by Braham Singh
Ernst tried to engage D’Souza past the large Japanese presence at the bar. Japanese or no Japanese, today cried for a Bloody Mary because next week was Tata Memorial. Waller had managed to get an appointment for him with their Radiology department. Best then, to let them decide what to do with the rest of his life. Left to his own devices he couldn’t even kill himself. It was a growing list—the things he couldn’t do. Dr. Waller would be there at Tata Memorial to hold his hand while they X-rayed his insides. The good doctor would then help decide what to fry further with more X-rays. The only other alternative was Andhi Ma’s bitter almonds, even though the Jewish Hospital in West Berlin had come back with a resounding, Yes!
A German Jew wanting to go back to Germany? The West German Consulate on Peddar Road was ecstatic. Frau Schmidt—the terror of Indians seeking visas—couldn’t do enough. Ernst became her personal project and she single-handedly proceeded to wipe out Germany’s past. As long as Frau Schmidt manned the tele-type machine, there was no question of him spending a pfennig on healthcare. The telex had chattered over Ernst while matters of state waited it out. He should have his doctor send over his files, the telex suggested. A September check-up and even admission were possible, it declared. Of course no charge, it stuttered, and Frau Schmidt had given a tight smile. He would of course need an aeroplane ticket. That could pose a problem, he felt. On the other hand, bitter almonds wouldn’t.
~
Trick to a perfect Bloody Mary, he heard D’Souza explain to the Japanese men nodding away at the bar, was to make it fresh, from ‘highly fresh ingredients.’ Because, ‘It’s a highly unstable concoction.’ The Goan bartender couldn’t stress that enough.
‘Has to be fresh. Must be highly fresh.’
This accent on high freshness hit a chord with the sushi eaters and they went, ‘Aaah so!’
‘Also ice. Lots of ice. It neutralises acids in tomato juice and other ingredients that ruin taste.’
D’Souza wasn’t your typical, Western-style bartender. On any given day, he required a gun to the head before eking out monosyllables. How come then, this non-stop monologue? Could be from addressing people more deadpan than he. Each Japanese held a glass and sipping in unison, they went, ‘Aaah so!’
As for these sons of Nippon being here, turns out there was a perfectly logical explanation. If one was Willie Lansdowne. While still under his stewardship some years ago, the Bombay Presidency Golf Club found itself at a tipping point from a steady decline in Westerners. Compounded, one could say, by Willie’s reluctance to enrol Indians. It seemed silly to cede more ground just to balance the books. Made no sense. Then one fine morning, a flock of Japanese flew into the permit-room. Then more. Then a few more. They would fly in to golf over holidays and long weekends; people said cheaper to fly here than pay the green fees back home. In the process, they saved the club from more Indians. Willie reckoned there must be a God and as his last official act, gave away memberships to any and all Flying Japanese. They thought the club was holding a fire sale. The incoming club secretary was Brigadier Bunkim Kumar Chatterjee (retired), who had done a stint in South East Asia. Mainly as a Japanese prisoner of war. He smiled in disbelief when his predecessor hollered during his last board meeting as secretary, ‘Better Nips than wogs!’
Seeing the Japanese at the bar, the Brigadier went up to his beloved Victrola parked by the bar (polished it himself) and had it crank out ‘Sukiyaki’, in honour of his tormenters from those balmy days in Singapore he had enjoyed as their house-guest at Changi Prison. It was now the Japanese’s turn to smile in disbelief as their global number-one hit ricocheted off the walls. ‘Aaah so!’ they went, clapped, bowed and then got all confused when the Brigadier responded with the correct bow.
‘Sukiyaki means beef-broth,’ the Brigadier said to Ernst, while smiling at the Japanese. ‘It’s a love song.’ He waved. ‘They’d do it all over again, you know. In a heartbeat.’ The WWII veteran then gave Ernst the once over. ‘Looking buggered, what?’
Over at the bar, D’Souza broke away from his mesmerised audience to answer the intercom. Placing a black handset on the bar-top, he came up to where Ernst and the Brigadier sat. Someone Indian at the reception was asking for Ernst, who wilted further. The reception area was like a border crossing for Indian guests. Brigadier Chatterjee nodded to D’Souza who went conveyed the nod over the phone.
