A Star Called Lucky

by Bapsy Jain

  While Viki was talking, Lucky looked over at Mina. She was drumming the fingers of her right hand. She wants a cigarette, Lucky thought. Mina’s hair was long and black, luxurious and shiny. Her face was powdered and rouged, her eyes lined with kohl. There was something tired about her, even though she couldn’t be more than twenty-three. She must spend hours in front of a mirror every day, Lucky thought.

  She pictured Mina sitting in a dressing room with a servant or two. She would be smoking. The window would be open, with a fan on, to keep the smell out of the house. Geeta would know, of course, as she knew everything, but she would pretend not to know, all the while dropping not-so-subtle hints about the dangers of second-hand smoke and the potential harm to fetuses. There would be a party that night, or the next, and endless, meaningless conversations. Mina looked like a minor movie star, and Lucky wondered how she and Viki had met. Already, her face was showing the tension lines that would become the wrinkles of middle age. This could have been my life, Lucky thought. No regrets here.

  They finished their coffee and pastries long before Geeta returned. When she did, she was putting a cell phone away and concocting some story about a problem at home between a cook and a repairman. On this pretext, Viki got up to go — but not before paying for the coffees.

  “Here is my business card — it has my mobile number if you need anything,” he said, as Geeta walked on ahead and Mina held on to his arm.

  When they were gone, Lucky wandered in and around the hotel and stopped in one of the boutiques inside. She still had a few hundred rupees, but it was not enough to buy a dress and a wig at any of the boutiques. She wondered if she should have asked Viki — he would have given her the money — but she didn’t want to involve them in her troubles. They were, after all, divorced. Still, it was odd seeing him. Then, with a shiver, she realized that, no doubt, Coleman could be following Viki. She wondered about the boy on the motorcycle — could that have been a coincidence?

  She considered her options. If the boy on the motorcycle was Coleman’s spy, then they already knew where she was, and the best thing she could do was to get away. If the boy was not Coleman’s spy, then Coleman might still know where Lucky was. But he also might not, and he certainly wouldn’t know what she was up to. So, it might be possible to bluff — but she didn’t want to take any chances. She had to be alone, without Coleman’s men around. Am I being paranoid, or I am not being paranoid enough? She debated with herself then called Kamala from a courtesy phone.

  “I need you to round up all the nuns you can and send them in cabs to the Trident Oberoi Hotel,” she said.

  “Right now?” he asked. “I think maybe I can only find six or seven.”

  “That’ll have to do,” Lucky said. “Tell them to come in separate taxis. I need them here in an hour. Have each one bring a salwar kameez and a scarf with them and to make their way to the women’s bathroom.”

  She had another coffee. If Coleman knew, his people would have to be in the hotel. They would have checked out the guests by now. But would they watch a place like the Oberoi for Lobsang? They hadn’t considered this option. Wouldn’t it be ironic if he had been living there all along? Lucky headed to the bathroom to wait for the nuns, trying to look casual. They came sooner than she had expected, crowding the bathroom and each holding a bag as they filed into the stalls. She looked them over, decided on which one most resembled her in size and form, and tapped the woman on the shoulder before heading into the adjacent stall. The nun slid her bag underneath the divider, and Lucky changed quickly and then came out and dropped her robe into the bag along with the other nuns’ robes. She left the hotel with them through the shopping center entrance, all now wearing a salwar kameez and a scarf covering their heads. The nun who looked like Lucky, and still wore a robe, took another entrance and caught a cab.

  Outside, a growing stream of fans made their way to the stadium. Lucky looked neither left nor right. She blended in, following the crowd down the street and around the corner.

