A Star Called Lucky

by Bapsy Jain

  The old woman was looking at the van careening down the alley. “So reckless,” she said.

  Lucky nodded.

  “My son,” the old woman said, “he needs surgery on his heart. He is so small, the poor thing. We kept taking him to the doctors and they gave us this medicine and that medicine, told us to feed him milk, told us to feed him chocolate, told us to feed him only vegetables, told us to feed him only meat. Finally, one doctor told us, ‘It is the boy’s heart. He has a hole in his heart and the blood cannot flow properly, so he is always small and skinny. Soon he will die. There is a hospital where they can do this thing, but the cost—fifty thousand rupees! Where is a poor family to find that? Why, it is more than my husband makes in…in…in a very long time. I don’t know if he will ever make that much money. So, for thirty days I have come here every day and prayed that Allah would make me a miracle. Thirty days I have eaten dust and insults and dodged traffic and let my tears wet this piece of ground. But you know what? I believe in miracles. Do you believe in miracles?”

  Lucky looked at the old woman. “I don’t believe in miracles,” she said, “I depend on them.” Ahead, she could see Ishan hurrying from the mosque in the company of a group of young students. They were talking excitedly and gesturing wildly with their hands. At length, Ishan kick-started the little motorcycle.

  What the hell? Lucky thought. She checked for the cell phone in her inner pocket and pushed it down further so that it was safe. Carefully, she reached around her neck and found the necklace’s clasp. She dropped the necklace and the stone into the old woman’s hand before climbing onto the back of the motorcycle. Sometimes, she thought, you need all the credit with the gods that you can muster. Perhaps it would pay for the operation.

  “Where now?” she asked Ishan.

  “Were going to meet Mohammed.”

  “Mohammed?”

  “Mohammed, the mattress maker. He may know this man you seek.”

  Six degrees, Lucky thought, as they zipped through traffic. She counted off the names: Karsan, Ishan, Mohammed. Three down, three to go.

  Chapter 15

  Mohammed was tall and thin, dressed in a clean white shirt and gray trousers with old, but neatly shined, black oxfords. He was in his early to mid-thirties, with black hair nicely trimmed, and his face was clean-shaven. His sole distinguishing feature was a thick pair of black plastic glasses. He was sitting in his shop, sewing a mattress by hand when Ishan and Lucky arrived. He looked up from his sewing and greeted Ishan like a long-lost friend.

  “Please,” he said. “Come in, come in. Sit down. Will you have tea?” There were three other men sewing in the shop, two bent over sewing machines, and one, like Mohammed, sewing with a needle and thread. Without waiting for an answer, Mohammed clapped his hands and the man put down his needle and went out of the shop, returning a few minutes later with a small black tray and porcelain cups of steaming chai.

  Lucky looked around. She knew the neighborhood well — had passed it a thousand times. It was close to the Grant Road station and headed up toward Malabar Hill where her in-laws, Arun and Geeta had lived, and further west to Warden Road, where she and Viki had shared their marital home, back — could it be—five years ago? She might even have bought mattresses from Mohammed. Or, more precisely, when she sent her staff to buy mattresses, they might have bought them from him. She touched one. It was made of blue-and-white striped coarse cotton. She made a sour face. Not the same, she thought.

  “Our mattresses,” Mohammed said noticing her expression, “come in a variety of thicknesses and qualities, but we use only the best materials.” He looked and spoke to Ishan only. He would not, of course, say anything to Lucky: he would be expected to assume she was Ishan’s wife’s sister or some relative. He would never speak to her directly, nor would he expect her to speak to anyone — including Ishan — in his presence. “We can make them in any thickness. We have foam rubber and cotton padding. Our best mattress,” he said, lightly stroking the cloth with his finger, “is a composite of two different kinds of foam with a layer of fine raw cotton stuffing both above and below the foam. It will never settle or form lumps.”

  “We are not here for a mattress,” Ishan said. “I am looking for a doctor. I was led to understand he does charity work. Sayeed suggested that you might be able to help me. His name is, or used to be, Lobsang Telok.”