Turned out to be Salim Ali, mustering superhuman strength to creak the heavy teak door open. An aura of class warfare preceded him by yards, making it difficult for people to remain on even keel. The Europeans stared, and Salim Ali right away sensed where the gentry were coming from. It’s that remarkable Indian antenna seeking out any sliver of hidden hostility in a look. Not harbouring the remarkable Indian eagerness to please however, the little Marxist transmitted back a big, fat, fuck-you-too at the permit-room. The Brigadier appraised Salim Ali and appeared fascinated by the company Ernst kept. Willie too was staring their way, so Ernst excused himself and edged Salim Ali to the far end of the bar. Best to keep a safe distance from Willie, who looked more like Colonel Blimp every passing day. There at the bar, Ernst appeared exaggerated next to a Salim Ali struggling up his bar stool. It was as if he had violated a slew of by-laws to bring his illegitimate, black child into the permit-room. Salim Ali stabilised. Once his stool’s rotation was under control, Ernst ordered him his lime juice, vegetarian samosas and a plate of little, green chillies that would take down a rhino.
Playing with the glass of nimbu-pani, Salim Ali said, ‘You wanted to see me.’
‘Come, sit, relax. See how the other half lives.’
‘Who plays these silly-bugger games on a working day?’
‘What working day? Thanks to you, all they do at the workshop is discuss PL 480 food aid.’
‘Sure,’ Salim Ali said. ‘Blame the workers.’
Ernst did not take the bait. Andhi Ma had granted him three Technicolour minutes. That sort of a deadline made you want to smell the roses and hell with everything else. He looked down, and cringed. Salim Ali was in rubber slippers. The reception had no choice but to let him in following the Brigadier’s intervention. His toes were wet and shrivelled, making the uncut nails much bolder to the eye. Clueless what that did to the people around him, Salim Ali got down to business.
‘How’s the bookkeeping coming along?’
‘Why the interest in accounts?’
‘Parvatibai thinks there’s more than just double-entry going on.’
‘Parvatibai’s being Parvatibai.’
‘Bhairavi could be your daughter.’
Five minutes with Salim Ali, and now he wanted to kill himself again.
‘Yes.’
‘Indian. Hindu. Sindhi. There’ve been riots for less,’ Salim Ali said.
‘Just a thought. Could you be jealous?’
‘Why am I not surprised at that? However, unlike you, I have other things on my mind.’
‘Like that gunny bag Parvatibai’s holding on to for you?’
Salim Ali’s lip curled on its own volition. ‘Good try.’
‘Where’s Tufan?’
‘At the bleddy police chowki, where else? Asking them to act on the autopsy report. Bleddy thugs in uniform. ’
The room parted, and Adam Sassoon was seen approach the bar. The way people reacted, as if they wanted to applaud. Except for Salim Ali. Already tottering on a bar stool, the last thing Ernst needed was for him to stand up on his soapbox. Didn’t matter. The great man pretended Salim Ali wasn’t there and it appeared, neither was Ernst. While Major Punjabi was also not there today, a young, sharply creased minor Punjabi carried the great man’s briefcase for him.
~
Adam Sassoon’s presence reminded Ernst of Salary Day; also that no advance was forthcoming; no pipes, nothing. The only cheque doing the rounds was his dud; the one the Lala would have deposited today. Thoughts of it bouncing didn’t bring about the usual shortness of breath, or tighten the cork up his arse. Surviving a suicide attemp
t seemed to have advanced the mind. Sassoon wasn’t authorising Major Punjabi to pay up? Fine. Fuck it. No money for salaries? Fuck that too. His cheque was going to bounce? Great.
We’ll see what happens. ‘Bloody dekha jayega!’
Salim Ali dropped his samosa and looked at Ernst. Eyebrows rose across the permit-room. Sassoon had this interested look to his face. No longer invisible, Ernst raised his glass to the bar. The minor Punjabi recovered, and touched Sassoon’s elbow. Jehangir Merchant had walked in, suited-booted—dark patches under armpits and a babu in tow holding a long, rolled blueprint. The same Indian gentleman with the pince-nez, Ernst had seen scurry alongside Jehangir that other day at Fertilisers. Now holding the same rolled blueprint Jehangir had dropped all over the floor. Paranjpe. That babu with the pince-nez. His name was Paranjpe. Ernst patted himself.
‘Bugger. There goes my drink,’ Sassoon said. ‘Can’t take it over there now, can I?’
