by Arnab Ray
‘You must have been paying the police a lot.’
‘It’s a bit more complicated than that. Sure you pay them and you pay at the right places, so that the money goes up and down and all around. But it’s a fool who only keeps the suitcase under the table and leaves. You have got to understand what the police want. Like everyone, they want to move up. And if you are in the police force, the further up you are, the more money you make. How do you move up? Well, you make arrests, seize goods, bust criminals. Criminals like us. So I would give them what they wanted. I would tip them off about one of my own consignments, mostly defectives, and then they would take pictures in front of the guns and those would make their way into the papers. They would be handing out medals and promotions like Diwali mithais for a month after that.’
‘And you would have friends in even higher places.’
‘Once I even got my consignment back, they were so happy with me.’
‘Did you tip them off about your rivals too?’
‘You catch on.’ He smiled, pleased. ‘In short, I made the police my best friends. They kept tabs on my enemies, found me new customers, and listened to me. Sure there would be some hard nuts now and then that would need some cracking, like that Tripathi, but mostly it was smooth sailing. Because I kept everyone happy. Anyone with a file and a government pen to sign it. I sent sweets on Diwali, heavy gold necklaces for marriages, and chamiya dancers for a night out on the town for the boys. I met clients, I drank with them, I played teen patti, I helped people out when they needed help or put them in more trouble. I made connections. When people were needed to capture booths and rig elections, I got them the men and the weapons. My side always won. And if it didn’t, well, I was on the other side too.’
‘I am impressed, but can I make a few suggestions? Or do you prefer women to just smile and nod…because I can do that too.’
‘No, no, go ahead, you are a smart girl. That I will not deny.’
‘Let me tell you a story. My parents came from Barisal. That’s now in East Pakistan…I suppose you call it Bangladesh now. My mother told me of this man in her village in Barisal. He had the biggest house, the best clothes. People came from other villages to invite him for their functions, some even called him Raja, and he always went in his horse carriage and with a whole line of people running behind like strays, holding umbrellas, wiping his seat before he sat on it, polishing his shoes. Once he died, people realized that he had no money. Absolutely none. The devil had always been flat broke. He borrowed money and then borrowed money to pay off the interest on the first and so on. People gave him money without taking any collateral from him just because of how rich he seemed to be. Surely someone who owns a horsedrawn carriage can’t run away with a loan of fifty rupees. And the moral of the story is if you want to impress the big people in Delhi, if you want to rise, you need to convince them you already have.’
‘I understand what you are saying.’
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head from side to side, ‘you don’t. Right now when I look at you, what do I see? A cheap watch that looks like you stole it from a corpse in a ditch, a shirt bought from the roadside, sunglasses that make you look like a tout selling tickets in black outside the theatre, and that cheap cologne I smell, I’m pretty sure it came from the same place you bought the shirt.’
Arjun was about to say that these were his best clothes but then thought better of it.
She continued, ‘The 555 cigarette is good, classy, but the lighter is such that even the villain’s henchman would be ashamed to bring it out in public. I know I am not an important person, but given that you were thinking of sleeping with me, you should have chosen a place better than Mitra Cabin. Not that I don’t like the cutlet there. Just that Mitra Cabin is not a place to take a lady.’
‘I wasn’t…well…’
‘Finally, don’t stay in places like that hotel, what’s the name of the place whose desk number you left?’
‘Adinath Lodge.’
‘Yes. Why would you even be there? Stay in the best places. Great Eastern or better yet, Grand. If you think it’s too expensive, though I think you can afford it already, borrow money. You will make it back like this.’ She snapped her fingers.
He was warm now, and he had rolled over so that he was on top of Nayantara and she had spread her legs, ever so slightly, in anticipation for what was to follow.
‘Is there a place you can send Arijit, for a day or two?’
‘I can keep him with his aunt, my sister at Barrackpore,’ she said. ‘But why?’
‘You were right. No more Adinath Lodge. We will be moving into the Grand Hotel for a few days. You and me. I know a good broker, he will get you a nice place to stay once I go back to Delhi. Tomorrow though, we’ll go shopping, get something nice for you and him to wear. And I need to get a new wardrobe too. You were right…’
She moved her head up slightly and kissed him, her tongue taking control.
Then they started once again.
Grand Hotel had beautiful sheets, clean and fragrant, and unlike the city, which was humid and sweaty, it was perfect inside – airconditioned, sealed tight from the noise and the strife outside, with no nosy neighbours or lecherous landlords. This meant Nayantara and Arjun made love through the night, and through the day, moaning and groaning and shuddering and shivering, interrupted only by room service and conversation. Arjun felt like a little child let loose in a toy store. It was not just because of how lush and unbridled Nayantara was, and he could never get enough of her warmth when he was inside her, but because she was utterly charming in a way he could not yet understand. She seemed to know exactly what to say, and when to say it, and how much to flutter her eyelids or part her lips, when to smile, when to laugh, when to giggle, when to be the girl-woman, when to be the taking-control mistress, and when to be the earnest listener.
