by Manil Suri
So far, the other diners have stared down impassively at their plates, but now Dr. Sethi breaks their silence by asking what I do. Obviously, I must be a scientist if picked up by the van, but with so many fields represented at the table, I have to answer carefully, to avoid being exposed. I finally settle on geologist, giving my institution as the University of Lucknow, which I hope will be obscure enough. “I didn’t think they even had a geology department,” Sethi says, frowning at me. Das quickly interjects to say he’s heard they just started one. I nod in vigorous agreement—who knew?
The large monitor suspended above the buffet table blinks on before Sethi can pepper me with more questions. “It’s Bhim,” Das whispers. “He likes to address us whenever he comes to the hotel.” The face that fills the screen looks nothing like the blood-spattered visage I remember from the grainy video of the Haji Ali massacre, or the one spouting rabid exhortations to violence on the nationwide rath yatra. Rather, it is calm and clean-cut, the eyebrows neatly trimmed, the hair carefully coiffed. Could he be tripping on his Emperor Ashoka persona again?
“My friends, I hope you’re having a nice afternoon.” His manner is congenial, his voice so soothing, it’s almost mellifluous. He announces that the refurbished gym has opened on the second floor, that more laptops will arrive shortly, though the internet remains down. “Don’t forget the roof garden—there’s no better way to start your morning than a walk there. And afterwards, you can come have a dosa—we’ll start serving them for breakfast as well since you like them so much.”
He continues in this hotel-manager vein for a while, as if explaining the guest facilities at a resort. Just when I’m expecting him to announce the Jacuzzi and shuffleboard hours, he starts describing the finishing touches being put on the “paradise” at the subterranean level. “Your own television, your own private bedroom, not to mention pantries bursting with delicious food and drink. We’ll finally open it up tomorrow, so you’ll be able to see for yourself.”
Surely he couldn’t be referring to the crumbling bunkers I stumbled upon in the basement? Apparently so, because he quickly mentions a “trial run” on the nineteenth, “just in case there’s any problem.” “It’s more for your own peace of mind—all these empty threats and rumors floating around. You’re the most brilliant intellects in all of Mumbai—my responsibility is to keep you happy and sound.”
He pledges to reunite the assembled diners with their loved ones. “Some we’ve already brought together, others will have to wait a bit. We’ve found many of your spouses, your children—gathered them up in special units. Be assured they’re getting five-star treatment—I promise we’ll keep them safe.”
Bhim concludes with a burst of declarations, claiming that he only believes in freedom, that he only asks for a commitment to the country, that despite what people may have heard, he doesn’t insist on any particular religion or philosophy. “One day this war will end, my friends, and we will begin to rebuild. Let’s all look together towards that day and in a united voice shout Jai Hind.”
“Jai Hind,” the crowd replies, and I can’t help sensing something forced in the response, even though it is accompanied by a ripple of applause.
Bhim’s soft-spoken manner leaves me a tad disoriented. Would it have been too much to expect at least a little fanaticism, a bit of anti-Muslim rhetoric? Perhaps my image of a betel-chewing heavy was over-the-top, but surely Bhim’s résumé of exploits warrants someone more flamboyantly unhinged?
“A true visionary,” Das declares. People nod in agreement around the table, and again, I get that Stepford Wife impression—perhaps they do drug the dosas after all. “Tell me, are you married, Dr. Pradhan? Do you have a family? If so, you can rest assured Bhim will do his best to arrange a reunification.”
Sethi snorts. “Perhaps Dr. Pradhan should look around and count the number of women and children he sees.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Sethi—are you trying to ask our new guest something?”
“Yes, I’m asking him to count the number of reunited families. It’s more a threat, isn’t it, this promise of reunification? To let us know he has them in his clutches, just like he has us.”
Das looks taken aback. “Dr. Sethi, what are you saying? You know Bhim is doing the best anyone could. Would you like to try yourself, find someone without his help?”
“That would hardly be possible, would it? I’m stuck here, like the rest of us, whether I like it or not. Whatever happens tomorrow or the day after, whether or not the bomb falls.”
