Bombay Swastika

by Braham Singh

  There was also this strange sense of déjà vu and Ernst found himself sitting on Waller’s operating table for a check-up. The emotion was strong enough to conjure up the oily, glandular, snake smells from Waller’s surgery. Two Lambadi kids ran by, and one had a snakeskin wrapped around her tiny waist, the brown strip of sloughed scales trailing behind like a streamer while she chased another girl across the contaminated lawn, both shrieking with laughter.

  ~

  Mohan Driver stood at the curb; allowed past a lax, Ganesh-struck North Gate. He looked at his watch. The one-eyed Fiat gave Ernst an accusing look. So did Johnny Walker, standing next to Mohan Driver and staring with a distinct lack of respect.

  In the distance, a familiar, air-conditioned Ambassador drove away and up Central Avenue, towards North Gate. Dr. Bhabha departing, or distancing himself from a reprocessing plant destined to leak like a sieve; depending on how one looked at it. It tickled no end that Bhabha hadn’t just driven away from the likes of Sethji and even Adam Sassoon. He didn’t even bother to show up and say hello. There’s a Vedic construct along the lines: however big your dick, someone else is bigger.

  Sassoon did not appear pleased having the smaller dick. He walked into the open tent to take an empty folding chair and whatever shade he could grab. Going up to him, Ernst decided against being the bigger man.

  ‘Those are your pipes in there, Adam, the ones being replaced,’ Ernst said. ‘The ones you had us draw. I warned you they were the wrong specs. You still went ahead.’

  ‘Don’t recall you refusing the money, old chap. You did cash the cheque, didn’t you?’

  ‘Bhabha knows what you’ve done. You’re going to jail for this.’

  ‘You mean like the Deputy Commissioner, for shooting your darkie?’

  Ice in the veins. Ice in the veins is what differentiates the Chosen People from others. Being Jewish has nothing to do with it. Sassoon turned to Punjabi. ‘When’s the bloody car coming? I’m not taking that bus again.’

  Meanwhile, Jack Hanson stood by the tent smiling at one and all, including the Seth—already seated and panting, one leg tucked under while the other oscillated. Sitting arm’s length from each other, Sassoon and the Seth remained separated by a chasm. The dripping bania looked like a fish out of water. When Ernst caught him peering at Bhairavi’s swastik pendant around his neck, he said, ‘No Sethji, it’s not one of yours. This one’s real gold.’

  The Seth’s face clogged up, and Ernst was Indian enough by now to feel the need for background music. Come September would be perfect .

  Sassoon too appeared tetchy, so Ernst asked, ‘Bored? Why not the two of you chat? Pass time?’

  The British upper classes can castrate you with just a look. Ernst continued as if there was no danger of that happening, as if there was no social divide at all. Somewhat like a court jester taking down the king.

  ‘Go on,’ he urged Sassoon, ‘there must be something you can say to the Seth. After all, he owns you.’

  Those in the insufficient tent looked around to see what just happened, because at that moment, Lord Shiva opened his third eye and reduced the world to ash.

  In the new world that came about, a very pukka Adam Sassoon turned to an Indian bania for instruction.

  ~

  The tent wore a puzzled look. So did Sassoon. Maybe, he realised what was happening here. Saw what Mohan Driver had seen in Ernst wearing a jacket for the first time in twenty-six years.

  ‘At ten thousand dollars, I have to be the Seth’s smallest debtor,’ Ernst announced. ‘At five crores, what’s that, fifty million dollars, you’ve got to be his biggest. He owns you, Adam.’

  Adam Sassoon glanced at his Rolex. Then donned his best, British, upper class expression and got up.

  ‘Sit,’ the Seth said.

  The great man obeyed. He started to look spent—an isotope with not much of a half life. A couple of folding chairs away, Hanson flopped into one with a satisfied grunt. He too wasn’t going anywhere.

  The urbane Deputy Commissioner, still there on hand, must have decided, whatever was going on here, that civility be maintained. He barked in Marathi to Johnny Walker who hurried up to where the refreshments were laid out. He brought back marble-stop lemonade bottles to distribute and out of habit, white folk came first, including with some difficulty, Ernst. Handed two of them, Adam Sassoon looked confused and reached across the divide to pass one over to the Seth. Samosas came next, followed by napkins and a flurry of pops, as thumbs plunged down at marbles .

