Objects in the Mirror

by Nicolò Govoni

  Putting the objects back where he found them, he finds something balled up in the corner of a drawer. It’s yellow fabric. It’s a yellow kurti, bloodstained.

  He jerks back and falls on the carpet and how the fuck did that thing get back in there? He rushes to the bathroom and does two lines and puts on a hundred and fifty thousand rupees Derek Rose pajama, but he can’t sleep anywhere near that dressing room so he lays down on the leather couch in the living room, yet when he manages to close his eyes it’s six in the morning.

  ***

  In college, Nil goes back and forth between the classrooms and Starbucks. He manages to get to Specialized Reporting in the early afternoon, where a fat lesbian speaks of the importance of enhancing local traditions to meet the threat of globalization.

  “Come on, Nil, how old are you?” hisses a classmate, turning around to face him. He’s never spoken to her before, probably. “I could understand this coming from a kid, rejecting the local language spoken by the proletariat, but don’t you know that a true intellectual must now learn the language of the people he intends to uplift?”

  “I’m completely in favor of lifting people out of poverty,” intervenes a big dude sitting beside her, “but if you accept your poverty, you should die.”

  Nil feels confused. Why the fuck are they even talking to him?

  ***

  Nil texts Mel to meet him at Candle Cove.

  At lunch break, Nil swims through a sea of students from different colleges and brats from the school towards his Mercedes, of which the golden band stands out proud among the other weak-coloured cars.

  The traffic seems even more revolting than usual today, or perhaps Nil is just in a bad mood.

  Mel is waiting for him outside Candle Cove, where the halo of smog and dust dances in the air. It’s hot and damp and tiring to be outside, but he must talk to her.

  “We’re killing him,” goes Nil, after pondering upon what to say over and over.

  “Is this all you needed to tell me?” she says. Does she look relieved?

  “I mean—” Nil opens his mouth and turns and the sunlight strikes him in the face. “I visited him in the hospital yesterday.”

  “I know.” A beat. Mel takes a step toward him. “Anything weird?”

  Nil turns to face her and he feels like he’s seeing something, something in her eyes, but before he can investigate further he finds himself with his eyes on the ground. “Nothing,” he goes, “he seemed resigned.”

  “Resigned? That’s unlike him.”

  “Perhaps that’s not the right word...”

  Mel pushes the dust with the tip of her Chanel shoes. “What, you getting scared?” Her eyes are Greek fire.

  “I’m not,” Nil says, regretting the hasty tone at once.

  “What then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Nil. Nil, look at me.” Mel brushes up against his shoulder. “We have gone through this, Nil.”

  “What if he kills him and gets away with it?”

  “He won’t.”

  “We saw him in the face. We could—

  “We have no evidence linking Ameen to the Cartel. None.”

  “We might get an arrest following the drug lead.”

  “Again, with no evidence?

  “We can find it.”

  “No, we can’t.”

  Nil considers keeping quiet, but it’s stronger than him. “We can.” He looks up. He can even crack a smile.

  “Nil, you do realize that if we begin chasing him far and wide around the Pit—”

  “Not in the Pit.” Interrupting her gives him an adrenaline rush.

  Mel stares at him.

  “Do you remember?” A trace of excitement in his voice. “You said it yourself. I tried both the stuff Imal buys in the Ring and yours that comes from the Pit. They are similar.” Nil picks some dirt from underneath his fingernail. “And that’s because Ameen and Rupesh are the same person, Mel, which means that he deals both in the Pit and in the Ring. Gabriel told me.”

  “He did?” After a moment, she shakes her head. “If you chase him, he might realize that we’re after him and go into hiding, and we lose the only opportunity we’ve ever had,” she says. “Now we have a bait, Nil, do you get it?”

  “The stakes are too high.”

  Mel makes a face. “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing...”

  Mel lights a bidi and takes a drag. “This is our opportunity to make a difference.”

  “I know.” Nil looks down at his own cigarette and shakes the ashes piling up at the end. “It’s just—there is something else, something more behind all this, and I need to know.” And then, filled with a silent, irresistible impulse, without looking at her, he says, “Do you trust me?”