  Lucky took a cup of tea before realizing that she had no way to drink it through the veil. While the men chatted, she quickly set the cup back down on the tray and stepped outside to wait and watch. Looking up and down the street, she wondered if she had, in fact, eluded surveillance. If Coleman was watching Karsan Kaka, he would know by now where she was and why she was here. How much about Karsan and his habits would Coleman know? How fast could the computers make connections? She fingered her American cell phone, which had worldwide roaming, and then realized that it might be possible for them to track her via the cell phone towers, even in India. Would they? She doubted it, but what if they were eavesdropping? Electronic snooping? They might have detected her phone and the number. She switched it off.

  Mohammed’s shop was little more than a plywood shed in the middle of a u-shaped cluster of plywood sheds. There were men like Mohammed in each of them, all relatively well dressed, and more men, in workers’ garb, bent over sewing machines, or stuffing mattresses with cotton pulled from oversized burlap bales, or drinking tea, or lying down in the shade taking an afternoon nap. Traffic was building outside. Groups of schoolchildren in fives and tens walked by, swinging backpacks and bookbags and laughing. Every now and then, a child walked by alone. They all looked happy.

  Ishan came outside and touched Lucky’s arm. He leaned over and whispered in her ear, “He will take us himself. He thinks your man is still in Dharavi. However, the doctor only meets those who come through a proper connection.”

  “You’re a miracle worker,” Lucky said. “How did you get him to do it?” She half expected a story of a bribe—an envelope of gemstones or a bit of gold passed surreptitiously between them.

  “I told him you were an American, that you were alone, and that you needed his help.” Ishan replied.

  Lucky almost swallowed the veil. “You WHAT?”

  “He said he had heard the doctor has been expecting visitors.”

  What is that supposed to mean? Lucky wondered.

  They crawled along in rush-hour traffic, riding in Mohammed’s little black Maruti Zen. Mohammed drove, Ishan rode beside him, and Lucky sat in the back seat. The AC was broken, and even with the windows down, it was hot. The fumes from all the traffic only made things worse. Some people, Lucky thought, do this day in and day out.

  They were approaching the Mithi River when they turned off and drove east into still more traffic — a narrow road that bordered Dharavi, Mumbai’s most notorious slum. If my mother could see me now, Lucky thought. In one day, from a Benz to a Maruti, from Malabar Hill to Dharavi. She knew instinctively that this was where they were headed, that this was where Lobsang would be. Why not? What better place to hide? And where else would a doctor who served those in need be most needed? Hadn’t she suggested as much to Coleman? If you wanted to renounce the world but still work where you were needed, there probably wasn’t a more needful place. She had read all about Dharavi, that it housed 800 people per acre. Was that possible? She looked out over the rows of two-story mud and brick huts. Most were topped with sheets of tin. Some were made entirely of tin. God, they must get hot in May, she thought.

  There was a road in, but it was impossible to drive. Mohammed parked and they walked into the human jungle. To her surprise, Lucky realized that most of the people here were Hindus. For some reason, she had thought of Dharavi as a Muslim slum but it was clearly not. But in a few hundred meters the nature of the stores and homes changed, and she knew that she had passed into another district. Here were leather workers—no Hindus among them. The ditches lining the road ran with a greasy, foamy chemical residue from the ta
nning process. The stench was all but unbearable. Lucky pressed the veil tightly to her face but it did not help. Beyond the tanneries they turned down an even narrower lane that zigged and zagged between huts so poorly constructed that Lucky was afraid they might collapse right on top of them. But even here children played. “There is laughter here,” she thought, “despite the poverty.” A soccer ball bounced toward them and, impulsively, Lucky kicked it back to the boys who chased it. Ishan and Mohammed stared at her. “Oops,” she said.

  And here, too, were women hurrying home from work with plastic bags of vegetables and rice and potatoes, and men with briefcases and toolboxes. These were not the homeless poor. They were working men and women, the wheels that made the industry of Mumbai turn, but to whom a better home was just a pipe dream. What did they do? Lucky wondered. She knew Dharavi was, in a way, a garbage recycling marvel. Segregating waste by human hands and then recycling and finishing it with very basic equipment. How much did they earn? And what price did they pay for living here? Not in rent but in the toll on the quality of life and the lack of sanitation, the almost inconceivable crowding. Wasn’t Dharavi once a fishing village? Wasn’t it once home to boats and nets drying in the sun? She had to hurry to keep up. Mohammed was walking faster now, practically speed walking.