  Chapter 19

  Soli, Lucky’s father, had been a both a player and a fan of cricket. Lucky hated cricket, but she still had fond memories of playing it with her father in the street, along with the rest of the neighborhood children. Well, mostly fond memories, with the exception of one high, bouncing ball that had chipped a front tooth. It was an incident she hadn’t thought about in years, but it came back to her as she stood at the top of the steps and looked out over the pitch. Fortunately, she had been only eight when she broke the tooth, and the permanent tooth that replaced the broken one was fine, but Lucky had never lost her anxiety around playing sports. Alec had played too and had not been too bad in the field, although he never mastered the art of fast-bowling. Like most Americans, he tried to throw overhand with a bent elbow, baseball-style. Still, he was great with the bat. What Lucky had liked about those days was sitting on the benches with Susan and Hutoxi, back in the days when Lucky imitated Susan’s every nuance. She had not been to a cricket game since she had left India, although she had run across matches at Marine Park, in Brooklyn.

  As Lucky came back to herself, she thought she saw Shanti in the crowd. Shanti. Wouldn’t that be a hoot? And what would Shanti tell Lucky right now? Funny, Lucky thought, I know what she’d say.

  “That’s your problem, Lucky — you never see things from the other side.”

  But what side?

  And then it came to her. She understood Coleman’s ambition, her own quest for reformation and redemption, and even Lobsang’s responsibility. But she hadn’t once thought about the mushroom — if it existed — what would it want? What was its relation to all this? For that matter, to people in general? In the eyes of a mushroom, were people even worth saving?

  Lucky bought a bag of curry-flavored popcorn and found her seat. The afternoon was hot and humid, hotter than New York, but not so hot as Mumbai could be in, say, May. The rains of the day before had cooled things a bit and cleaned the air, although it was still sticky. The crowd filed in, slowly filling the benches to near-capacity. The teams warmed up, the game began, and Lucky stood for the Indian national anthem. She looked around anxiously for Usko, but he was not there. Surely, they were on the way. It would take time for Kamala to find Mohammed, to pass along his message, but he would get the job done.

  The opposing Rajasthan Royals batted first. The game was slow. Lucky, who wouldn’t have watched much anyway, grew nervous. The fans tried to get a “wave” going around the stadium, which brought to her mind Yankee Stadium — what would Mumbai fans think of a Jets or Giants game, or the Yankees or Mets, for that matter, on a night when sixty or seventy thousand fanatics stood up and cheered as the wave raced around the stadium?

  She checked her watch. Four thirty. Not a good sign, she thought. She hoped Usko would come and hadn’t gotten himself into something awful. She brushed away the thought. He’d be all right. Any man who could stand up under the fire of combat had to be all right. She felt a stone in the pit of her stomach and realized that the game going on down in the field hadn’t registered at all in her mind. Her eyes kept scanning the stadium, trying to pick out faces from the crowd. At home, it would be night. Sean might be sleeping. She wondered where he and Maria were.

  A man in a neat gray business suit came down the aisle and then edged along the bench toward Lucky. She made room for him to pass but instead he sat down beside her. He was nearing sixty, with short white hair and a trim white beard. He wore little round glasses and had a newspaper tucked under his arm. He unfolded it and began to read. Lucky cleared her throat. “Excuse me,” she said, “but I have a friend who is coming. He’s late for the match, but this is his seat.”

  The man ruffled the pages and said nothing. He was looking at a picture in the paper, and then at Lucky.

  “Excuse me…” Lucky said.

  The man looked at Lucky and smiled. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Lobsang Telok. I believe you wanted a word with me.”

  LOBSANG! Lucky
almost tumbled off the bleacher. In shock, she looked left and right. Nothing around her had heralded the coming of Lobsang. There was no phalanx of special forces lugging machine guns. No intimidating men in dark suits and sunglasses. She was sitting on a bench in a cricket match surrounded by ten or twenty thousand fairly ordinary people cheering for their team. “What is this, a joke?” she finally stammered out.

  “Since yesterday, I’ve been looking for a safe place to meet you,” Lobsang said. “When the monks contacted me this morning, I was delighted.”

  “You were looking to meet me?”

  “You’ve become a bit of a celebrity, really.”

  “A celebrity?”

  Lobsang opened his paper and pointed to an article on the second page.