They had showered together, and then Nayantara had gone down on her knees amidst the cascade of water droplets and taken him in her mouth. Arjun had no idea how she did what she did, but all he knew was that he wanted what she just did once more. And again and again. They were lying on the bed now, their bodies still wet, a white satin sheet covering Nayantara, and her fingers running lightly over Arjun’s chest.
‘How did you marry him?’ asked Arjun.
‘I have often wondered about that myself,’ Nayantara replied, her grip tightening over his chest hair.
‘I meant…’
‘Yes, I know what you meant. I met him at the Red Room.’
‘What’s that? A whorehouse?’
‘A whorehouse is where truck drivers go,’ she said with a sarcastic half-laugh. ‘The Red Room was a real high-end place, very secret and exclusive. They used to have parties, not parties as in balloons and clowns and cakes, but theme parties.’
‘So you were a whore?’ The moment he said it, he realized he should not have. ‘I am sorry…I didn’t quite mean it that way.’
She stopped running her fingers over him. ‘No, you meant it exactly that way.’ Then there was an uncomfortable silence, broken only by the light hum of the air conditioner. Then she continued, ‘It wasn’t strictly selling your body, in the way you would call it. But yes, it was. I felt it was. We were called hostesses, and it was our job to serve the men drinks. They had different themes for the parties, Hollywood, France, the cabaret, “masqued” ball, whatever…but the excuse was just to get hostesses to show leg and a lot of breast. There were working girls there too, real ones, and they would take the men to the other rooms, but the thing with men is that once they know someone is definitely a whore, they lose interest. The fantasy is gone…you understand…don’t you?’
Arjun didn’t quite understand but still he nodded sagely.
‘Sometimes the men would pull me by the hand and make me sit on their laps and try to touch me wherever they could. I had to smile and giggle and move away just before they started doing too much. I wanted to gouge their eyes out, but I knew I could not. They paid my
bills. The worst would be the movie people, and I know you don’t watch Bengali movies, or I would tell you how many of the top stars have tried the pull-on-lap trick and what they say about other actresses when they know there is no camera.’
‘And Bangali wound up there?’
‘Yes. He told me that it was payment for some job he had done. In lieu of cash, an invitation to a party at the Red Room.’
Arjun knew what it was. Bangali had a side business of contract kills. Arjun kept away from that for it was too risky and too, as he had once said, ‘hands on’. Supplying the weapons was so much better.
‘I was young and your friend was handsome. He wrote poems for me with red ink on little pieces of paper, beautiful handwriting, he followed me around, he sang for me. No one had ever done these things for me before, and every girl wants a prince on a horse and here I felt was mine.’
‘It wasn’t like that then, was it?’
‘In fairy tales, the princess kisses the frog and it turns into a prince. In real life, the prince marries the princess and turns into a frog. So that’s what became of me. No more poems, no more songs, just “How many times do I need to tell you to put less mustard in the fish?” Once sex is guaranteed it becomes as exciting as a tax letter from the corporation.’
‘Surely you had options. Why there?’
‘I started off as a salesgirl, an honest job. But it wasn’t any different. The manager would ask me to come with him to a hotel, and since I didn’t give him what he wanted, he would send me on the worst routes with the worst things to sell. He would grab me at every opportunity, and I had to tolerate some of his groping and then draw the line when he wanted more. It was then that I figured that if I was going to get felt up, I might as well make good money doing it.’
‘Don’t you have a family?’
‘My father died during the riots in Noakhali. My mother brought me and my sister over to this side. I was three then and Tumki had just been born. Mother worked as a maid and brought us up, sent us both to schools, but she is dead now. So Tumki is all I have left. She is happily married to a very nice man and I keep her out of my colourful life. Nor would I ever ask her for money.’
‘Well, good then, that you left that place after marriage,’ Arjun replied. He could still feel the tension between them, like a rainheavy grey cloud that the wind refuses to blow away. He shouldn’t have brought up this topic.
‘Who said I left after marriage?’
‘I just assumed…given the type of place it was…that Nilendu…’
She sneered. ‘He didn’t mind the money. He pretended he didn’t know how I got it and I played along.’
Arjun fell silent again.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me why I left the business? You have many questions, so I suppose that’s next.’
She didn’t wait for Arjun to reply.
‘I was raped.’ Her pretty face turned ash grey. ‘I suppose it could have happened any day, whisky and white powder does not really make you care for what’s right and what’s the law. This man just dragged me by the hair to one of the rooms, ripped off my clothes which were not much, and had his way with me. Then he put one hundred rupees on the table and walked off. We used to have one daada, whose job was to protect the girls from this kind of thing, but he did nothing. Perhaps he got a hundred too. That was when I said, no more.’
‘What’s his name? This man who raped you?’
‘You won’t know him.’
‘Curious.’ He kept smoking, looking at the ceiling.
She moved to the side, tightening the sheets around her.
‘Pulak Ganguly. Pretty big man, his films do great business in the villages. He also has good political connections and so I knew better than to talk about it.’
‘Did Bangali know?’
‘I didn’t tell him. He didn’t like that the money stopped but he didn’t tell me to go back either.’ She turned over now, with her back towards Arjun.