‘Why not? They all drink anyway, the sods.’ Willie knew Indians. There could be no argument. They were all secret alcoholics. He was a social drinker.
Leaving his scotch behind, Sassoon walked the short distance towards a table Jehangir had sequestered. Willie reached out a paw for some bland peanuts from one of the bowls decorating the bar. They were without masala to placate Western palates, or intentionally bland to keep Indians out.
Across the cramped room, Sassoon’s group settled in and Jehangir let loose that oversized blueprint with a flourish, knocking a cheap tin ashtray off the table. Meanwhile Paranjpe had turned invisible, folding himself into a corner chair. He re-emerged under Ernst’s squint. The man had a general sense of apology at being there. With his suit drying off to deliver the proper effect, Jehangir Merchant was back to being his patronising best with the bespectacled babu. It was Sassoon though, who blew Ernst out of the water by asking D’Souza, ‘Bring some orange juice over for Paranjpeji.’
‘First he sacrifices his scotch for an Indian babu,’ Salim Ali noted. ‘Now he is playing host. I smell something.’ He craned his neck to check out the blueprint’s generous expanse.
‘Pipes,’ Ernst said, before the idiot became any more obvious. ‘It’s a schematic on a building full of pipes.’
‘Same pipes the bugger Punjabi wants us to draw?’
‘You tell me. What’s a reprocessing plant?’
‘You mean a refining plant.’
‘I mean a fuel reprocessing plant. That’s what that blueprint says.’
Salim Ali blinked. ‘Fuck,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘The Atomic Energy facility at Trombay. You bleddy sure it reads reprocessing plant?’
‘Yes, I’m bleddy sure. Why? And stop staring.’
They are building a nuclear reprocessing plant at AEET, that’s why. Bleddy Sassoon’s sneaked in there too? Nothing’s sacrosanct in this country. He blinked a couple of times. ‘Those pipes are specialised. You telling me that capitalist rascal plans to have us draw them? Reprocessing nuclear fuel requires concentrated nitric acid to dissolve plutonium and uranium from the spent fuel,’ he said, and Ernst sincerely wanted to know if there was anything—anything at all—the little fucker didn’t know.
‘You need zirconium or austenitic stainless steel to hold the radioactive acid. Even then, it’s dangerous. Very. Even the Americans announced a full stop to their nuclear reprocessing. They plan to dig a hole in some mountain, dump their spent fuel and forget about it. I tell you this is too big. Not something we can do.’
Would be nice if we could, Ernst felt. ‘We could end up becoming accredited suppliers to AEET.’
‘Listen,’ Salim Ali said, stepping out of character to grip Ernst’s forearm. His black claw dug in. ‘I know you’re joking. But what if the pipes Punjabi’s sending us are really for AEET? Is this how these cheap bastards plan to supply a nuclear facility? By having someone like you draw the pipes?’
Ernst decided not to take offence.
‘Relax,’ he advised. ‘There is no order any more. No one’s sending us anything. Didn’t you see how Sassoon ignored us?’ Salim Ali’s look suggested he saw nothing unusual in that. People ignored him all the time. The heavy door creaked open once more, and Venky Iyer walked in. The scene now had all the elements of a Marxist passion play, with the proletariat playing Jesus.
‘Someone’s getting fucked,’ Salim Ali concluded.
Iyer saw him. His look said, yes, and that someone is you. Then he too went and joined the cabal: industrialist, bagman, babu and now, senior civil servant. Running a socialist country together in a business-like manner.
‘I’ll wait for you in the car.’
With that, Salim Ali climbed down to walk by Willie and he must have brushed past or something, because Willie spilled his drink. Salim Ali ambled along—no apology. Surprise broke out over Willie’s face like a red rash, but the teak door creaked again, distracting everyone from what an Indian had just visited upon the club’s former secretary and current cuckold.
A woman in a sari stood at the door. Ernst had never seen the permit-room getting shoulder-to-shoulder like this. He had also never seen an Indian woman enter in here. Nor had the gentry, especially one like this. Sindhi Camp Bhairavi’s buck teeth shone like pearls.
‘What?’ Willie gaped.
Adam Sassoon on the other hand was behaving as if Goddess Bhairavi—the beautiful version, the one to die for—had lit up the dingy permit-room. He leaped to attention at her toothy smile; her sari fluffed around an arse custom-made for a tight fit. With a red-cloth ledger in hand, she smiled only for the great man and the rest could go to hell.
