. “She is probably older than half the guerrillas there. I ask again, where is this village?”
“So you can send in gunships and kill anything that moves? Is that your great plan?”
“Adhiraj is one of Prachanda’s best operatives,” he said. “We will take whatever action we deem appropriate.”
Peter started for the door. “Then I’ll get her out without your help.”
“This is impossible.”
“We’ll see.”
“You don’t know the situation, Doctor.”
It occurred to him that they might actually arrest him to find out what they wanted to know. He couldn’t take the chance.
“What I don’t know is where the compound is, Colonel!” he said. “There were three or four ridges, a couple of rivers, and rhododendrons so thick a goat trail was the only way through them. At the embassy we got it down to fifteen hundred square miles! I thought you’d be able to help with that, but thanks anyway.”
| | |
By Peter’s back porch, a dozen parrots were hanging upside down from the branches of the jacaranda, squawking at one another. They’d been eating fermented berries from the bush next door, and they were drunk. Peter watched them, exhausted but appreciating the lunacy of it.
Could he pray? he wondered. Was it just a matter of pride? He thought if there were a sort of trickster god, a drunken-parrot god, some sidelong, wisecrack aspect of God, to that god he could now conceivably pray. What such a supplication might bring he didn’t know, and even answered prayers often seemed to come with a price. It didn’t matter anymore what the price was, though. He sat still and took a long, slow breath and offered up his prayers as honestly as he could, for at this point there was nothing else to do. He wasn’t sure if he had ever really prayed before, at least with any sincerity. It was humbling and scary, the feeling of relinquishing the reins.
When he had finished, he took another breath. He didn’t feel much of anything. The parrots began a minor avian orgy, then all at once there was a green explosion of wing beats and they flew off together, their dozen thrumming hearts synchronized in air.
It was an old belief, of course, that if God wanted to talk to you, he might give you some sort of idea. But Peter sat there, trying to find his way through it all, bereft of inspiration.
He decided to go to bed. He didn’t imagine there was a lot of time, but he would take some of it. He lay down. His heart thudded quietly. The room faded around him, and feeling as tiny and powerless as he ever had, finally he went to sleep.
When he awakened a couple of hours later, at sunset, he leaned on his elbow and looked out at the mountains, pink and beautiful in the evening light. Something had welled up as he slept, something that hadn’t occurred to him before. He sat up, pulled on his pants, shoved his feet into his shoes, and called Mina.
| | |
An hour later he sat in his living room with Usha and Mina, who was translating for her.
“So her mother didn’t know?” Peter asked.
Mina shook her head. “It turns out her mother thought they were selling her as a domestic slave to a rich family, which is still pretty odious,” she said. “But the prostitution was her father’s idea, because there was more money in it.”
“Is there a way to get ahold of her mother?”
Mina spoke to Usha and told Peter that there was a phone in the village. “She’s afraid, though, because she has a lot of relatives who will be angry if they learn the truth.”
“Angry at her, or at her father?”
Mina asked her. “She says partly at her father but mainly at Bahadur. Their whole relationship is built on trust, and if he lied to her mother and her aunts it won’t go down well.”
“Get the number, will you? We’re calling her mom tonight.”
TWENTY-NINE
“Peter, my good frie
nd,” said Bahadur, his voice shaky. It was the next afternoon; the family had moved swiftly.
“Hello, Bahadur.”
“You must drive to the address I give you and bring Usha. Please come right away.”
An hour later Peter, Mina, and Usha pushed open the dented steel door of an abandoned warehouse in one of the city’s old industrial districts. The concrete floor was filthy and littered with huge rusty gears and parts from old machines. The air smelled of axle grease. Sun shafts bored through holes in the roof, lighting up dust motes and patches of floor so that the room was as dappled as the shade under a tree.
At the far end stood a cluster of people. One of them broke away from the others and came toward them.
“Aama!” cried Usha, and threw her arms around her.
