The Caretaker

by A. X. Ahmad

  * * *

  He is in the chimney, an endless slot that stretches down into darkness. Sheltered from the ocean spray, it is drier in here, the clay firmer. He has climbed in chimneys before, and knows that all his weight is going to be on his legs, the impact transferred to the wound in his side.

  He jams one foot, knee high, into the wall of the chimney. The other leg stretches out behind him, braced against the opposing wall. Stretching out his arms to grip both sides, he becomes a human cork in a stone bottle.

  The pain in his side is electric. He lowers one foot a little, then the next. He almost slides down, losing his grip.

  Slower, smaller movements. He jerks downward, a few inches this time.

  The pain is wrenching through him. Turn it off. Turn off the mind. Don’t think.

  Taking a deep breath, he slows his breathing.

  He is at the top of the gulmohar tree, the wind rocking the branches. From here he can look down onto the flat roofs of houses, see the red ball of the sun setting over distant hills.

  It is growing dark, and he must go down for dinner, or else his mother will come out and shout his name. He lowers one foot, searching for stability within the swaying of the tree.

  Mataji appears in the garden below, her long hair tightly braided, her pale face searching for him. Even from up here, he can tell that the front of her kameez is spattered with turmeric and cooking oil.

  There is pain, but somehow the pain is not his, it is the pain in his mother’s voice as she calls his name.

  I’m coming, Mataji. Don’t worry, I’m coming down. The branches sway as he moves downward, the bark scraping against his knees.

  He is soon halfway down, and the hills have disappeared. From this height, he can look into the window of an apartment building across the street. At one window, a Sikh family sits at a table, eating. In another, a white-bearded man prays silently in front of an altar, then places a garland of red flowers around a portrait of the Guru. He is so close that he can smell the incense, hear the tinkling of the prayer bell.

  As he climbs down, he is reaching thicker branches, and they do not bend with his weight.

  Ranjit, Ranjit, Ranjit, his mother calls. Her voice is bereft and heartbroken and worn with calling him.

  He can see the ground now, and the low tattered hedges that flank the gate. He can see the wet patches of earth near the tube-well, crisscrossed by the tracks of his bicycle.

  Coming, Mataji, I’m coming. I’m almost there.

  Inch by inch he moves downward.

  * * *

  Taking a deep breath, he opens his eyes and sees a slot of gray twilight at the base of the chimney. He lands on a jumble of wet boulders. Careful not to slip and shatter an ankle, he grips the cold stone and edges slowly forward.

  The roar of the ocean gets louder. He clambers over the last massive boulder and lands on the rocky beach.

  The silver Mercedes lies twenty yards away, the gray ocean lapping at its sides. Guru, please let her still be alive.

  He runs up to the car. Its windshield has shattered into an opaque spiderweb, and inside, the slash of her seat belt pinning her upside down, is Anna. When he reaches her window she stares at him.

  “Anna, I’m here.”

  Her eyes flicker. Thank you, Guru.

  The door has jammed shut with the impact. He picks up a rock and slams it again and again into the windshield, which shudders and takes the blows, but does not break. Finally one corner falls inward. Taking off his jacket, he wraps his hands in it and tugs with all his strength, ripping the sheet of fractured glass from its frame.

  He crouches down and peers into the car, seeing her clearly now. Her short hair hangs from her upside-down head.

  “Anna. Help is on the way. I’m going to stay here with you.”

  She opens her eyes and mumbles, “We should have gone away, Ranjit, we should have…”

  He feels a surge of pain. “Shhh. Don’t talk. Listen to me, listen to my voice. Can you move your head?”

  She tries to, then gasps in pain, and her head flops sideways.

  The tide is coming in fast. Water surges past the car, then retracts with a hiss.

  “Don’t … don’t leave me in here. Get me out.”

  “Anna, I can’t move you just yet. I think your neck is broken. If I move you—”

  He feels the cold sluice of water around his feet. The waves are big enough now to tip the car, drop it from the rocks into the ocean.

  “Please,” she whispers. “Please. Get me out.”