  Nil can feel her gaze on him, and so continues to shake off the ashes from his Benson, and when Mel sighs a soft puff and drops her bidi, she touches his arm, perhaps accidentally, perhaps not.

  “Okay,” she says. “Be careful.”

  ***

  In the car, Nil texts Imal on WhatsApp.

  I need to talk to you, he begins.

  Bro, tell me, Imal texts back with disarming immediacy.

  In person.

  Now I’m busy... are you coming to Crystal Clear tonight?

  Maybe.

  Then we talk about it there.

  Ok.

  Once at home, Nil feels fed up with straight Old Monk. He opens the fridge to mix it with something but only after having drunk half of it he realizes he didn’t find any kind of soda, and so it’s straight Old Monk as usual, and then on the couch, exhausted, he drinks the rest of it, disgusted by its taste.

  The iPhone’s screen lights up and it’s a message from Imal. He unlocks the device with trepidation only to find a dickpick. For ten long minutes Nil awaits an apology, but nothing ever comes.

  Nil does a line hoping it will give him a bit of peace, but after less than a minute spent staring at the Manchester United digital clock hanging on the wall, Nil grabs his iPhone typing furiously.

  Look, Imal, it’s urgent.

  Can you tell me here? He text back, again with commendable rapidity, and no shame.

  No, I can’t leave traces.

  Wow... what is it?

  Something big. Nil thinks of the dickpick and wills himself not to scroll up.

  Okay... I’m going to the Gymkhana in one hour... will I see you there?

  Perfect.

  Nil gets there late. He can’t really say how. He didn’t linger to watch Netflix or the replay of the goals of yesterday’s match or shaving or reading the Express, yet he reads on Imal’s face that he’s been waiting.

  “Hey,” he says, quickening his pace.

  “Yo, bro. So, what’s the matter?” Imal is sipping a Bloody Mary and smoking a cigar. He is smoking it from the wrong side, or so it seems to Nil.

  “Want a drink?” Nil goes, his eyes wandering around the room looking for the waiter. “I’m parched.”

  “Will you tell me or not?”

  Nil meets the waiter’s eyes, who approaches with simian enthusiasm, and orders a straight Bourbon, and so he stares at Imal, whose hands stir on the table as restless as the wind, his fingers playing with the strap of a two hundred fifty thousand rupees Rolex.

  “Drugs,” says Nil.

  “That’s it?” goes Imal. “I see that my favorite feel-good bastard is making a habit of it.”

  “I need your guy’s number.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to try something new.”

  “Tell me what you want and I’ll get it for you.” Imal crosses his legs. “He trusts me.”

  Nil sighs.

  “What?” asks Imal.

  “It’s that stuff.”

  “What stuff?”

  Nil looks down. “The one you take anally.”

  The restlessness in Imal’s movements seems to quiet down, and he leans back in his chair and gets a mouthful of cigar and, the smoke swelling
in his words, he says, “I understand.”

  Imal fishes his iPhone out of his pocket and texts and then he puts the cigar out and stands up.

  “Tell him I sent you. I sent him a message, but you tell him anyway.”

  Nil nods before Imal walks away. On Nil’s iPhone, the number of the drug dealer. Without wasting a moment, Nil texts. It’s go time.

  To release the tension, Nil throws himself in the gym, starting with ten minutes of treadmill and then pull-ups, but at the third he feels energy suddenly leaving his body and staggers and stumbles into a stack of yoga mats while people glance at him. In the bathroom, he does a line and feels better and then goes back for a full hour of exercise, and showering he thinks he’s never felt this good, physically speaking.

  Drying himself, he smiles when he sees the response of the drug dealer and, breathing in, he sticks “I Come With Knives” by IAMX in his ears and feels charged and on point, ready to meet his destiny in the Muslim neighborhood of Candil, where the colonial villas are a distant memory and the Fence burns in the sun. Yes, he definitely feels good. You got this, Nil.

  He calls an Uber and enjoys a cigarette, the window rolled down, and watches the clubs and the museums strolling by, and the smoke leaves no bitterness on his lips and not even the muggy evening of Ayodhya can affect his mood.