  MIRACLE AT THE MASJID. Lucky leaned closer and read. According to the article, a woman had gone to the mosque to beg for money for surgery for her child. She needed an impossible amount of money, but having no options, had promised Allah to dedicate her child to Him if only He would save the boy’s life. Before she left for the mosque, her husband had berated her. “It would take a miracle to find that kind of money,” he said. The woman, according to the reporter, had replied, “If you’re going to ask for miracles, you have to act like you expect them to happen,” and as she sat in the heat outside of the mosque, a stranger — another beggar — had given her expensive jewelry, enough to pay for the surgery. When the woman told her story to the Imam, he declared the event a miracle. The police were skeptical. They thought the woman had stolen the jewels or that some domestic servant somewhere had purloined the gems and then had a change of heart. They were waiting for a householder to come forward and claim the stones. In the meantime, the woman was pressing forward with the surgery.

  “How did you know it was me?”

  “The stone went back to Karsan Kaka for sale and he tried to contact you. But a monk called Usko took the call and confirmed that the necklace was yours. Usko told me that it was you who gave her the jewelry. Simple really.”

  “What, Usko contacted you… I mean…..

  “Why yes, he made contact with me so we could meet. Why is that strange?”

  “I guess you can just never tell,” Lucky said.

  “Why did he hide this from me?” she thought. “So he made it look like Dr. Vakil was arranging the meeting? Just like him to underplay his role,” and then she thought how Karsan’s necklace that she had gifted had helped her. She remembered Shanti saying that just like no bad deed went unpunished, no good deed went unrewarded. It was just a matter of perception, though. The how and when and where of the reward or punishment — that was the thing that nobody knew. Sometimes, a person didn’t even know if they had done good or bad. The best anyone could say was, What were my intentions?

  She looked at Lobsang. He looked scholarly, grandfatherly. He looked like he could well be bouncing a toddler on his knee. Similar to how she had envisioned him, maybe the round head, or the glasses? She wondered if he limped. But all she could say was, “You don’t look at all like I imagined.”

  Lobsang looked at Lucky and smiled. “Neither do you, my dear. But you’re not the only one who can wear a disguise.” Lobsang ran his finger through the collar of his shirt and loosened his necktie. “These things are very uncomfortable. Who on earth invented them? And why? I’d much rather wear a kurta.” He sighed.

  “They come from Croatia,” Lucky said.

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Neckties. They come from Croatia, sort of, via France. It was back during the Thirty Years’ War. Some Croat mercenaries were honored in Paris and Louis the Fourteenth thought the Croatian version of the tie was cute so he adapted the style. He called them cravats, from Hrvati, the French word for Croatian. But they were altered over time. The modern necktie, like yours, was designed by Jesse Langsdorf in New York. In 1920. Since you asked.”

  “I didn’t know,” Lobsang said.

  “I am a fountain of useless trivia,” Lucky said. “Never mind me.”

  “If they came from Croatia,” Lobsang said, “they were probably derived from the traditional Arab keffiyeh, don’t you think?”

  “Perhaps,” Lucky said. “Things go around and come around.”

  “Did you know the word Balkan comes from the Turkish words for blood and honey? Bal and kan. ”

  “I did not know that,” Lucky said.

  “Alas,” Lobsang sighed, “I share your love for trivial details. I never quite understood why. But even when the British ran things, people in this part of the world never took to neckties. Perhaps it was the heat, do you think?”

  “Perhaps,” Lucky said. “That, and they’re not very practical.”

  “Frank Lloyd Wright once said that ‘Form follows function.’ He despised ties.”

  Lucky offered Lobsang some popcorn, which he politely declined.

  “One good turn deserves another, don’t you agree? You saved the life of a child. The least I could do was to save yours.”

  “Save mine? I came to try to save yours.”

  “Did you think my life is in danger, and why?”

  “Well,” she hesitated, “I suppose I did.”

  “Who put that idea into your head?”

  “What idea?”

  “Of saving my life?”