  He looks at her hanging in the car. Maybe he can cushion her neck a little. He unbuckles her seat belt with one hand, the other steadying her head.

  She moans as she tumbles forward, half out of the windshield, but she’s still stuck. Then he sees the steering wheel jammed deep into her stomach. She smiles up at him, and a trickle of blood runs out of her mouth.

  “It’s okay. Get me out.”

  He heaves, and she comes through the empty windshield like a rag doll, arms and legs askew, head lolling backward.

  Gathering her into his arms, he staggers to the base of the cliffs. With his back against a boulder, he lowers himself and manages to sit, cradling her head in his arms.

  “Anna, hold on. A rescue boat is on its way.”

  She smiles faintly up at him, her teeth red with blood. “Josephine. I remember what she looks like. I remember her now.”

  “That’s good. That’s good. Tell me about her, Anna. Talk to me.”

  She coughs up bubbles of blood. Her head is warm and heavy in his arms.

  He wills himself to forget her betrayal, to go back into the darkness, to when they lay naked together. “It’s all right. I’ll talk, you listen. Remember, that night, I was telling you about going to India? We’ll go there, okay?”

  She blinks up at him.

  “Listen. We’ll go to the Golden Temple in Amritsar. It’s warm there. The sun is shining down and the marble is warm under your feet. You can hear women singing, you can hear their prayers floating across the water, and I’m with you—”

  She begins to cough.

  “—as we walk to the temple. All the women are there, singing kirtans. They are all wishing you well, they are praying for you. I am with you, I am with you—”

  She clutches his arm. The blood flows from her mouth.

  Then he is praying. He is saying every scrap of prayer he remembers. He is praying to the Gurus, he is praying to the universe, he is saying the words, over and over and over.

  Give her peace. Give her shanti.

  Om shanti om.

  Shanti, shanti, om.

  Om shanti, shanti.

  He is still praying when the Coast Guard rescue launch pulls up close to the rocks. He hears the powerful thrum of its outboard engines, but does not open his eyes.

  Men in gray uniforms hail him through a loudspeaker, then wade ashore. They find him sitting at the base of the cliff, Anna’s head cradled in his arms. His eyes are shut, and he is speaking in a language they do not understand. They look at the Mercedes, now lying half submerged in water, and shake their heads. They look in awe at the tall, brown-skinned man, having heard of his climb down the cliff face.

  “Sir,” a voice comes through the fog. “We will take over now. You have to let us take her.”

  Arms pry Anna away, arms pull him to his feet.

  They put her onto the stretcher and her head lolls. “Gentle,” he cries. “Be gentle with her.”

  As they lift the stretcher, her jacket gapes open. Photographs scatter onto the rocks and are swept away by the waves.

  He bends and scoops up three color pictures. They are stained with her blood, warped by the saltwater.

  He looks down and a little girl with Anna’s dark eyes smiles up at him. All the pictures are of her: she is on the beach, laughing, wearing a crumpled yellow sun hat. She is a plump baby, held tightly by her shirtless father. She is being bathed in a sink, a yellow rubber duck clutched in one fist. />
  Ranjit closes his eyes. He remembers the Senator digging a hole on that faraway evening. Anna had been wrong: her husband hadn’t burned all the photographs of his daughter. Years after her death, he had put them into a cedar box and buried them, hoping that the pain would pass.

  He had remembered his little girl after all.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Two days later Ranjit stands in the doorway of a darkened hospital room. The shades have been pulled to keep out the afternoon light, what little there is of it, since the sky has been obliterated by falling snow.

  As his eyes adjust to the darkness he can make out Senator Neals, lying like a fallen monument on the white-sheeted bed, his chest immobilized by a massive bandage. He seems unconscious, but then he moves his head, and his low voice fills the room.

  “Who is it?”

  Ranjit walks into the darkened room. The doctors said that the pellets from the shotgun had spattered through the Senator’s chest, just missing his heart, shattering ribs and causing massive internal bleeding. Only a man built like an ox could have taken that blow and still crawled to the alarm cabinet. An emergency crew had found him slumped in a pool of his blood, hands still bound together, his fingers clamped over the red alarm button.