‘Would you mind if I slept a bit now? I am very tired,’ she said, her lips turning into a sulk.
Arjun looked at his watch. It was ten in the morning. He wore the blue shirt and the grey trousers that they had bought from New Market a day ago, combed his hair, went downstairs and made a few calls from the lobby.
Two hours later, he was at the door of the head of the Cinema Artists Union of Bengal, the biggest and most powerful trade union in Tollygunje, which was what the Bengali film industry was known as. He looked exactly how Arjun had always seen trade unionists look – like a coir rope that had been burnt in the fire, brown, twisted, and utterly drained off all life – a big forehead and a few tufts of heavily dyed hair. He sat at a large table in the union office, and when Arjun walked in, he had the end of a pen buried inside his right ear, scooping out ear wax.
‘Hey, who are you?’ Basudev Haldar asked, showing a set of blackened teeth. ‘And how did you get in here, you gandu? I don’t see anyone without an appointment.’ He pointed to the door. ‘Out.’ He raised his voice. ‘Out.’
A year ago, Bangali had taken a hit job in Calcutta. Arjun did not remember much of what it had been about, except that it had been union trouble in the Bengali film industry. With the telephone calls he had just made, he now knew the details. One Basudev Haldar had put a hit on the president of the Cinema Artists Union of Bengal; Partha Chatterjee and Bangali’s men had carried out the job. This Haldar was now the president of the union, the same person sitting right in front of him, tapping away the detritus from his ear canal on to the floor.
‘I can leave if you want,’ Arjun said with a polite smile. ‘But then where I will go next? Should I go to the police and tell them where Partha Chatterjee’s body is? Or should I go to the communists and tell them where Comrade Chatterjee lies? You tell me where. And I will go.’
Basudev Haldar quickly stood up, the pen dropping from his hand. He stammered, ‘W…who are you?’
‘Someone who knows.’
‘Hey, is there anyone there…get sir here some tea and biscuits…sir, will you have singadas?’
Arjun waved no with his hand and sat on the chair opposite without being asked. ‘No thank you, I am full.’
Haldar sat down, and leaned forward. ‘Please don’t say these things out loud. Even walls have ears.’
‘I know. That’s why I was hoping you would do me a favour. Because at least the walls of this union office won’t talk. Other walls might.’
He came straight to the point. Pulak Ganguly was to be blacklisted such that no one belonging to the union could work with him again.
Haldar seemed to be having a little heart attack. He shivered visibly and then gasped, short of breath. ‘How can we do that, sir? I mean…Pulak-da is such a big man…and he has so many connections. And what reason can I give? What clause can I invoke?’ He was blabbering now in panic. ‘One just cannot kick out a man like that, a show-cause has to be given, then he should be allowed to respond…I am sorry…how can I do that?’
Arjun sat silent, letting Haldar go on. ‘Pulak-da is highly respected. He is not a clapper boy or a sound engineer that I can just sign him out on a union letterhead. He is a director of hit films. Please understand.’
‘You are trying to tell me that the most powerful union boss in all of Tollygunje can’t find one reason to get Pulak Ganguly blacklisted. Not one?’
Haldar’s bony knuckles rapped nervously on the tabletop. ‘No sir.’
‘Funny. A few months ago, there was this director who was show-caused by a letter signed by you. Wasn’t he? Because if what I remember is correct, he was asking some inconvenient questions about Partha Chatterjee’s death, about where the union’s money was vanishing to, and specifically about that house you bought in Bombay right after you became president.’
Haldar reached into his trouser pocket and took out a blue handkerchief. Even though the fan was at full speed, he was sweating.
‘See that was a different thing…he was…’
‘What happens to
you when your comrades find out how you became the head of the union? What clause will they invoke then?’
‘You have no proof…’ Haldar wiped the side of his neck and yet the smell of sweat and talcum powder wafted through the breeze.
‘Oh, I have proof. One always keeps insurance. It helps people with bad memory, remember.’
‘I paid for that job…this is blackmail,’ he said, biting the words through his teeth.
‘Blackmail is an ugly word. In the land of Rabindranath we don’t say such ugly words. We say it’s just give and take. What do you call give and take in Bangla?’
‘Deowa neowa.’
‘See, everything sounds so much better in Bangla. Of course, I will owe you a big favour if you do this.’
‘Even if I can get him blacklisted, he will fix it with his bosses in the government. I might end up losing my job.’
‘You don’t worry about that part. You just make it happen that the letter sticks good, you know the right clauses, and the right language on the letterhead. I am sure you have the old letter that you sent to that director lying about in one of those files. Use that basic structure, no?’
Haldar leaned forward even more. ‘If I may ask, if you have a problem with him, why don’t you…you know…do what you people do…?’ He moved his index finger across his neck and made a cutting sound.
‘Why bleed and then kill when you can bleed and make live?’
‘He has a movie on floors now, a big-budget one that he has put his money into. If the union blacklists him, it would really, as you say, bleed him.’
Arjun kept his index finger to his neck and made the same cutting sound. ‘That sounds perfect then. But it all depends on you Haldar babu.’
Basudev mumbled something half into his throat.