“Chori,” said her mother. “Usha chori.”
As Peter’s eyes grew more used to the light he saw Bahadur tied out spread-eagled against the far wall. One man held a khukuri knife at his throat. The other had pulled down Bahadur’s pants and appeared ready to geld him. Usha saw him and turned away. Peter and Mina walked over.
“Peter, my excellent American friend,” said Bahadur, his face beaded with sweat.
“Who are they?”
“Parents, uncles, aunts,” said Bahadur. He was pale. “It is a very close family from the hill country, if you follow my meaning.”
Peter nodded. “Do any of them speak English?”
Bahadur shook his head. He explained the situation, and Peter did his best to pretend that it came as a complete surprise.
“So you’d like me to tell them that I bought her merely as a domestic.”
“Immediately, if you don’t mind.”
“But that’s not what you were selling her for. You know that.”
Bahadur looked at him, stricken. “But Doctor …”
“Here’s the deal,” Peter said. “Mina will tell them I’m a doctor with a daughter of my own and that Usha is still a virgin.”
“Of course, that is the truth,” said Bahadur, with an ingratiating smile.
Peter went on. “After that, I’m going to buy them a couple of rooms at a hotel and pay the tab for their dinner. While they’re there, you’re going to do something for me, and if you fuck it up in any way whatsoever I’ll take you back to them and tell them the truth, that you were trying to sell her as a whore.”
“All right,” said Bahadur. “Whatever you say. Just please …”
Peter nodded to Mina, and she spoke to the family. As she did, Peter watched the father, who stood a little apart from the others with his arms crossed, staring at the ground.
There were general sounds of relief, but then Usha’s mother spoke up.
“She says she wants proof that Usha is still a virgin,” Mina said. “She doesn’t see why an American doctor should be different from any other man.”
“If Usha doesn’t mind, take them out to the car so she can check for herself,” Peter said, knowing that this is what it would likely take to allay their fears.
Usha nodded, and the women left. The men put their knives away and untied Bahadur, who quickly pulled up his pants. In a couple of minutes the women returned. Usha’s mother spoke to them, and everyone seemed to relax. The men clapped Bahadur on the shoulder.
“Yes, yes,” said Bahadur, with a big, shit-eating grin. “All a misunderstanding! No hard feelings!”
Mina told them about the hotel, which was presented as Peter’s gift to the family in appreciation of their daughter. They gathered their things, smiling and talking excitedly, then departed.
| | |
Bahadur’s house was commodious and elegantly furnished. He and Peter sat in the office, Bahadur watching nervously as Peter opened a database of names on Badahur’s laptop.
“These are your clients in the army?” Peter asked.
“I can barely keep it up to date.”
“I had no idea you were so organized, Bahadur.”
“It is the only way to stay out of jail, I’m afraid.”
Peter went to the S’s, but Sengupta was not on the list. He then scrolled backward; he wasn’t hoping for much, but when he got to the P’s he nearly fell out of his chair.
“Pradhan?” he said, incredulous. “Colonel Pradhan? Mina’s father?”
Bahadur cleared his throat uncomfortably. “An unhappy marriage, apparently. As so many are.”
Peter closed the laptop and put it in his bag.
“You’re keeping my computer?” Bahadur said.
“Just a little insurance, so you don’t disappear, and so nothing happens to me. It will be safe with friends. Now let’s go.”
Bahadur paled. “Not Pradhan, Doctor, please.”
“Usha’s family is waiting at the hotel,” Peter said. “It’s your choice.”
THIRTY
Pradhan kept an office in the old British headquarters building west of the Royal Palace. He was tall and slender, his hair and mustache the sleek gray of polished steel, his eyebrows dark over dry, penetrating eyes. Peter left Bahadur out of sight down the hallway and came into the office alone.
Pradhan reached into his desk and produced a pack of American cigarettes. “They are so much better than bidis,” he said. “You don’t mind?”
“It’s your office, Colonel.”