  The lemonade did wonders and a spirit of improvisation took over. Sassoon’s tan stopped glowing for a bit, Hanson went from red to pink, and the Seth burped like a baby with colic. Ernst felt the chill roar down his oesophagus in a racing car. The Deputy Commissioner glowered at him like weapon-grade plutonium. Iyer took a small sip. He was more like Paranjpe today than his usual, heaven-born ICS self—trying hard to blend into the background and disappear.

  ‘All those zeroes in the cheque you gave me,’ said Ernst, ‘they belong to the Seth. Like you do. Sethji was bribing me through you for just one thing, and one thing alone. Get Salim Ali to return what that kid Arjun took from the American enclosure. It wasn’t your money I received. Your money took off with the British. Everything you have here, belongs to the Seth.’

  Sethji looked embarrassed. Do stop, he seemed to say; never did like discussing the one thing that mattered most to him. Ernst persisted.

  ‘India is Indian-owned these days, Adam. Your time’s up. So you decided to sell your nice Anglicised name to someone like the Seth, and become his pimp.’

  ~

  ‘How did you learn?’ Hanson asked. ‘About these jokers?’

  Americans. No respecting anyone. Ernst loved that.

  ‘How? Because I found myself back in Adam’s good books for no good reason, that’s how. Not only that, we became friends again. Not just friends, we were back to being brothers-in-arms after twenty-six years. When I needed money, my workshop received an order to draw pipes. Lots and lots of pipes—the ones they are busy replacing in there right now. With the pipes came money. Lots of it. And when I was dumb enough to wear a swastik to a synagogue, Adam did the same in a spectacular show of support. Like brothers-in-arms. In return for all this, he asked for just one thing. For Salim Ali to return what they took from your compound.’

  ‘Brothers-in-arms. That’s bad?’ Hanson asked.

  ‘It’s not. Just that the swastik he put around his neck was the same cheap, gold-plated coin the Seth hands out to his flunkies. Adam Sassoon has no dealings with the Seth. How did he get it? More importantly, when was the last time a white man wearing a Rolex kept a cheap, Hindu trinket on his person? If you check his breast pocket right now, it’s probably still there. Even I got rid of mine. The Seth and Adam don’t even acknowledge each other in public, let alone talk. Why would he keep it?’

  Adam Sassoon touched his breast pocket.

  ~

  ‘Why for all this anger, Mr. Ernestji?’ the Seth asked. ‘You were one of us. What happened?’

  Before replying, Ernst first thanked Jagannath, and Govinda, then Krishna—same difference—for his cancer. He then thanked Goddess Bhairavi for removing the fog of maya from before his eyes. It was like having one’s cataract removed. Bhairavi was right. If he didn’t feel like death already, he would feel exhilarated.

  ‘Pillow talk, Sethji. That’s what happened. But you know the story already. How a caddie-boy’s been buggering your Lala, and how Willie was buggering the caddie-boy. The smitten Lala went whispered your PL 480 secrets to the caddie-boy, who whispered them to Willie. Willie insults you, you have him fired. When he blackmails you, you have him killed. Everything goes back to normal so you can sit here and ask me, why for all this anger?’

  The Indian sun shone through the tent with a contempt reserved for white people. Sassoon usually tanned well, but went radioactive red. Indians weren’t being spared either, and the Seth’s fat melted in big glistening drops,
straight off his face. Ernst was burning up and feeling impervious at the same time.

  ‘Your pimp Sassoon over here, took care of Willie for you. Always considerate, ever the brother-in-arms, Adam sent his car to pick up Willie and take him to his caddie-boy at the Protection Home. Dropped him off in front of a moving truck instead.’

  Adam Sassoon touched his breast pocket again.

  ‘Kirti the caddie-boy told me what America does with its PL 480 rupees. The money India pays out, for what’s definitely not food aid. The Americans can’t take the money out of the country. Rupees are useless outside India. So they use it to pay off the Seth for everything he does for them. Every month they buy up hundreds of thousands of overpriced textbooks they don’t need. Besides being India’s biggest gold smuggler, the Seth is also the country’s largest textbook publisher. He’s a textbook case of how many ways an Indian can screw his country. As for the Americans, it’s a hat trick: feed, educate, and fuck India at the same time.’

  Jack Hanson looked at the Seth. The Seth looked at Sassoon. Having nowhere to go, Sassoon stared at Iyer. To be ill is to be disorderly in your mind as well. Nevertheless, seeing the four of them, Ernst was reminded of an ancient symbol of the Eternal Cycle—an insect caught in a frog’s mouth, the frog in a snake’s fangs, the snake gathered by a pouncing eagle. All the archetypes in one motif and under one tent.