  Once in the Muslim neighborhood, where the heritage mansions are replaced by lousy buildings, Nil pulls up the window, but he does so only for convenience, no trace of disgust, and then the driver pulls over and Nil pays with Paytm and he’s out of the cab and breathing in the smell of piss and kebabs, and again he does so with a light heart, his lips hatching into a grin.

  He’s going to get Ameen.

  Nil checks the location the dealer sent him on WhatsApp and glides in a narrow alley, where the carcass of a dog, probably run over by a car and then dragged away from the road, lies bloated and rotting. Nil covers his nose and mouth with a handkerchief, but in vain. He gags. It doesn’t matter. Nothing should dampen his enthusiasm.

  Ameen’s middleman, a guy short and puny, a small-time pusher wearing a grease-stained gray tunic and a baseball hat so worn out as to be unreadable, shows up turning the corner.

  “Hallo, sir.” The man doesn’t take off his hat.

  Dodging a rusty pipe, Nil starts toward him, then he stops, keeping him at arm’s length. “Do you have what I asked you?”

  “Haan.”

  “Let’s see.”

  The pusher pulls out a packet from his pocket. “Besht drug in India.”

  Nil examines the packet and turns it over in his hands and opens it and, dipping a finger in the ocher powder, he holds it to his nose, pretending to know all about it. He closes the packet and shakes his head and returns it. Confused, the pusher looks at him like a goddamn starved donkey.

  “It’s not what I’m looking for.”

  “Kya?” says the pusher, his voice shrill, peasant.

  “It is not good enough.”

  “Kyun, bhaiaji? Tum kya keh rahe ho?”

  Nil shakes his head. “I’m sorry, it’s not what I asked for.”

  “Magar yeh vahi hai jo aap leke aye the!”

  “I don’t understand a word you’re saying. Speak English.”

  The pusher throws his arms and starts yelling in Hindi and moves around like a bug in a box.

  “No Hindi, I said,” Nil spells out, leaning toward him.

  The pusher keeps on babbling and his accent is thick and ugly, the accent of villagers in Bihar, and Nil takes one more step towards him, who looks even shorter and slender and darker, and his little voice subsides.

  “Mujhe achchha saamaanchaahie,” says Nil, in Hindi, pulling out three two thousand rupee bills of his wallet.

  The pusher stops and eyes the money in silence while Nil pulls out a fourth bill.

  “I need some good stuff and I can pay twice for it and I will.” Nil pauses. “But I need your boss.”

  The pusher looks up transfixed, the lumen of the reverence only money can evoque in the depths of his pupils. He’s not shouting anymore, is he, as Nil extracts a fifth bill.

  “Put me in touch with Rupesh.”

  The drug dealer gestures. “Boss no meeting customers.”

  Nil waves the bills under his nose. “Arrange a meeting with your boss and you can have as much as you want.”

  The beady eyes of the pusher follow the swaying of the bills, every sound fading in the alley until nothing can be heard but the rustling of freshly printed money.

  “Okay?” Nil goes.

  “Okay,” repeats the pusher.

  Nil hands him the bills.

  “Tell him I’m Imal.”

  The pusher opens his eyes wide, but he says nothing and grabs the money, no question asked. Nil puts his wallet back in his pocket and stares at the bastard.

  “Here, tonight,” he says. “Our agreement expires tonight.”

  Before leaving the alley, Nil hears the dealer talking on the phone. He forgets to cover his nose near the rotting dog, and when Mel answers his call, Nil can’t speak, fearing he will puke on the microphone.

  “Hello?” she is saying. “Hello?”

  “Mel,” he says, back on the main road.

  “Yes?” Her voice reminds him of Indian classical singers.

  “It’s done.”

  “You found him?”

  “I have an appointment with him.”

  A pause.

  “How?”

  “How do you think?” Nil feels elated.

  “How do you know it’s him?”

  “I know.”

  Silence.

  “Mel—I just know.” Walking, Nil closes his eyes and lifts his head to the sky in a voiceless curse. “Trust me.”

  “I trust you,” Mel says. “I’ll call the newspaper.”

  Nil smiles. “Okay.”