Pradhan lit up. He puffed a few times, then opened the window behind him. Traffic noise from below came into the room.
“What you are asking, I cannot do,” he said. “I am retired, and because of that it is illegal and too risky. I am still in trouble over the helicopter pilot, and that was nothing compared to this.”
“You want more money,” Peter said. “I understand. I’ll get it.”
Pradhan came to the desk and put the cigarette in the ashtray. He extended his fingers and leaned forward on them, his face downward, the way a sprinter leans just before the gun.
“Money is not the issue,” he said. “It is much more complicated than that.”
“Name your terms, then. I’ll meet them.”
“Your daughter’s television appearance would make it very hard to find men for such a job,” he said. “It is a matter of honor.”
“You think it’s honorable to leave a seventeen-year-old girl out there?”
“You don’t understand,” said Pradhan. There was a picture of Mina next to the ashtray on the desk; he picked it up, regarded it absently, then put it down again.
Peter watched him and realized that in fact he had misunderstood. “This isn’t about my daughter, is it?” he said. “This is about your daughter.”
Pradhan shrugged. “I have a good man for her,” he said. “A Nepali man. Wealthy. I know you Americans don’t give a damn about tradition, but we still do.”
“Does Mina like him? Does she even know him?”
“That is not the point,” said Pradhan, bristling. “My wife and I had an arranged marriage, and it has worked out very well.”
“For you, maybe,” said Peter. “I’ve heard a dissenting opinion, though.” He got up, went to the hall, and brought in Bahadur.
Pradhan stiffened to attention. “What is this man doing here?”
“Hello, Colonel,” said Bahadur sheepishly. “I am sorry for this, but as you may imagine, I have been put in a most unpleasant position.”
Pradhan glared at both of them, his eyes fearful and fierce, his mouth a tight rictus of loathing. Peter pulled over a chair and sat down.
“I have a lot of respect for your expertise in military matters, Colonel,” he said. He opened up the map and spread it out on the desk. “Now explain to me exactly how you’re going to get my daughter out of that village.”
| | |
Once Pradhan became reconciled to his situation, he undertook the project with professional resolve. He told Peter that to do the job well and safely would take a few days. There were arrangements, logistics, things Peter knew nothing about. If he wanted his daughter alive, he must be patient. They agreed that Mina would know nothing o
f the blackmail, that she would be allowed to believe Pradhan had undertaken the project simply out of outrage at the rebels, and to help his daughter’s friend.
For the first three days Peter paced his house. He had too much time to think. Had he done the right thing? Was there another, less risky way that he hadn’t considered? He called Finley at the embassy, told her his plans, asked her what she thought.
“We haven’t had this conversation, and I don’t know anything about it,” she replied. “And I wish you luck.”
He called Mina and asked if he could trust her father to do it right.
“Look, he’s a traditional military man,” she said. “He’s ultraconservative and a real prick sometimes. But in this, yes—he’s just the person you need.”
That third sleepless night he lay there thinking about something that had once happened with Alex. Her sophomore year she had been making straight A’s, but she also wanted to play basketball, and she wasn’t very good at it yet. One evening Peter found her in back of their house shooting free throws, her lips pressed tight together the way they used to get when she was either determined about something or trying not to cry.
“Coach told me I can’t shoot,” she said. Her voice wavered a little. “He pulled me out of the lineup and gave my spot to Margaret Donnelly, who’s like this fucking stork and can practically dunk without jumping.”
Peter said he was sorry and asked her what she was doing.
“I’m not stopping until I can shoot thirty free throws in a row. If I miss one, I start over.”
“He made you do this?”
She looked at him as if he were clueless. “I made me do this.”
He decided to let her. When she finally came inside, four or five hours later, he figured she’d succeeded. Eventually she reclaimed her spot among the starters after Donnelly, who was way too thin for her own good, sprained her ACL, and an orthopedist suggested she build up some quads if she ever hoped to stabilize the knee.