  They turned down yet another lane — a space between two chawls (slums) and barely wide enough for one person to pass, turned sideways. Ahead, Lucky saw lines of prayer flags strung across the narrow corridor. There was no breeze. The colorful flags hung limp, as if they had given up all hope. Mohammed pushed ahead, Ishan behind, Lucky stumbled along after them. She was so hot and dehydrated that she felt faint. She wanted to call out after them to stop, but she dared not. They stopped in front of a lone metal door cut into a wall on the back of a long brick chawl. Mohammed rapped on the door, and it opened an inch. There was a single shining eyeball set in a dark face, a dark room behind. There was an exchange of muffled voices, and then the door opened and they went inside.

  The room was windowless, lit by a single bulb that dangled from a set of threadbare wires fixed to the ceiling with tape and clothespins. The floor was dirt, although it was covered with an old Kashmiri wool carpet. They left their shoes by the door. It was dim and cooler inside than outside, but it certainly didn’t look like any clinic Lucky had ever seen. In the middle of the room was a single low table and on the table was a hookah, and in one corner was a clay pot with a cheap, plastic fern inside.

  Two men faced them from the floor. They did not stand. They were young and broad-shouldered, with dark eyes and broad, square faces, wearing dark blue Indian-style shirts with embroidery around the neck that flowed down and under their arms, where the shirts fastened with brass buttons. One of them was on a cell phone and continued speaking as he gestured irritably for Mohammed and Ishan to sit. Lucky didn’t want to risk sitting in her flowing robe and wasn’t sure what the proper procedure for a woman here was, so she stood by the door behind them. A moment later, it opened and two more men came in. They wore Western slacks and white shirts. Then another man appeared from a door behind the two seated men. He brought water and tea. He served Mohammed and Ishan, then Lucky.

  The two newcomers spoke between themselves in a language that was neither Hindi nor Urdu. Tibetan, perhaps? Lucky could not tell the language, but the men’s features seemed Tibetan — flattened noses or slit eyes. One of them struck a match and torched a stick of incense, filling the room with the sweet scent of jasmine. The other, when he had finished talking on the phone, said to Lucky in perfect English, “My name is Sonam. I understand you want to meet the doctor,” He eyed Lucky suspiciously.

  “That’s right.”

  “But you look neither poor nor sick.”

  Lucky hesitated. “I believe he may be in danger. I know why. I need to talk to him. I want to ask him to help us with his magical powers. That,” she said, “and I want to help him.”

  “You can take off the veil.”

  Lucky hesitated; she did not quite like the tone of Sonam’s voice. He appeared to be gruff.

  Sonam waited while she had no option but to remove the veil.

  “Don’t worry. But we are still curious as to why you would seek out Lobsang. He has been in danger since the day he was born.”

  “In a way, I am in danger, too, but I would still like to talk with him. Maybe even write about his cure —”

  “Yes, yes, a book. East meets West. Everybody is writing a book. We hear that three times a week Miss Boyce, we want to know the real reason why you have come.”

  Four little words came to Lucky’s mind: You are so busted.

  “Like I said,” but she was interrupted by the ring tone of Sonam’s phone, which he immediately answered, again in the strange language. He gestured for Lucky to sit and she did. A minute later, two other men appeared. They wore loose cotton pants and black, raw silk shirts with black embroidery around the collar. One of them said something quickly and Sonam nodded.

  Sonam pointed at the man and said, “Gautam. Remover of darkness. That’s what his name means. He will take us, but you alone. Your friends cannot come. Only you.”

  Lucky looked at Mohammed and Ishan. Mohammed nodded, but Ishan shook his head.

  Go or not to go? She took a deep breath and said, “Okay.” She wondered about the group of men now gathered in the room. Were they all connected with Lobsang?