  “I did. Sort of. I mean, there are some people who are looking for you. They say you have this thing…” Lucky looked at Lobsang. He was holding his right hand out, palm up. On it lay a small, dried, mushroom. “Yes, I grant people are looking for this but I wonder if anyone will kill for it. How can one know another’s intent. My guess is Coleman has just used you to run his errand.” Lobsang looked down at his palm.

  She thought for a moment. So could all this only be her imagination? Maybe she was not being followed…maybe……“I don’t believe the stories I’ve heard about this,” Lucky spoke confusedly, picking up the small bit of the mushroom.

  “Then you wouldn’t be afraid to take a nibble, would you?”

  Lucky took the mushroom and looked it over. There was nothing remarkable about it. “It’s not psychedelic, is it?” she asked.

  Lobsang laughed. “No, I’m a doctor. And a Buddhist doctor at that. I wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “The Spanish scoured the New World for the Fountain of Youth,” Lucky said.

  “But this won’t keep you young.”

  “But it slows aging, right?”

  “Yes. It does that. But only as an unintended side effect. I’ve been presuming that its main effect is to somehow boost the immune system.”

  “But you don’t know for sure.”

  “I don’t know,” Lobsang said, “and I don’t need to know. All I know is that this was given to me as a sacred trust. It is my family’s heritage.”

  “So why are you offering it to me?”

  “Because you did not ask for it and because you do not believe.” He took the mushroom and dropped it carelessly into his coat pocket. Around them, the fans roared as one of the Indian bowlers took a wicket.

  “Faith is a funny thing,” Lobsang continued. “People look all around for miracles so that they have a reason to believe. And they choose the most unreasonable things on which to base their belief. Paintings that weep. Images that appear on tortillas. Ghost stories. And yet, the everyday wonders, the earth revolves around the sun at precisely the right distance to support life, there is water, and gravity to keep the planet in balance, and perfect order in the universe, and yet, people miss the very reasonable proof of the Giver of life, but still, they demand the unreasonable.”

  “I didn’t think Buddhists believed in God,” Lucky said.

  “Oh, no,” Lobsang replied. “Buddha himself said the question was irrelevant if asked for the wrong reason. But the proof of something larger than ourselves is everywhere. And we are part of that proof. We have only to see it and appreciate it.”

  “Then why the mushroom thing?” Lucky asked.

  “Oh, that. It’s part of the proof,
as well.” Lobsang stared out across the stadium.

  “You mean it actually works?” Lucky asked.

  “Of course it does. Just like penicillin, only better.”

  Lucky looked Lobsang over. “Then why not share it with the world?”

  “What good would it do?”

  “What good?” Lucky was incredulous. “Think of all the lives it would save!”

  “Lives? What lives?”

  “Why, everybody! Imagine a world with no more sickness. No more death.”

  “The mushroom only slows the process, my dear. There is no cure. And besides, who really wants to live forever on this planet?” Lucky stared at him, opening her mouth to continue arguing. Lobsang glanced at her as he handed a piece of the mushroom back to her. Lucky turned it over and over in her palm, breaking off a bit of the cap. “I don’t believe it,” she said, still in a daze.

  Lobsang shrugged. “What you believe or do not believe does not change the facts.”

  She touched the mushroom in her pocket, and then, on impulse, took it out, broke it, and swallowed the little pieces on her hand.

  Lobsang arched his eyebrows. “Are you afraid of dying, young lady?”

  “No,” Lucky said. “I just don’t believe you.”

  “And if you came to believe me, what would you do then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I guess you’ll find out, won’t you?”

  “I came to tell you that I think some people in the West are going to great lengths to get this mushroom; they want to know the source and everything about it.”

  “You mean Clevis Coleman?”

  “Yes, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

  “I’ve known about Clevis for some time. And the Chinese. And the British. And the Israelis. And the Russians. And the Finns.”

  “The Finns?” Lucky looked at Lobsang, her eyes wide.

  “And probably half a dozen other nations would like to be ‘the one.’”