  The doctors repaired eleven holes in his bowel, and then cut his chest open to remove the pellets close to his heart. They were worried that he wouldn’t make it, but he had stabilized and woken this morning. Ranjit rushed over from Celia’s apartment, where he was staying, under orders from the police not to leave the island.

  He steps closer to the bed, seeing that the windowsill is crowded with vases of white flowers that he does not recognize. In India, the flowers of death are orange marigolds.

  “Senator, I didn’t know you were awake—”

  “Open the blinds. It’s too dark, I can’t see.”

  Ranjit pulls up the blinds and a murky light shines into the room, casting shadows of the flowers onto the opposite wall.

  “And tell the nurse to get rid of those flowers. I can’t stand the smell, it’s making me sick.”

  “Senator, I am deeply sorry. I tried to tell you about Kohonen, but you wouldn’t listen. He was the one who—”

  The Senator stares at Ranjit out of reddened eyes. Deep lines of pain bracket his mouth. “I kept losing consciousness in the other room, but I heard enough. Bragging about how he tricked me in North Korea, the bastard.” He pauses and his breathing is ragged. “If Anna had been in her right mind, he never would have got through to her. She’s a strong-willed woman.”

  The Senator has used the present tense, and for a few seconds Anna is alive and warm and beautiful, walking down the stone stairs in her yellow dress. Then reality reasserts itself, and Ranjit slumps down onto an upholstered chair. He stares at the shadows on the wall.

  The Senator’s voice breaks the silence. “They told me you climbed down the cliff, you tried to save her.”

  “There wasn’t much I could do. Her neck was broken, her stomach ruptured. It was a matter of minutes.”

  “Did … she say anything? Anything at all?”

  “She couldn’t really talk. But she had these…” He takes the three photographs out of his pocket, warped and stained with blood and saltwater. “… she had these with her. There were more, but they were washed away.”

  The Senator takes the photographs with trembling fingers and his eyes widen. “Jesus. Where did she get these?”

  Ranjit hesitates. “I dug them up. Kohonen wanted the microfilm, so I lied to him. I remembered you had buried something there, and I just wanted to distract him…”

  “Jesus.” The Senator turns his head away from the photographs and blinks into the dim light. “There is no forgetting, is there? I … I went into the house to take a call, I was gone not even five minutes. Jojo must have hit her head when she fell into the pool. I’d had it drained, there was just a puddle at the bottom. A puddle, I tell you. If she’d fallen on her back, she would have broken an arm or a leg, but she must have landed facedown.”

  Ranjit’s mind fills with an image of Anna’s little girl, her hair floating around her in the cool water, her breath bubbling up, until it stops.

  The Senator tries to wipe away tears with his hands, but the IVs restrict his movements. “Anna was in so much pain, I told her the pool was full … I mean, what difference did it make? Jojo was gone.” His voice thickens. “Anna could never forgive me. And then she started seeing other men. I knew about it, I thought she would stop, but it just went on and on. And those damn pictures, everywhere, it was like living in a shrine. Kohonen, that bastard, he saw what she was doing, and he used her. I trusted him, I never thought…”

  He is crying now, making no attempt to wipe away the tears rolling down his battered face.

  “Senator, the Koreans think that he has the microfilm, that he’s holding out for more money. They will track him down. He’s not long for this world.”

  “No.” The Senator’s voice is thick. “Don’t underestimate him. He’s very resourceful, he has access to some far-reaching networks. I’ve put the word out that he’s persona non grata, but still…”

  Ranjit feels a pang of panic. “My family is still in detention. They’ll be deported anytime now. Do you think he can get to them?”

  “Ran-jitt.” The Senator reaches out and grabs his sleeve. “When I called Homeland Security, we were after you, I never meant to involve your wife and girl, but Kohonen convinced me that it was the best way—”

  “Please just get them out. I need to take them somewhere safe.”

  “I’ll call my office, they’ll take care of it. It’ll take some time, these places have a lot of bureaucracy to get through.” He lets go of Ranjit’s sleeve and sinks back into his pillow. “And listen. Don’t talk to anyone, okay? The police here have been told to back off, and we have the press under wraps.”

