by Mario Bolduc
So she’d hit a wall, and she could see Bernatchez wasn’t going to offer up anything more. The affair was closed, and it wasn’t going to be reopened for the weeping widow.
“David knew about the factory closing a few days before the conference,” she forged on, “and you discussed it.”
“Sure we did, along with several other things. There were still logistical problems to solve.”
“The code of silence, did you talk about that, too?”
“Yes.”
“How did he react?”
Bernatchez hesitated as he tried to guess where she was headed with this. “David was conscientious as a diplomat. He understood SCI’s problems and the concerns of its board for any publicity this might draw.”
“It would hurt a company listed on the stock exchange, right?”
“David wasn’t working for the shareholders, if that’s what you mean.”
Next she asked if he knew about an agreement Griffith had signed with the Hinduists when the dam was to be built.
This caught him off guard. “Who told …”
“Patterson.”
Bernatchez shook his head. Again he wondered what connection this could have with the murdered diplomat.
“Was David aware, yes or no?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What exactly was in it?”
“Hiring quotas, mostly, as well as respect for Brahmins in terms of working conditions.”
“Concerning purity?”
“Among others.”
“Meaning …?”
“Well, a separate environment, the hiring of Brahmin cooks, vegetarian menus, and the site itself: no contact with lower castes or no-castes, Muslims, strangers in general.
“Is that all?”
“That’s already a lot.”
Juliette was disappointed. Clearly the Hinduists had settled fairly easily.
Bernatchez drew closer to her. “I know what you’re feeling, Juliette. Your husband’s death is so unjust and absurd that you need to try and give it some meaning.”
“I just want to get at the truth.”
“It’s right in front of you. You just refuse to see it.”
For the first time, doubt began to nag at her. Maybe Bernatchez was right. Her doggedness was starting to look like blind panic, a refusal of the inevitable, rejection of the simple and obvious solution, but still …
“Go get some rest, Juliette. Take a few weeks’ vacation far away from here, far from India and all its problems.”
The taxi driver was reading the newspaper, the public confession of a pedophile complete with a huge photo covering all of page one. Suddenly, Juliette’s mind went back to Madeleine Morency, and she leaned over to the chauffeur: “Can you take me to Marieville in Montérégie?”
39
Thirty-four degrees and unbearably humid at the Islamabad airport — some gawkers seemed to be enjoying the spectacle of humanitarian aid, or at least the “eyewitness account” they had come for and these sweat-soaked Westerners were pretentiously bringing them. Cops, customs officers, porters, and tea vendors looked on smiling at these extra-terrestrials in sand-coloured clothes. One pot-bellied Pakistani with a shiny bald head, and a moustached man in a suit and tie, were trying to gather them all together in a corner between a foreign exchange counter, which was “temporarily” closed, and a snack bar full of travellers waiting to leave on Aero Asia or Bhoja Air. In the parking lot were other faces and more moustaches, but also an ultra-modern coach, or so it looked. Max thought the pot-bellied guy had to be the driver. He was watching his fellow travellers worn out by an eight-hour flight: no Americans but a few Brits, and, most of all, Scandinavians (way too blond) who stopped laughing at their own incomprehensible jokes the moment they got on board the Pakistan International Airlines 747. Max also saw a group of soldiers with AK-47s using a mirror to look under a small Suzuki truck. There could be attacks here, just like anywhere else. The Inter-Services Intelligence agents definitely had to be around somewhere, patrolling the airport day and night. The man with the moustache and suit now shepherding the group to the bus might even be a regional ISI man himself. For now, though, he was just being the energetic tour guide trying to hurry them along. Waving his hand without missing a beat, the guide was examining and counting each and every tourist, probably paid according to the number of humanitarian units he could deliver. He tried to weed out any Indians or other undesirables.
