“‘Kill me, get it over with,’ I begged. But was it going to be that simple? Hell no. The man said he needed to practice first. He placed my hand on a rock, like this.” Ali demonstrated by flattening his palm on the bed and splaying his fingers across the sheet.
“I thought he was going to chop my hand off, but he went for the fingers. The man had no idea what he was doing. No technique, just kept hacking away. The pain from the first blow was so intense I nearly fainted. Then I got used to it. After a while, the man decided he’d had enough practice. He made me place my head on the rock. ‘This is it,’ I thought. I closed my eyes and tried to pray, but I didn’t even know the words to the prayer. Then I heard a gunshot. I hoped the bullet would find my heart—anything was better than being decapitated by this amateur butcher. But it turned out to be the army. The mob dispersed. A soldier picked me up from the ground. Seeing the state of my hand, he went to retrieve my fingers. He managed to find three of them, but a stray dog got the others. So, that’s how this happened.” Ali held the crooked hand up again, exhibiting it proudly, as if it were a piece of silverware.
Sanjit sniffled. Every word Ali had spoken lodged in his chest, rupturing his insides like bullets.
“I’m sorry. So sorry.”
“What’s the point of saying sorry now? You think it’s going to change anything?” There was no anger or bitterness in Ali’s voice. Just hate that had been tempered and forged into hard steel.
“You know what the worst thing was? After the incident, I hated myself for being a Muslim. Can you believe that? I was so ashamed of my religion, my circumcised cock. I blamed it for everything and went into a deep depression. The only thing that made me feel good was food. I ate all the time, to stop myself from committing suicide. Then one day, my father dragged me to a madrasa. I hated it at first: rocking your head back and forth, reciting verse after verse. I thought it was mindless and stupid. But a beautiful thing happened when I submitted myself to it. I found peace. Not just peace—all that anger in me had a purpose. A higher calling. Being a servant of Allah.” Ali smiled. Not the familiar lopsided smile but one full of bliss.
Sanjit wept, because that was all he had the power to do.
“I’m sorry,” he said, tasting the salt of his tears. “I really am. I had no idea any of this had happened to you.”
Ali slapped his forehead.
“You know, it just occurred to me. I’ve been rambling away without answering your question: Why? Why am I doing this to you? Over the years, I’ve thought long and hard about what happened that day. Those men in saffron who did this to me, they did what mobs do. Kill. Maim. That’s their job. But you? You were my friend. You were supposed to be there for me. All actions have consequences. You have to take responsibility for what happened, because if you hadn’t ditched me at the cinema, if you hadn’t been sleeping, would any of this have occurred? Now, not only am I offering you a chance to redeem yourself, I’m also giving you the one thing you desire most. A happy afterlife. When you stop crying like a girl and think about it coolly, you’ll see it’s the deal of the century.”
13.
THE AIR WAS STILL, NOTHING TO DISLODGE THE heat that was stuck to the room. Sanjit lay in the darkness, bundled in a sheet from head to toe like a corpse. How he wished that were the case. That he was already a corpse. Because death was the only way out of this nightmare. Yet he wasn’t ready for that, either.
For a long time, he wailed softly into the pillow, face washed with tears of regret. He regretted everything: running away from home, from Reshma, dumping her in the worst possible way. He felt a sharp sting in his heart when he remembered the hurt in her voice. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, as if she were lying next to him.
He recalled the last time that had occurred. It was in a hotel room in Khar where they’d sometimes sneak off to have sex. Their naked bodies faced each other, the sun pouring through the open window, basting her toffee-colored skin. She closed her eyes when he laid a finger on her plump, crimson lips, sighing softly when he traced a line over her chin, throat, breasts, stomach, then a jerk when he reached the thigh.
The flashback triggered something he hadn’t experienced in a long time: an erection. He slid his hand into his shorts and started masturbating, stopping a few seconds later when his penis went floppy.
“I’m sorry,” he cried again.
In the hindsight of remorse, he was appreciating everything that made her a beautiful person: her unassuming nature, limitless patience and compassion, that unwavering sense of duty he was so fond of ridiculing. She would have stuck with him through everything, even though she didn’t have to. Wiped his ass when he became a vegetable. Held his hand when he breathed his last. Why hadn’t he gone back when she’d begged him to return all those months ago?
If only he could turn back time. And if he did possess that ability, what would he have done on that day seventeen years ago? What had happened that day? Sanjit crushed his eyes and concentrated, drilling into the depths of his memory.
Images rose to the surface of his consciousness: charred buildings; cars transformed into smoldering scrap metal; bodies burnt to elemental masses of carbon; mobs armed with swords, knives and broken bottles, looting and killing in the names of Ram and Allah. But there was no god to be seen anywhere. Neither Ram nor Allah. Of course, these memories weren’t his own experiences, but borrowed from news footage. And none of them had answered the all-important question: why had he ditched Ali that morning?
Had he been sick?
Then suddenly it came to him. After holding on to it, the mind finally spat it out like a dog that had lost interest in a toy.