  They drove in a battered old black Skoda, with Sonam at the wheel, Lucky in the middle, and Gautam on Lucky’s left side. The back was filled with cartons. It was cramped and crowded, but at least the air conditioning worked, although for some reason, it fogged the windshield.

  I hope Tibetans are still nonviolent, Lucky thought. Well, maybe times have changed. I hope not, even if desperate times call for desperate measures. She wondered what Shanti would say about her predicament. “Well, of course you blew it. What did you expect, out doing Jane Bond, trying to rescue people again? You always overestimate your abilities, grasping for things beyond your reach.” But what the hell was I supposed to do? Lucky said in an imaginary reply. Call the police and let them deal with it? Lucky thought about all the charges she might potentially face: theft of government secrets, interstate transportation of a minor for immigration violations. The US government took a dim view of immigration violators, and Lucky wondered if they would investigate further and find out more about Maria’s family. Lucky was never sure if they were aliens.

  The problem is, she imagined Shanti saying, that you never stop to look at the big picture. You see a little bit of it and you think you’ve got the whole elephant! You know what the Chinese say about dragons?

  They had had this conversation many years ago. At the time, Lucky had answered, “No, I don’t.”

  Shanti had explained, “Dragons aren’t invisible—but you have to infer them. They are bigger than anything. Their heads and backs are the mountains, their hair is trees, their breath is the clouds. You have to see the whole picture to know the dragon.”

  Now Lucky thought, It’s kind of like yoga. There are all these muscles and bones working together. It’s the big picture, not just a pose or a single muscle or bone.

  The car lurched to a sudden stop. Well, Lucky thought, whatever my future is, I guess I’ll find out now. She looked at the men, studying their faces, trying to understand what they were saying, and then a curious scene flashed across her mind: the day she was almost murdered in prison. Mike Lockwood had paid these two creeps to kill her. Romero was one. What was the other’s name? Lucky couldn’t remember. She remembered the cinching pain of the belt around her throat. But what kept flashing through her mind that day was not that she was going to die, but rather, that everything was going to be okay. And it was. And it had changed her life, too. She had grown up that day. She’d stopped worrying about money or appearances or any of the other silly, vain things that had troubled her from her teens to her early twenties. She no longer had any place for hate in her heart. In the days follo
wing her divorce, Shanti had shown her that hate could never win; it destroyed only the bearer. “Only when you have love even for your enemies can you win. Your thoughts are more potent and then your actions are more prevailing,” Shanti had advised. Even now, she didn’t hate Coleman—if anything, he was a prisoner of his own ambition.

  Reformation. Wasn’t that her calling card with the prisoners? She knew she had done many things right. She knew. And she was not guessing—she knew. And she had done many things right since then, too, although maybe this charade wasn’t one of them. She had been lying against the wall, the cafeteria erupting in flames, and this creep Romero with a knife was going to kill her. But he hadn’t. Maybe killing wasn’t as easy as they made it look in the movies. She hadn’t paid a whole lot of attention at the time — she was pretty out of it, to tell the truth. But there had been a short fight, and then Steve was there, and he took the belt from around her neck and held her close. And then he kissed her hand. And there had been guards, and medics, and an ambulance, and that, as they say, was that.

  Then the driver restarted the car, took a U-turn, and parked to the side.

  And then the questioning began.

  How did Lucky hear about Lobsang? Whom did she work for? What was her business?

  Lucky tried to answer in a cool voice. But the questioning slowly grew unpleasant.

  Suddenly Gautam raised his voice and said menacingly, “Look, we know a lot about you, and we know you are not telling the truth.” He leaned forward, his face inches from her’s and continued, “We may live in Dharavi, but we are not fools and we don’t tolerate fools.”

  She knew she had to get out somehow. She saw a coffee shop a few yards in front and said she needed to go to use the restroom, but they didn’t fall for that. So she raised her voice, hoping against hope that she would attract attention — and sure enough, two men passing by peeped into the car. When Gautam stepped out to talk to them, Lucky shouted in Hindi “Help!” Then, throwing caution to the wind, she opened the door, pushing Gautam to to the floor as she jumped out. Gautam’s raised voice followed her as she rushed into the waiting taxi behind and slammed the door shut.