BLOOD RED SARI

by Banker, Ashok K

  The lawyer was over an hour late and looked like a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown. His hands shook as he greeted Anita at a bench between the giraffe and zebra habitats. ‘Madam, I cannot stay long,’ he said in a quavering voice. He was dressed in a typical lawyer’s black suit, crumpled and creased with sweat patches around the collar and arms. He was thin and short and wore steel-rimmed spectacles, and a faint moustache darkened his already dark upper lip. ‘It is not advisable to be seen with you, ma’am. You are in lot of trouble. Very serious matter.’

  She gestured to the bench and sat without waiting for him. ‘Varkala Police?’

  ‘Yes. There is a full-state alert for you. I am in contact with department. I enquired after you mobile-phoned me.’

  ‘What are they saying I did?’ she asked casually, watching a group of nuns and novices by the giraffe enclosure. ‘Committed murder?’

  ‘They say you are a terrorist. Alert is under “counter terrorist” heading. It is serious matter. There are traffic blocks for you.’

  She resisted the urge to quip that gee, golly, gosh, she was thrilled to bits to have traffic blocks. For li’l ole moi? How rad! Instead she tried to ignore the throbbing in her right toe and said, ‘Lalima Mukucundan hired you?’

  He hesitated a moment, then nodded. ‘She was not my regular client. She was referred through an associate. I only undertook one task for her. Payment was made in advance.’

  ‘In the event of her death, you were to send me a set of documents by courier?’

  He shook his head. ‘I do not know what was in the packages. They were already pre-addressed. I only had to hand them to the courier company and send them.’

  Anita sat up straighter, careful how she put her weight. ‘Packages, you said. How many were there?’

  He frowned. ‘I am not supposed to divulge details. I only agreed to meet with you, madam, because her instructions clarified that if you contacted me, I was to pass on one more item to you personally.’

  Anita blinked. ‘What item?’

  He glanced around as if checking to see that no giraffes were peeking over the wall to eavesdrop. ‘This.’ He handed her a small, square envelope. It felt empty but was sealed and the neat hand-written letters were in Lalima’s hand.

  She slipped it into the back pocket of her jeans, wincing as the movement pulled at her neck muscles. He noticed her wince but didn’t seem particularly interested in her injuries or pain. He was already starting to stand up. She reached out and caught his arm, pulling him down. He sat abruptly and looked dismayed. ‘Madam, I …’

  ‘How many packages?’ she asked roughly, keeping her voice low. The nuns and novices were drifting past. A pair of the younger ones stared at Anita and the lawyer – Anita’s hand was still clutching the lawyer’s elbow – and one whispered something to her friend who giggled, covering her mouth. Anita waited till they went past, then said quietly, ‘Answer me.’ She squeezed his forearm hard enough to hurt. It was his turn to wince.

  He hesitated, then said almost sulkily, ‘Four.’

  She nodded but kept her hand on his arm, tight, as if he were a bird that might flit away. ‘You say you don’t know what was in the packages?’

  He shook his head. She believed him. That was the point of using a lawyer, to keep the contents confidential. Lalima must have picked him after checking him out. The very fact that he was so scared told her he was honest.

  ‘I need the names and addresses of the other three recipients.’

  He began protesting but she punched him hard in the left kidney. A group of Asian tourists drifted past. She leaned in closer to the lawyer and smiled at them. One of the men smiled back but then noticed the bloodstain on her tee shirt collar and frowned. She waited for them to pass by. The lawyer had doubled over. When he straightened up, with Anita’s help, his eyes were wet. What a fucking sissy.

  ‘I …’

  ‘Shut up and write them down now,’ she said harshly. ‘I don’t have time to fuck around. Do it or I’ll tell the police that you’re involved with me and we’re planting bombs across Trivandrum. You’ll spend the next five years trying to explain your innocence.’

  That threat worked better than the violence. Reputation was more precious than a kidney in these PR-dominated times. Image was more important than truth.

  ‘Madam, they are not in writing,’ he said. ‘Lalima-madam instructed me not to write it down anywhere.’ He hesitated. ‘But the courier company receipts are in my satchel.’

  He gestured to the leather case on his lap. Anita let him open it and he rummaged through briefly before pulling out four rectangular receipts on cheap paper. She glanced at them, saw her name on one and noted that all three of the others were women too, and put them into her back pocket as well. She looked at the lawyer. He suddenly looked disgusted, as if he had done something really venal.

  ‘What?’ she asked, challenging. ‘She was my friend, you know. They killed her. I’m sure of it now. That’s why she hired you to send out that package to me. She knew that I would come and try to find out what happened to her. And I will. I won’t stop until I find out everything and get the bastards who killed her. I don’t expect you to understand that.’

  The look of disgust faded gradually, reducing to a milder expression of disapproval. ‘Police will catch you anytime. They say you attacked your own family and shot your brother because he was trying to stop you from blowing up a church.’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Blowing up a church? Killing my brother? Not bad. Although you’d think a terrorist would be more ambitious than that. Does anyone in Varkala even go to church anymore? What if I just ended up killing the padre and two deacons? Would anyone even cry?’