  “I haven’t said anything.” Ranjit thinks of the hours he spent in the Oak Bluffs police station. A phone call had come just as the cops started asking him questions, and they had stopped right away.

  “And the microfilm? You have it?”

  “Yes, it’s safe.” Ranjit thinks of the manila envelope that he’d left with James at the Garibaldi.

  “I’m telling you, Kohonen isn’t going to give up so easily. It’s too dangerous to let it exist. Destroy it.”

  “I can do that, but it’s not here, it’s—”

  The door opens and a nurse in pink scrubs peeks in, her olive-skinned face tightening when she sees the tears staining the Senator’s face. “What in heaven’s name is going on here? This man is in critical condition. Please end this visit, right now.”

  “I’m sorry. Senator, I’ll come back later.”

  As Ranjit heads out of the door, the Senator is staring at the photographs, his blunt fingertips caressing his daughter’s face.

  * * *

  Ranjit walks quickly across the icy parking lot and dials Ricky Singh’s number. It rings and rings, but finally Ricky answers.

  “Ranjit Mausa? Why haven’t you called me? What is going on—”

  “Ricky, where are you? At the store?”

  Ricky’s voice drops to a whisper. “Yeah, and my dad is here, he’s restocking. He’s going to hear us.”

  “Look, I don’t have much time to explain, but I need you to close up. Drive to the Norfolk County Correctional Center. It’s in Dedham, on I-95. Tell them that Senator Neals called on your behalf. They’re going to release Preetam and Shanti in the next few hours.”

  “Are you sure? How can I—”

  “Put your father on the phone. Don’t worry, just do it.”

  There is a sigh. He hears Ricky calling out, and Lallu’s brusque, loud voice comes onto the phone. “Ranjit? Where are you? How dare you try to get Ricky involved—”

  “Lallu. Listen to me.” He takes a deep breath. “I know you don’t like me, I know you think that Preetam deserved better. You’re probably right. But right now I need y
ou to drive to Dedham and pick up Preetam and Shanti. They’ll be released soon. I told Ricky where to go.”

  “Ricky knows?” There is a pause. “Okay, I will do it for her, not for you.”

  “Thank you, I—”

  There is a click and Lallu is gone. Ranjit stares at the phone in his hand, then climbs into the truck and switches on the ignition.

  * * *

  They’ll be released in a few hours, but Kohonen is still out there.

  He drives aimlessly down the empty, frozen roads, turning at random, not sure where he is going. Finding himself near the airport, he takes the dirt road to the Long Point Wildlife Refuge and parks in its empty lot. Heading over the sand dunes, he walks along the beach, passing broken branches and tangles of lobster nets. As he walks he remembers the conversation he’d had this morning outside Mike’s Tow. He was getting into his truck when a blue-and-white police cruiser pulled up. It was Officer Gardner from the West Tisbury Police Department.

  The policeman rolled down his window. “Fine morning,” he said, his forehead creasing as he squinted up at the snowflakes. “Where are you off to?”

  Ranjit didn’t see the point in lying. “The hospital.”

  Officer Gardner heaved his bulky frame out of the cruiser. “Ah. To have a chat with the Senator, no doubt. Give him my regards. He’s lucky to survive being shot at such a close range.”

  “Yes, he was lucky.”

  The officer stared up at the falling snow, flakes of it settling on the shoulders of his blue uniform. “It’s pretty unusual to be found shot in the chest with one’s hands tied behind one’s back, isn’t it?” His voice was slow and unhurried, the voice of someone discussing the weather. “And at the Red Heron Estate, where, coincidentally, you are the caretaker?”

  Ranjit remained silent, the keys to the truck clutched in his hand.

  “You wouldn’t know it, but this used to be a nice place, before all the money washed in. Now there are people overdosing on cocaine, there are people falling out of speedboats—three this year—and the more money involved, the more calls we get from the mainland to be cooperative. I’ve had cooperative before, but never come up against a matter of national security.”