“You know that’s not true. We all stay voluntarily.” Das turns to me. “Everyone here is free to leave. Bhim just requests you let him know in advance.”
“Yes, in advance. Like Moorthy, like Sinha. Is that what happened to them? They were complaining so much, so Bhim stamped their passports and set them free?”
“Surely you’re not suggesting that Bhim—?”
“What if I am? Will I be next? Is that what you’re going to threaten me with? Another knock in the middle of the night, and nobody will see me again?” Sethi gets up so abruptly that his chair topples over backwards. “Well I don’t care anymore. I’ve had it with this.” A waiter hastens to set the chair back upright as Sethi flings down his napkin and strides off.
The other scientists seem to freeze in their seats. Das smiles at me reassuringly. “Don’t mind our banter. Some of our colleagues haven’t been well lately, so they’re staying in their rooms. Like the ones Dr. Sethi mentioned. Others just come for the earlier shift, so we miss them. It’s really nothing. Now about your family members—are they still in Lucknow?”
I cook up suitable answers for the questions that follow, but something about Sethi’s words keeps looping through my mind. In a flash it comes to me—the name Moorthy. He was the scientist mentioned by the guesthouse keeper in Bandra, the one kidnapped along with Karun. “I’m sorry, but did I hear correctly that you have someone here by the name of Moorthy? Doesn’t he work at the Institute for Nuclear Physics?”
Das seems instantly wary. “Perhaps. Why? Do you know him?”
“Not him, but a colleague of his—Karun Anand—we’ve been friends for years. I was half expecting he might be here as well, but of course he’s not.”
“Dr. Anand?” Das adjusts his glasses to peer at me as if I’m a biological specimen, finally come into focus. “As a matter of fact—”
STANDING IN FRONT of Karun’s room, I’m struck by how doors have played such a pivotal role through our relationship. The ones Karun has closed in my face, or tried to escape through, or entered when he wasn’t expected. What will I discover behind this one? Where will it lead us? Das has assured me Karun simply prefers to eat in his room, but what if he’s been mistreated, lying inside hurt? I knock, standing aside from the peephole so he can’t see who it is. When there is no reply, I knock again. Then I remember my magic swipe card—it smoothly unlocks the door, and I step in.
The curtains are drawn, but I recognize Karun at once on the bed from his familiar sleeping position. One hand folded at his side, the other resting on his pillow, above his head. I stand over him, checking for bruises or trauma—he looks unharmed, angelic. A sheet drapes his waist, revealing the luxurious swathe of hair on his chest—a pillow on which I want to rest my head, a carpet on which I would fly anywhere. The corridor outside recedes, the war wages in another city somewhere. “Karun,” I whisper, and when he doesn’t awaken, bend down and kiss him lightly on the lips.
His eyes open, and focus sleepily for an instant. Then, with a strangled sound, he scrabbles away, falling to the floor in the process. “Who are you? Stay away,” he cries out, kicking off the blanket entangling his legs. He’s on his feet and heading for the door (how tiringly predictable) when I manage to find the light switch.
“Karun. Stop. It’s me, Jaz.” I position myself under the ceiling fixture so he can get a good look.
“Jaz?” He lets me draw close enough to embrace him. Through his chest, I feel the thump of bloo
d, the tautness of muscles primed for escape. I’m careful not to squeeze as tight as I want to, lest he feel I’m trying to restrain him. Just as I think my time’s running out and he’ll surely pull away, he slumps into my arms as if he’s decided not to resist. “I thought it was the guards. They came for Moorthy next door—I heard them.”
“Shhh, I just startled you. You were asleep—are you OK? They haven’t hurt you in any way, have they?”
“No, I’m fine. Sometimes I feel I just nap all day. That and my yoga—there’s little else to do.” He squeezes closer, buries his head in my shoulder.
A part of me knows we have to leave at once, to tarry is perilous, the Khakis may already be on their way. But I’ve waited all this time, persevered so long, with just a craving, a hope, an image. I allow my body to melt into his, between the bed and the door, under the ceiling light that blesses our embrace. For a moment I wish would stretch out forever, we are tranquil.