  He crossed himself. ‘I will pray for you.’

  She sighed. Monu Varghese. Of course he was Christian. ‘Alright, get the fuck out of here.’

  He stood up but didn’t walk away at once. After a moment he looked down and said, ‘Jesus Christ will show you the way.’ And then he walked away quickly with neat mincing steps, leaving her searching for a quick and dirty retort and finding none.

  8.2

  NACHIKETA HAD NEVER BEEN happier to see Advaita’s face as she was that day. Advaita was one of those stern-faced women who wore giant black (or red) bindis high on their forehead, dressed only in Fabindia saris, and had lots of silver accessories. She had a tattoo on her right bicep – of Kali stamping on Shiva, her tongue lolling, trident raised. It had faded over time, but her intense glare had only become more intimidating as she had gained weight and age. Even the fiercest of Delhi Jats and sardars stepped off the footpath when she came striding along in her block heels, all five-feet-nine of her (plus three inches of heels), 107 kgs and as broad as a barrel. It was difficult to believe she was married with three grown children: novices to Delhi activist circles sometimes made the mistake of assuming she was a lesbian and learnt the hard way that she was not. The ‘hard way’ being a bitch slap delivered to the left cheek with the full force of that ‘dhai kilo ka haath’ and all those silver bangles. Addy, as her friends called her, was energetically heterosexual and was rumoured to have slept with half the eligible men in South Block – and most of the ineligible ones as well. Her husband, a special officer currently assigned to the law ministry spokesperson, was either an ignorant cuckold or a willing one, nobody knew for sure.

  Addy breezed in and berated nurses, doctors and the rest of the burn ward staff in the hospital where Nachiketa had been shifted early that morning from AIIMS. Once she was certain that her friend was receiving the best possible treatment and care, she settled down imperiously with a flurry of hand-woven silk in a plastic chair beside the bed. Nachiketa asked her to have the oxygen apparatus removed, and with Addy giving orders, it was done without complaint. Nachiketa breathed a sigh of relief, then coughed several times, glad to be off that wretched thing even though she knew she needed it. The medication they had given her on arrival was almost wearing off and she was aware of the ext
ent of her burns now, as she hadn’t been when she had first regained consciousness at AIIMS.

  ‘You are strong, bete,’ Advaita said, reaching for her hand, then thinking better of it when she noticed the bandages. ‘You will survive. It is what we women are built do to: survive the abuses of men.’ She added a few choice abuses in Punjabi, delivering them in a matter-of-fact tone.

  Nachiketa had once heard Advaita tell her three grown sons – they had been teenagers at the time – that all men were bastards but hopefully the fact that she had breastfed them till they were two years old each would have instilled some sense of shame in their doomed-to-be-chauvinistic heads. As it sometimes did, fate had seen fit to grant her only male offspring. Nachiketa wondered how they survived Advaita on a daily basis.

  They talked for a while about Shonali and the tragedy of her death, and then about the financial and legal implications of the fire. Addy assured Nachiketa that she had already started doing as Nachos had requested when she called and was arranging for her cases to be handled by another law firm. The Collective would take over all her matters until she was well enough to resume work; although most of what they did would have to be seeking extensions and filing motions for extensions, caveats and sidebars, and so on. The Collective was a group of Delhi women lawyers engaged in their own private practices who took on a certain percentage of pro bono work related to women’s issues. Only a few worked full-time on such matters, Nachiketa herself being one. They were perennially overburdened and it was all they could do to keep up with their workload. Even if they had to actually deal with or argue one of Nachiketa’s cases, it would be several months before they could rebuild the files and study the cases well enough to take on the matters. And with even her computer burning down, along with all her backup disks and files, rebuilding the case files was itself the biggest nightmare that Nachiketa’s practice faced right now.

  ‘But don’t worry about all that, bete,’ Advaita said soothingly, patting the bed sheet in the vicinity of Nachiketa’s arm in lieu of her usual patronizing thump. ‘Your first priority – get well, get strong, get back in action.’

  ‘Addy, there’s something else I want you to do for me.’ Nachiketa asked her to fish out the envelope that she had told Rajendra Powar to place on the table near her bed. Advaita did that, her bangles and accessories jangling and clanging as she bent over. She had a roll of fat as thick as Nachos’ arm around her midriff, but despite her excess weight, she had a powerful predatory sexual aura.

  She straightened up, holding the manila envelope, and dusted it off, sniffing in disapproval. ‘Forget all your clients, bete. Right now you are the one who needs help. This is no time to think of work.’

  ‘No, Addy,’ Nachos said hoarsely. ‘This isn’t work. This was sent to me just before the fire. I think it’s the reason why they attacked Shonali and tried to kill me too.’

  Advaita frowned, her bindi dipping into the deep folds of the wrinkles on her forehead. ‘So you know the attackers?’