  The American eagle looked impressed and bypassed the Indian snake to ask the Baghdadi frog, ‘Man’s dying of cancer and still refuses to let go. The hell did you do to him?’

  Dying? Sassoon didn’t appear concerned as much as curious. He still didn’t know about the cancer. Hanson on the other hand, knew everything about everyone. ‘It’s this American desire to be loved,’ Tufan had deduced.

  The mere mention of his illness however, and Ernst found himself perched once again on Waller’s operating table, reliving all the sights and smells from his surgery. The tang of snake urine was like smelling salts and that brought him back to the tent with a start.

  ‘What’s that smell?’ Jack Hanson asked.

  ~

  Ernst signalled Mohan Driver who pointed to his watch—a reproachful Krishna. He, however, hefted the gunny bag from the one-eyed Fiat to bring it over.

  ‘Three-thirty already,’ Mohan Driver muttered, lowering it to the ground. ‘You decide, Sa’ab, if you want to catch that plane. Up to you.’

  Ernst touched the gunny bag with his shoe. ‘This is why,’ he said to the archetypes, ‘some poor truck driver was burnt to a crisp, his lover Arjun stabbed, Salim Ali shot, and Willie thrown before a truck. ’

  He dug into the jute bag to drag out the phoren thingy with wires sticking out from everywhere. It was an effort, and seeing what emerged, the zoo of ancient archetypes hiccupped as one.

  ‘I’m told this is a Krypton-85 gas detector. The one stolen from the American compound. Very fancy, very expensive, very American. General Electric. Yours, I believe, Jack.’

  Hanson remained seated and stared at the thingy—an estranged parent dying to reach out and not knowing how.

  Ernst pointed at the tall smokestack extending into the sky from the reprocessing plant.

  ‘The Indian reprocessing plant emits its secrets from that smokestack, and this American box smells them out.

  ‘I learnt that with this thingy, the Americans sniff out the exact purity of plutonium being produced and can tell when it hits weapon-grade. No need for spy satellites if one of these is in play. Who can blame them for using it to sniff out what India’s up to? They couldn’t install it within India’s nuclear facility, though I don’t see why not. But America owns the Seth, who owns Sassoon, who owns Iyer, who runs Fertilisers, and there we have it. It is accurate up to five kilometres and the Fertilisers plant is within that radius. It had to be kept a secret, of course. Only Hanson’s Chemerica was permitted into the enclosure where it was installed. No Indians allowed and that’s fine with them. Even after Independence. Told to go fuck off, they go, yes Sirji.

  ‘Then a Sikh truck driver in love, goes steals the damn thing. He’d probably do anything his petite, porcelain doll asked him to do. Must have climbed into the American enclosure with impunity. A Sikh would do that. He steals and passes the gas detector to Arjun—his porcelain doll. The kid who got stabbed. The one who dumped a slumlord for the truck driver. Why, who knows. There’s this thing between Sikh truck drivers and young, Chinese-looking boys, so maybe I don’t want to know. Anyway, they’re both dead because of this. Your people had approached the slumlord, Chhote Bhai, to get back the stolen gas detector from his Arjun. Arjun was Chhote Bhai’s lover. But once Chhote Bhai learnt about him and the Sikh, it was over for Arjun, and you were no closer to getting this back. ’

  Ernst let the heavy Krypton-45 gas detector drop with a thud. Hanson almost jumped off his seat.

  The silence was total. One could hear the Atomic Ganesh festivities in the distance. He felt the phlegm tickle his throat and hawked into his handkerchief. He knew there would be blood—no need to check. More than ever, solitude was becoming his preferred state. He wanted to lock himself inside the Jüdische Krankenhaus like Schwester Ingrid. He had to get there first though, past this bunch, and past the Elephant God marauding the streets.

  ‘With Arjun dead and the Krypton gas detector still missing, you people guessed right and came after Salim Ali. Came to me with money and friendship in return for just one thing. Have Salim Ali, the darkie, return the gas detector. You even tried running him over with a truck the same way you did with Willie. Why? Was it frustration, or to scare him? Or just for the fun of it? Salim Ali being a lower caste, Muslim convert made it more of a blood sport than a distasteful task. His colour allows Adam that extra disdain.’

  Ernst hawked again, handkerchief to mouth.