No danger for Max in his Tilley hat, just like nine other volunteers, that was tilted down over his eyes so as to make him unrecognizable. Still, as a further precaution on his way out, to avoid the guide’s gaze, he turned to a chubby, good-natured lady who seemed to have latched on to him since Copenhagen. Ingrid had three grown kids in Norrköping, Sweden, who’d advised her against this “expedition,” but she’d resisted, and as they got off the bus, Max asked her if she’d ever been to Pakistan before. No, and she was thrilled but nervous about “all that.” He wasn’t sure if she meant the overall international political situation, the icy reception they were getting in Islamabad, or the impression of being circus animals.
The Swedish lady sat with Max behind the driver. The secret service spy stood at the end of the aisle to welcome these “guests” to his country, still checking out faces the whole time, and assuring each and every one of his complete and entire co-operation.
“Don’t hesitate to ask any questions you might have. That’s what I’m here for — to answer and make sure you have a realistic picture of Pakistan …” There were no laughs there, so he asked if there were any journalists among them. More silence. Max knew perfectly well that three reporters from a student newspaper in Fredericksberg had made the trip — a photographer had come out to snap them before the trip, but these three daredevils were smart enough not to raise their hands. Fortunately, these dipsticks had been briefed at least.
The bus rolled out, and Pakistan appeared amazingly similar to India. The humanitarians had their noses glued to the glass of their rolling aquarium as Jeeps and other military transport roared past. Under the canvasses, soldiers sat in double rows, weapons between their knees. Their look held a fatalism that, for once, didn’t look at all religious. More like animals headed for the slaughter, no longer able to howl or struggle. To Max, war seemed more prevalent here than there. Islamabad was very near the Kashmiri border, while Delhi, to the south, seemed less wrapped up in the northern conflict. That had to be why. If not, then this de-escalation Jayesh was talking about was no more than the pipe dream of foreign correspondents.
Delhi would have won any beauty contests, as well. Not that Islamabad was ugly, but it was a new city in the rectilinear American style, and soulless, though maybe that was an advantage in modern-day Pakistan. On Khayaban-e-Quaid-e-Azam Street, a geography nut in the group pointed out the presidential palace. This was where General Musharraf reigned after overthrowing Nawaz Sharif, successor to Benazir Bhutto, daughter of Ali Bhutto, himself accused of corruption, then dislodged and hanged by Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in 1979. The latter, probably haunted by his victim, died in a plane accident nine years later. Pakistani politics was a morbid game of musical chairs. The geography whiz explained, under the curious gaze of the guide, that the name Pakistan had been invented out of thin air in the 1930s by Choudhry Rahmat Ali, an Islamic student at Cambridge combining the names of the Muslim states in the British East Indies: Punjab. Afghan Province, Kashmir, Sindh, and Balochistan. Missing from this amalgam was the other Kashmir, hence the Pakistani insistence in standing up to the Indians. These “mangy dogs” had gone so far as to attack the very name of their country, but a traveller behind Max disagreed. Pakistan, he said in a British accent, meant “land of the pure” in Urdu, a debate that they didn’t have time for.
The Hotel Ambassador-Inn on Khayaban-e- Suhrwardy Street was also surrounded by soldiers. In it, air-conditioning awaited t
he travellers, the guide told them. Piled in front of the reception desk, the foreigners tendered their passports at arm’s length, documents that the thugs of the ISI would enjoy thumbing through tonight while their owners were recovering from jet lag.
Max got away from the crowd and slipped into the coffee shop, where the barista served him a non-alcoholic beer without even asking if he wanted it. His worn jacket had the name Aziz sewn on it, though the letter i was unstitched, leaving a slight outline. He observed the humanitarian gaggle in the lobby as he wiped the counter. Max took a mouthful of beer and asked him if the others were expecting to have any problems getting into Azad Kashmir. “Are they fooling themselves?”
“It’s out of bounds to foreigners, especially journalists.” Aziz was fairly new to this, sloshing water everywhere, or else it was the local custom when cleaning a counter. “You won’t have any trouble though; they’ll get you out of here tomorrow as planned.” In other words, no hitches, no excuses, no pretexts, no sweaty official apologizing for the delays, no potbellied military officer blaming the Indians for the holdup.
“What about Chakothi?”
“That’s the first stop. I don’t know if your guy is still there, though.”