  “Which one?”

  “Is it even a question?” Nil feels really elated.

  “Roger that,” goes Mel.

  “So I’ll see you tonight.” Nil makes sure the smile shines through his voice.

  “Perfect.”

  A pause.

  “Don’t you want to know where?”

  “Right,” Mel says. “Where?”

  Nil looks across the road. “In front of the Jama Masjid’s Cafe Coffee Day.”

  “See you there,” she says. Then she adds, “Well done, Nil.”

  “Thank you.” But Mel has already hung up.

  Euphoric, Nil considers the possibility of snorting a line, but he feels too well already and, yes, he doesn’t need anything except himself to feel good, thank you very much.

  He calls a taxi to go home but, once there, he can’t sit still and greets the maid when she enters and, despite her looking away with undisguised fear, Nil gives her a big smile, and then plunks down a few notes to provide the reporter everything he needs to publish the groundbreaking story, but he ends up writing the whole article himself, even describing Ameen’s arrest, and when he looks up it’s time to go, and he dresses Burberry from head to toe, finishing up with a lovely beige coat, a not exactly appropriate piece of garment in this weather, but who fucking cares, he’s meeting with destiny.

  “I’m taking the Mercedes,” he tells the driver in the parking lot. The driver attempts to dissuade him declaring himself at his beck and call, even begging him, but Nil reassures him and stepping closer he puts a hand on the driver’s shoulder. The driver recoils.

  “It’ll be okay,” he says. “Take the night off.” He drives off.

  He enjoys the fucking drive. The evening is hot but the British-era buildings shine around him with the promises of comfortable studios and bedrooms inhabited by lawyers and doctors and bankers in their thirties, beautiful and young and with the world at their feet. The traffic is congested but appropriate to the expectation that both grips his bowels and caresses his loins, and then the mosque appears in the twilight sky, and Nil pulls over at a safe distance, in a position that allows hi
m to keep an eye on the entire area. Cafe Coffee Day is full of couples.

  Nil rolls the window down trying to control his excitement when Mel opens the door and sits on the passenger side.

  “Hey,” Nil goes.

  “Hey,” she says. “Are you ready?”

  “Are you ready?” he replies, smiling.

  Mel smiles, too. She smiles for a long time.

  “The Express reporter,” he asks, “is he here?”

  “Near the mosque.”

  Nil nods. “The police?” He hadn’t thought of it before, the possibility of a live arrest.

  “They are the last ones you want to involve, believe me.”

  Nil shakes his head. “Anyway, we don’t need them.”

  “That’s right, a trial by media, the way we like it.” Mel lays her hand on his wrist. “We needed you to get here.”

  “Thank you,” says Nil, and he doesn’t stammer.

  The lights of the mosque fall on the tar, creating the illusion of a golden puddle outlining the structure, and then the evening azaan rises and the worshippers start flowing in, and Nil feels an inexplicable uneasiness pervading him and it’s something sudden, and spontaneous, and unprovoked. He glances at the alley, but no one is there.

  “He’ll come,” says Mel, her fingers still on his wrist. Nil starts sweating.

  The crowd around the mosque has stopped crossing the gates, mobbing around the entrance, and although the car is soundproofed, Nil can almost hear the shouting and the tumult of the people, and so he grabs the door handle but, freezing, stares at the muslims hurrying out in groups, the women covering their faces, pulling children close.

  “There’s something wrong,” Nil murmurs.

  “Where are you going?” says Mel, but Nil has already opened the door and is out and crossing the street and passing the cafe, and “Nil!” shouts Mel from behind, and he gets almost run over by an auto-rickshaw but now he is in front of the crowd and pushes through these sweaty bodies, and he can hear them, the screams, the screams blurring the metallic sound of the praying speaker.

  Despite wearing the wrong clothes and not being purified, no one stops him, and Nil sets foot in a Muslim place of worship for the first time in his life and it’s with some degree of surprise that he finds that, indeed, they aren’t all that different. The floors are clean and the alcoves don’t hide any weapons and terrorists are not training on the porch and there is a strong outpouring of beauty that accompanies the geometry of the construction culminating with the—