Then the inevitable questions unloosen within him. “What are you doing here, Jaz? How could you have found me? I can’t believe it—there’s no logical way.”
This is the juncture I’ve dreaded. I cannot relate the true saga of my odyssey without revealing that Sarita, ensconced within the hotel walls, waits for him with long-suffering wifely devotion. Lying, on the other hand, could lead to a minefield that might blow my account at any step. “I’ll tell you when we’re less pressed—it’s too fantastic a tale.”
I pull Karun towards the door, but he unhooks his arm. “You followed me somehow, didn’t you? You must have, right from the first day. Step by step, though I left at dawn—that’s how you’re here today.” He shakes his head in wonder. “All the times I begged you to stop harassing me. Even when you saw I had my own life to live.”
I try steering him out once more, promising to discuss everything later, but he draws back a step. “Why hunt me down like this? When you know I’m just trying to get away?” His voice becomes angry, plaintive.
By now I can see he won’t accompany me unless I refresh the map of the past for him. “Get away from what, exactly, Karun? I’m hardly so formidable a force that you had to make such a dramatic break for it. All you needed to do was look me in the eye and say you didn’t feel anything. It’s not me you’re trying to escape, Karun—it’s yourself. Just be honest for once—you’re scared you’ll give in, that your true feelings will prevail.”
“We’ve been through all this before,” he says wearily. “There’s no need to—”
“Do you know how much danger I’ve put myself through to get to you? Bombed and shot at and almost executed? Perhaps you should ask yourself why I’d do this. Why I’d come here, into the lair of Bhim himself, even though he’d kill me in an instant for being Muslim.” My voice breaks, my eyes tear up with frustration.
Karun doesn’t say anything. We stand in the room, the ceiling light getting harsher by the instant. An overwhelming sense of exhaustion overcomes me. How much of my life have I spent pursuing Karun? How much more must I spend before he relents? I feel my Jazter persona cracking, my Bond incarnation slipping away. This is what I have been reduced to, and I’m not really sure how to rescue myself. “I suppose there’s no point asking you to come with me if you can’t find it in your heart to give voice to what’s there.” It’s finally my turn to head towards the door, alone.
“Jaz, wait.”
Had I written the scene, he’d have run and hurled himself at the door before I could reach it. But I suppose that would be out of character—his words are enough of a departure as it is. I stride over and kiss him. He holds back only for a second or two before allowing himself to fully join in. We close our eyes and the next instant, are young and brash once more. Racing through parks, playing with toy trains, lying in each other’s arms on balconies and barsatis again.
The threat of danger recedes to the sidelines as we fall into bed, still kissing. I realize how much I have craved his body, how much I have missed it. The way my mouth fits the hollow of his throat, the press of my belly against his waist—a scent, a taste, returning from the mists of nostalgia, my very own madeleine. I take off my shirt and rub my chest against his in that familiar long-ago way, smile to myself when curls of our hair snag again. We divest ourselves of the rest of our clothes and lie there, savoring the contact between even our mundane parts—toes, knees, clavicles, shins. Already, I look greedily beyond his body—I want another shot at an entire lifetime with him.
And then Sarita’s shadow wafts in. I see it first in his eyes—her memory flickers across his face. She’s not so assertive a presence that I couldn’t divert attention with a good roll in the hay. But I hesitate, handicapped by a sudden affliction of guilt. Wouldn’t Karun want to know about her waiting just a few buildings away? Am I taking advantage not only of Sarita, but also of him? Is withholding information (lying, some might label it) the best way to rekindle a relationship? The nape of my neck tingles—Sarita might as well be peering down at us like a mural from the ceiling. “Perhaps this isn’t such a good idea,” I say, hardly believing the words as they emerge from my mouth. “We need to get going, figure out our escape.”
Karun seems relieved to agree. “There may be a way out through the basement.” He starts looking for his clothes and covering up his body with distressing alacrity—socks, undershirt, shirt. “The bomb shelters there are the one area they keep off-limits, stupidly enough—we’re free to roam the building everywhere else.” He’s rummaging for his briefs, describing Bhim’s crazy utopia project, when I pull him back into bed—despite the advancing danger, the Jazter needs to fortify himself with at least another nip of physical contact. I love you, I want to declare, but only if I can be sure of hearing him say it as well. Instead, I squeeze my thighs around him and kiss the back of his head.