Max conjured up all those old films he’d seen. The question was always, “How will I know him?” With the invariable answer, “He’ll know you.”
Aziz had a TV, too, and he loved playing this part, the receding hair, the penetrating stare, the fleshy lips just right for the part where information is given under one’s breath. No doubt about it, he’d been born in the right country for this game. It was he who had informed Jayesh that the gaggle had arrived bound for Azad Kashmir, and Max had nothing to do but jump onto a moving train.
Their guide of the inquiring eye was now showing them the way to the elevators.
“You think he’s with the secret service?” asked Max.
“No idea. First time I’ve seen him.”
A fresh mouthful of beer.
“So Mercedes is the ‘in’ thing in Pakistan these days?”
Aziz shrugged. “The war, always war.” He couldn’t wait for things to stabilize and settle into familiar day-to-day corruption. Till then, there would be hell to pay.
The jostling crowd at the reception desk was thinning, so Max got up, emptied his glass in one gulp and left the barman to his “work.” He’d much rather slip out now and make his way into Pakistani Kashmir, but that would attract suspicion. It wouldn’t be easy to ditch these clowns, but if, unlike what Aziz said, the Ministry of Information was keeping them confined to the hotel under some pretext or other, Max wasn’t going to waste precious time. On the other hand, the presence of this Western contingent would lend him much-needed anonymity.
The room was clean, the plumbing modern, and the view of Shakarparian Park not half bad. A little more imagination and Max could have believed he was on holiday.
Juliette answered on the second ring, as if she’d been expecting this call.
“November 1996. You wanna know where Rodger Morency’s community service took him?”
“No idea, Juliette.”
“Kipawa Summer Camp in Temiscamingue. A country setting for handicapped kids: there were cabins to be fixed up, a wharf to rebuild, a road through the woods to signpost …”
“Okay, Juliette …”
“Kipawa, one of Mrs. Griffith’s good works, along with international adoption.”
When Max mentioned Stewart-Cooper, the name rang a bell with Juliette, but where had she seen it before? Then, all of a sudden, when she spotted the taxi driver absorbed in his paper in front of the Sheraton Centre, she remembered Madeleine Morency’s absorption in her scrapbook. That’s when Kipawa appeared before her in a letter Rodger wrote to his mother: “Look Mama, this is me resting!” The picture was a photo from the camp newsletter showing him helping fellow ex-cons. The accompanying text mentioned Griffith, a member of the board at Stewart-Cooper.
So, at last a link between him and David, but why? How?
In the Pakistani hotel restaurant, Max had time to ponder all this. The meal was so-so, since the chef had agreeably watered down the spices in his qoftas and chapli kebabs for his Western guests. The conversation, though, was spicier. The geo-geek who had managed to locate the presidential palace that afternoon, and claimed to have had a long chat with the Ministry of Information guy, who said they were leaving for Azad Kashmir tomorrow morning without fail. He seemed proud to announce this to table companions, as though personally responsible for the efficacy of Pakistan’s government. So why were they going? To show foreigners the determination of the inhabitants of Azad Kashmir to free their country from Indian domination? Though not to the press, because they’d be tempted to interpret things their own special way and pose embarrassing questions. This was a PR exercise under the guise of a humanitarian expedition.
So, there’d be no journalists, but TV cameras from Islamabad, and publicity would replace truth. It worked very well in the West, so why not in Azad Kashmir?
40
They departed on time the following morning in a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter minibus. Max was relieved the Ministry of Information man had been replaced by another, just as attentive and observant, but at least not travelling in the same vehicle. The official travelled with Ingrid, who waved every time they overtook one another. Starting off at top speed and with horns to blare away trucks and rickshaws, the convoy edged its way forward, pothole by pothole, away from Muzaffarabad. As they distanced themselves from the capital of Azad Kashmir, the road started to deteriorate, soon to become nothing more than a winding mountain trail shared by half the country.