  ‘Then Arjun’s mother goes whispers in Salim Ali’s ear. Tells him about Chhote Bhai, and Arjun, and why Arjun died the way he did. Talk about unintended consequences. Salim Ali hears her out, then goes guts Chhote Bhai to end up in prison. My guy is done for, but there’s an upside for you. At least now you can third degree the little fella to get at the gas detector. Except that, Willie stormed the police station and ended up humiliating your police dog, our trigger-happy Deputy Commissioner.’

  DCP Jahagirdar smiled at Ernst—no offense taken. Ernst smiled back.

  ‘Knowing Commissioner Jahagirdar, someone had to pay, and it ended up being my Salim Ali. Your darkie.’

  He looked at Sassoon.

  ‘Darkie this, and darkie that. What’s it about a Salim Ali that gets your goat? He was top of his class at IIT, Bombay. He came out of the slums to become one of the finest engineers I know. And unlike you or me, he didn’t owe anyone, anything. But he was a damn Muslim to the Indians, and a darkie to you. Not an engineer from IIT, but a stray dog in a mad city. Now, he’s dead. What do I do with him gone? Tell me, you racist prick. What do I do?’

  Jack Hanson shot up from his folding chair. His tone was emphatic. ‘I wasn’t involved in the crap these two pulled. I liked the little fella. You know that.’

  ‘I know,’ Ernst said. ‘I also know your grief over Arjun was genuine. Americans never like to see the consequences of what they wreak. Upsets you being around when that happens. Yes, I saw how much it upset you.’

  Ernst gave the Krypton-85 gas detector a friendly kick. Hanson flinched. Ernst offered him a smile to compensate. ‘The ultimate puppeteer,’ Ernst said. ‘America may not win every time, but everyone else must lose. India cannot go ahead with its nuclear program. That’s final, as far as America is concerned. So you pay your Indian lackeys to sabotage Phoenix. What was it Dr. Ramanna said? Yes, pulling a Nichols. He didn’t trust you, did he? Knew you’d try do Bhabha in, the way your friend Kenneth Nichols screwed Oppenheimer. In your case, by getting fucked-grade pipes supplied to Bhabha’s plutonium reprocessing plant. Guaranteeing a nuclear disaster. Imagine what happens to all those people you hand out biscuits and loose change to every day. But you
won’t have to see it because you won’t be here when it happens. Besides, you’re one of the good guys, so it’s okay.’

  49

  Memento Mori

  Approach me, stranger. Nothing in my story should startle you. Your flesh has known it.

  I just remind you. I’m Memento Mori.

  —Rondeno

  The tent was useless against the sun and helpless against humidity. The eagle, snake and frog were getting listless by the second. The insect had escaped. An FCC station wagon had crawled up and Iyer crawled in.

  Ernst noticed the Marathi labour standing by the curb. Next to them, Johnny Walker stood out in his uniform with sidearm. Close by, a Tata truck touching bumpers with the one-eyed Fiat. Mohan Driver continued being ominous—4 p.m. already.

  The Seth’s sodden kurta competed with Ernst’s soaked jacket. Seth Jamunadas appeared as uncomfortable seeing him wear a jacket, as he would feel wearing one. To the Seth’s right, the Deputy Commissioner was outgrowing his St. Stephen’s College persona. He issued a guttural instruction in Marathi to Johnny Walker who walked up—somewhat unsure about approaching someone white, who had slapped him once already.

  ‘We must move now?’

  ‘You asking, or telling me?’

  The Marathi labour was already on the move, leaving Johnny Walker to tentatively shove at Ernst under the Deputy Commissioner’s watchful eye. The labourers formed a relay line from the waiting truck next to Mohan Driver, weaving into the Phoenix annexe through the front entrance. It looked like a guard of honour for a reluctant Ernst being goaded into the Phoenix building. The last thing he wanted was to get any closer to the invisible fires burning in there.

  Then, shiny bits and pieces, stainless steel flanges and pipes—still dripping—started coming out over the human conveyer belt, now less a guard of honour and more like an irradiated, desi, Ho Chi Minh trail. The sabotage discovered, Bhabha’s AEET was busy cleaning up. Finger pointing would come next. His Steiger Engineering logo stamped around the pipe threadings read, ‘German-made’, in case of any doubt whom to blame. The stainless steel pipes shone under the sun and probably glowed in the dark. He was tempted to have Mohan Driver move the one-eyed Fiat as far down the road as possible.