He reciprocates with a quick half-kiss before spotting his pants and slipping off the bed. I gather my own clothes—it’s time to cover the ol’ Jazter as well. “So tell me, how did you get into the hotel?” Karun asks, still searching for his underwear, as he holds his trousers by the belt.
“I rode in on an elephant.”
He laughs. “The ones collecting money from the crowds, that Bhim funds his operations with? And how much did you have to pay the elephant to find what room I was in?”
“Actually, the elephant only told me how to get to the dining room. It was lunchtime, he said, so you’d surely be there.”
Karun shakes his head. “I’ve stopped going. It’s safest that way. You never know who might be spying on you—too many of Bhim’s men. That’s the mistake Moorthy made—spouting off against everything, never could stop being a firebrand. After he vanished, I just started getting the food delivered to my room—thankfully, they’re willing to do that. I hope you left once you couldn’t find me, didn’t stick around to chat.”
“Well, I had to chat a little, to find you. But only with science and engineering types, all of them. Let’s see—there was Sethi and Jayant and Deepender and Das. He’s the one who gave me your room number—seemed to know you quite well.”
Karun stares at me. “Das? The stubby one with the mustache? He’s the most snake-like of them all—has his fingers in everything, from top to bottom. I wouldn’t be surprised if he personally engineered Moorthy’s disappearance.” He frantically throws off the pillows from the bed, finally uncovering his underwear. “We should have left right away as you said—quick, get dressed.”
I’m fishing my own underwear out from the pile of clothes I’ve assembled when the door lock makes its familiar whirring sound. It opens, and two guards burst in, followed by Das. All three stop and gawk at us, flustered by our state of undress. Finally, Das speaks. “Really, Dr. Anand. I never would have guessed.” His eyes focus directly on what I’m trying to hide. “With a Muslim, no less.”
THROUGH HIS YEARS of forays across beaches and parks, through his entire illustrious career as a shikari, one unsung achievement sets the Jazter apart. Except for that single time with
Harjeet, he’s never been caught with his pants down. Which is why Das and company’s appearance is such a shock. I scramble to enrobe myself, even though the secret, so to speak, is already out. Perhaps I should have flaunted things, stared the villains down. Surely Bond would have acted nonchalant, proud.
Despite his attempt at wryness, Das is visibly relieved once we are dressed. He glares at the guards to arrest their smirking comments, then gets very chatty, trying to smooth over the situation, perhaps. “We’d been expecting your friend,” he tells Karun, as if talking about an extra dinner guest. “The guards at the front entrance alerted us, and we saw him looking around through the garden cameras as well.” He turns to me and inquires whether the journey to the dining room went smoothly enough. “We had to figure out your intentions, find out whom you came to see, where you went. Sorry to barge in like that, but the microphone in the room wasn’t working very well.”
He leads us to Bhim’s suite on the third floor with a profusion of “This way’s” and “Mind your step’s,” his manner so collegial that he might be accompanying us to a university colloquium. “You’re lucky Bhim’s here today—he has so many other centers to tend.” The outer room is set up as an office, complete with computers and file cabinets—a secretary informs us we’ll have to wait awhile, Bhim is busy with someone else. “Always a problem when you come to see him,” Das laments.
So we sit there, like in a doctor’s waiting room—one sorely lacking in magazines, but with guards at the ready to ensure we keep our appointment. Das gabs on, about the weather, the city, even the physics Karun researches—interspersed with his babble, I notice crafty attempts to tease out information of more consequence. He’s very interested in our relationship—whether we know each other in a professional, or only the biblical sense. He tries to ferret out who the maiden accompanying me to the annex was, where she might be now, how I got into the hotel. He asks such keen questions about my purported geological expertise that I’m forced to confess my true field is finance. “Why didn’t you say so?” he exclaims. “I could have introduced you to our economists sitting at the very next table. We have other fields here too—Bhim’s been collecting the brightest and best in all of them.”