  ‘No. I don’t know who they were or why they attacked her and set the office on fire. But I’m sure it has something to do with this package. The man who called me on my cell when I was driving mentioned it. They must have searched the office for it, and when they couldn’t find it, they called me and threatened to kill Shonali if I didn’t give it to them. But they had no intention of letting us go. So they set a fire trap for me, and when I was in the office, they tried to get rid of me and Shonali’s body and this package as well. The only reason they hadn’t found it was because it had somehow fallen under the table by the door, the same table I took shelter under to escape the fire. I must have hit it with one of my wheels somehow and knocked it there.’

  Advaita frowned, weighing the package upon her large palm. ‘What is inside, bete? Why so important?’

  ‘That’s what I want to know,’ Nachiketa replied. ‘I need you to take it and look through it and tell me what you think. Can you do that for me, please?’

  ‘Of course, bete. I will take it home and look at it afterwards and—’

  ‘I mean now, Addy. I need you to open it and look at it now, along with me.’ Nachiketa raised her bandaged hands. ‘I would’ve done it myself but …’

  Advaita looked at her watch. ‘I have a South Delhi Women’s Committee meeting at five, but there is some time. Can I not take it and look later?’

  ‘Please, Addy. It may be important. The people who did this are out there. They got away scot-free after raping and killing Shonali and almost killing me. I need to do this now. Please? For Shonali’s sake?’

  Advaita nodded grimly. ‘Okay, bete. Let’s do it now.’

  She tore the flap of the envelope open and began removing the documents from the envelope.

  8.3

  SHE SURVIVED THE JUMP, landing on a corporate-sponsored median about five feet off the ground. She killed a bed of flowers, rolled over some imported grass turf, and was already on her feet, jumping the railing with the brightly coloured corporate logo and into the street. She cut through the path of a WBST bus – whose driver honked angrily – and down the first turn. Several minutes later, she looked back and was sure she wasn’t being followed.

  She found a small hotel nearby and went in at once. If they did come after her and try to trace her flight from Phoolbagan, the last thing they would expect was for her to check into a hotel. Even if they did, there were probably two hundred hotels in Biddhanagar, all catering to the constant flow of business travellers on account of the BPO and IT boom. She found a room with a view of the street, took a hot shower, and made a few necessary phone calls.

  She slept in the next day, waking late around noon. The man she wanted to see was a hard person to get through to, and when she did at last, she was told that he would see her that night. She was given a location and time. There was no question of asking it to be earlier.

  She kept expecting her mobile phone to ring any time, thinking that if those pursuing her could set municipal authorities, police and trained foreign assassins upon her, they must have her cell number too. But, apart from the usual telemarketers, nobody called. This she knew because she habitually added any telemarketing caller to a contact named JUNK in her iPhone. That way she didn’t have to listen to the automated recordings offering her caller tunes or the same tired call centre execs from Noida hardselling special offers. Her iPhone stayed surprisingly silent the entire day, making her wonder if even her friends were avoiding her. Then again, all her friends were people at the gym, and after yesterday, there wasn’t much more to know.

  She spent the day watching television and getting restless. She would have used the hotel gym but didn’t want to be noticed: an Indian woman working out in a Phoolbagan hotel gym is a rarity even in these enlightened times. There was nothing on the news about her, the gym, the shootout … nothing. How was that possible? In a world with a hundred news channels chasing the most insignificant scrap of gossip, how could a shootout at a brand new metro station go unnoticed? This fact told her, again, that whatever this thing was, it was huge.

  She went through the package again, several times, but didn’t get much further than she had the night before. When the figures began blurring, she gave up. Finally, she settled on the hotel bed and watched an entire Arabic movie on an international movie channel, followed by half a Mongolian film.

  Then it was time to get moving. She showered again, wearing the same jeans and tee shirt from the night before. She had hand-rinsed them in the sink that morning just to get the smell of the sweat out, and asked for them to be ironed. That was the other reason why she hadn’t been able to step out of her hotel room all day. She had had to wrap a towel around herself each time room service came, and was glad the waiter was an old Bengali holdout who didn’t seem very interested in her state of dress or undress. He didn’t seem to care much about his tip either. She guessed he must be an antique piece among the young hotel staff.

  Coming out of the hotel, she saw a cab going past at an
idling pace and hailed it.

  ‘Dharamtala,’ she said, getting in.

  The taxi driver, a young Bangladeshi immigrant with a picture of the Ka’aba on his dashboard and as much knowledge of Kolkata geography as a Patiala Sikh who has just arrived in New York, almost turned the wrong way on Chowringhee Road.

  She corrected him in time. ‘Lower Circular Road, turn now.’

  Instead of turning, he slowed to a crawl and said, ‘Jagdish Chandra Bose Street.’

  She said, ‘Yes, yes, same thing, turn here.’

  ‘You want go Dharamtala, no?’

  ‘Dharamtala Road, yes.’

  ‘This go to Lenin Sarani.’

  ‘Yes, that’s the same thing. Dharamtala Road was renamed Lenin Sarani. I want us to turn here, please.’

  He shrugged as if implying that she had no idea what she was talking about, but it wasn’t his problem. She was tempted to whack him across the side of his head and tell him that if he wanted to drive a cab in another country, the least he could do was know the streets. In Kolkata that meant knowing the old names as well as the new.