At dusk, they arrived in Chakothi, only five kilometres from the Line of Control and Indian Kashmir. It was cold in the village, as the heat and humidity of the plain gave way to glacial temperatures. The wind blowing in from the mountains was punctuated with machine-gun bursts echoing through the night, never mind the truce trumpeted by the media. It was hard to imagine Najam Sattar leaving Srinagar to come and live here at the gates of war.
The Westerners were billeted in different houses requisitioned by the government, Max wound up with a British representative of the Anglican Church, a modern English vicar, aware of the world’s hardships, just the sort once recruited by Her Majesty’s Secret Service. This wasn’t Christopher’s first mission: he’d been a human shield in Iraq during the First Gulf War and considered his holy intervention as some sort of extreme sport. The Bible he read before going to sleep at night was blood-stained.
“My blood, actually,” he said with a note of pride.
Max was first up in the morning, and the mountains appeared on every side of the village with a splendour that made him queasy. This was the most beautiful landscape in the world turned into a battlefield.
Max was concerned that the engineer who was to be his contact upon entering the village had not yet arrived. A logistical problem? Maybe a lack of confidence … or worse. Ingrid joined him, followed by the missionary, complete with blood-stained Bible. They’d slept badly and were all starving. In addition, Ingrid had been bitten by bedbugs all night. By day, Chakothi was depressing. There were soldiers everywhere, just like the day before, walking up and down the muddy street at the centre of the village. Half of the shops were closed for good, and most of the inhabitants hadn’t been able to return to their villages since the threat of war in recent weeks. The group was to spend the day and following night in Chakothi, then head off to Kotli and Bhimber, farther south. From there, they would go to Gujarat, then Lahore.
One week on the road, a second week for debriefing, a third week for consciousness-raising, then it was back to Europe. If Najam Sattar still failed to show, Max would have to go home empty-handed.
The aid crowd spent the morning visiting a school financed, of course, by the government in Islamabad. In the afternoon, they listened to an elderly lady th
anking the soldiers for protecting them from the Indians, “bloodthirsty beasts.” Finally, in the evening, they had to convince a shepherd to interpret a traditional song in Urdu that one of them absolutely had to record. They also visited a bunker that a merchant and his family had built beneath their shop. All these humanitarian visits wore them out, and the evening meal was not enough to satiate their hunger. At precisely nine, the members of the group went their separate ways, and Max found a note in his room: The small bridge at the village entrance … absolutely have to see this spot before leaving the region. Mountains at midnight illuminated by the moon.
Of course, Najam Sattar. Max sighed. So, this guy was more of a poet than an engineer.
The guns were quiet now, and the wind as well. It could have been a village in the Alps a century ago, with its oasis for shepherds, no hotels, restaurants, or tourist buses. The moon, full, round, and white, lit up the mountains. Najam Sattar was right, the countryside was even more spectacular at night. Max had no trouble getting to the bridge over the Jhelum, and encountered not a soul on the way. At the height of the long-expected war, the village had been shelled. You could still see marks of it on the houses. It seems a miracle that the bridge still survived despite the artillery barrages, thought Max. He leaned on the balustrade and rubbed his hands to keep them warm.
Any minute now, he expected a military patrol to catch him watching the stars, but the village was deserted. Everyone was asleep. Max waited twenty minutes, then half an hour. He thought he’d give it another fifteen minutes before he rejoined the bedbugs. Something unexpected must have come up, or the whole thing was one of Aziz’s bad jokes. Then a shadow suddenly appeared on the other side of the bridge, a man smoking. Max ambled over to him. It was a frail, tiny old man from the village he’d seen earlier that day.
“Najam Sattar?” He asked. Surely not. This guy was over eighty years old. With his cigarette-hand, he signalled Max to follow him. He fell in behind the man. They walked quickly and soon found themselves on a path leading deeper and deeper into the woods. Max didn’t like the way this was going and hesitated. The old man waited for him on the promontory. Then they walked some more, higher and higher as the trail got bumpy. From time to time, Max stopped for a breather, then to lace his shoe, so he yelled at the old man to wait. When he raised his head, a Kalashnikov was aimed at him and more jihadists in beards and scarves stood waiting to shoot him from the side as well.