28
Ground Fighting
Ground on which we can only be saved from destruction by fighting without delay, is desperate ground.
—Sun Tzu ’s Art of War
It was around four-thirty and in blinding heat, when Mohan Driver held the rear door open for Ernst. The man had probably stopped by a temple because there was a smudge of saffron on his forehead.
Salim Ali was inside the Fiat and compressed into the far corner by some overbearing weight. Could be Sassoon’s stainless steel pipes that never showed up at the workshop, or maybe the ones showing up on that blueprint. Or, could be the sight of his Bhairavi walking into the permit-room as Sassoon’s guest.
Ernst got in the rear seat with Salim Ali and settled back into the body odour. Outside, Sindhi Camp played dead in the afternoon heat with Jhama Sweetmeats deserted, shops shut, no traffic, no roadside cricket game, no water queue, and crows ruling the skies. Nothing, except for the ration queue winding alongside Trombay Road as proof of some life. The Seth’s driver was there in line and Sassoon’s chauffeur was present as well, both to collect ration rice for the household servants while waiting for their masters. With their fingers intertwined, they held hands the way Indian men do, and chatted. Ernst tried picturing Sassoon and the Seth being friends Indian-style, and failed. Looking around, the only other activity was in the police chowki compound .
Henry Gomes sat there amidst Bombay’s Finest, peeling a banana. One couldn’t escape him anymore—gorilla to albatross in one month. Ernst wasn’t surprised. He had already seen him as a murderous worker in blue, then a conscientious hospital orderly in khaki, and this morning, as the leader of a pack hunting him down in a five-star hotel. So why not now, relaxing at a police station? That he was not in police uniform was the only surprise. Instead, he had on a tight sort of white T-shirt and was admiring each slab of his abdominal muscle on display, while eating his banana; therefore, he didn’t see them drive by. Someone must have, because turning right onto Vashigaon Road, Mohan Driver slammed on the brakes a few yards from where Chhote Bhai’s Mian Building stared down at the Krishna Temple.
Frozen at the steering wheel, he took in the Marathas blocking his vehicle going forward. One of them came around, bent over the driver’s open window and Mohan Driver shifted his stare down to the foot pedals. Reaching in, the Maratha pulled at Mohan Driver’s cheek. T
hen he tapped on Ernst’s window. Ernst wound it down with ten rupees in hand and leaned out, all set to play the genial European. The man took the money and hit the flat of his palm against the Fiat’s side.
‘Get out. Take the driver and walk away. Leave the Madrasi thief in the car,’ he said, staring at Salim Ali. ‘He has something we want.’
Ernst put on his European face while Mohan Driver looked shaky, but stayed put.
‘Kerala,’ Ernst said. ‘He comes from Kerala. He’s not Madrasi.’
‘Don’t be a hero. Get out.’
Salim Ali sat back as Ernst leaned across him to lock down his side. Instantly, there was hammering against the glass. Salim Ali watched them bang away for a bit, then went and unlocked the door before Ernst could stop him.
‘Both of you, wait inside,’ the little man instructed. An astonished mob made way as their Madrasi thief stepped out.
~
There was a friendly tug to Ernst’s sleeve and he saw a white T-shirt forming a perfect V-shape outside his window. Gomes peered in, showing off equally perfect teeth. He nodded towards Salim Ali. Some five men surrounded him doing nothing. Any one of them could have taken the little engineer apart.
‘Look at them,’ Gomes said to Ernst. ‘My Portuguese grandfather used to say, “Individually, Indians are intellectual giants. Collectively, their IQ won’t fill half a tea cup.”’ Reaching in, he yanked at the locked door handle and invited Ernst to step out. Putting an arm around Ernst’s shoulders, he walked him toward where Salim Ali stood within the sweaty semi-circle, nary a flutter in the still air. Seeing Gomes, Ernst suspected where there was one, there has to be the other, and so he looked back at the Mian Building. Sure enough, Chhote Bhai stood on his second floor balcony carved out of granite, sipping tea. The Grand Mufti overseeing the proceedings, ensuring a fellow Muslim and his Jew boss were brought to book.
‘Why are you looking there?’ Gomes shook off his irritation. ‘Talk to me. Where did you go this morning? We were searching all over the hotel for you! I wanted to say hello.’