That morning, he’d had a sneaky joint with a neighbor who’d scored some Manali hash. The stuff was a real knockout. Too stoned to go anywhere, he told his mother he was feeling ill and retired to his room to sleep off the effects of the drug, not realizing that beyond the four walls of his room, a city was burning, and that he was about to set off a deadly chain of causes and effects, culminating in this moment.
But did that make it his fault? Surely, Ali could’ve used a bit of common sense and headed home at the first sign of trouble. That’s what Sanjit would’ve done in his place. That’s what anyone with half a brain would’ve done. What misplaced sense of loyalty had set him off on that foolish venture? And what about Sanjit’s mother? Why wasn’t she blamed for feeding Ali to the mobs? What about the people who’d started the riots to further their own agendas?
Then Sanjit realized. He had to cop the blame simply because he was there. The music had stopped and he was the one holding the parcel. Only this parcel was heavier than anything he’d ever held. It contained the collective guilt of a city that had momentarily lost its senses. Twelve million people. Too much for a disease-wracked body to bear.
14.
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, SANJIT WOKE UP tired from all the crying, but his head felt surprisingly clear. He sat up, mulling over the dream he’d just come out of. In it, he was a leper, offering his begging bowl to the potbellied figure of Lord Yama. Behind the god of death stood the tall, lean figure of Raymond Li, his Rolex gleaming in the bright light, and beside him, the afterlife consultant who’d humiliated Sanjit.
“That’s all you’ve got?” Yama said, frowning at the paltry collection of coins in Sanjit’s bowl.
“I’m just a leper, my lord,” Sanjit said in that needy, abject voice that had become a recent trademark. He opened his hands and presented them as proof of his condition.
Yama shrugged. “Sorry, not my problem. I can’t let you in.”
“You know, I could’ve had more if I’d agreed to become a suicide bomber.”
Yama raised an eyebrow. “You were going to be a suicide bomber?” Behind him, Raymond and the afterlife consultant shook their heads in disapproval.
“I didn’t. That’s my point. I said no to bloodshed, to killing innocent people. Shouldn’t that count for something?”
Yama gestured for him to wait one mi
nute, then got into a huddle with Raymond and the afterlife consultant, the three of them whispering furiously to each other.
“Refraining from evil isn’t the same as performing a good deed,” Yama announced at the end of the discussion. “Sorry.”
“So you’re saying I might have been better off taking the money and killing those people?” a disappointed Sanjit argued.
“Silence!” the god of death bellowed. “Rules are rules. No money, no entry. It’s that simple.”
Circling his thumb and index finger, Lord Yama summoned his buffalo with a sharp whistle. The beast arrived, swishing its tail. He mounted it and slapped its side. The creature left the room, carrying the god of death on its back while Raymond and the afterlife consultant trailed at a respectful distance.
Back in the present, Sanjit let out a sigh and eyed the door. Ali had left it ajar the previous night, but now it was shut, most likely locked on the outside to prevent him from escaping. The window, however, was wide open and devoid of bars. He leaned out and looked down. He was on the fourth floor, roughly eight feet between floors. The window on each level was shaded by a ledge. He pictured himself clambering out of his window to the ledge beneath, then hanging from that ledge and dropping to the one below. This way, he’d be on the ground floor in less than five minutes.
The street was empty except for a loitering goat. The animal belonged to a restaurant next to the mosque. Each time Sanjit saw it roam untethered, he was amazed that it never ran away. He’d attributed this to stupidity, but now he realized that he might have underestimated the creature’s intelligence. Perhaps it was perceptive enough to understand that it couldn’t outrun its fate. Wherever it went, it was just going to die and end up in a biryani. He was in the same situation, except for the biryani part. Whether he stayed or ran away, the disease was going to get him. The difference was, in one instance he’d have enough for a happy afterlife and in the other instance, nada.
Sanjit’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the door unlatching. He hurriedly slid back in the bed and pretended he was asleep, opening his eyes and sitting up when footsteps entered the room.
Farid hung by the door as if guarding it. Ali came and sat next to Sanjit, the bed creaking under his weight. The two men appraised each other as if meeting for the very first time, even though they’d known each other for over twenty years.
“Did you get some sleep?” Ali asked.
The mundanity of the question forced Sanjit to smile.
“A little.”
“So what do you think of my offer?”
Sanjit pursed his lip. The previous night, he’d been in shock. But now, drained of all emotion, he possessed the ability to see Ali’s proposition for what it was: a business transaction. One engendered by a perfect coincidence of wants. He wanted money for eternal happiness and Ali, a disposable body. Deal of the century. That was how Ali had dubbed it. A bit of an overclaim, considering what he was asking Sanjit to do. Not the deal of the century perhaps, but the only deal on the table.
“I’ve never killed before,” Sanjit said. A chill traveled through his body when he caught himself uttering those words.
“You know what the hardest part of killing is? Watching your victims suffer,” Ali said, as if he was an authority on the subject. “But that’s not something you need to worry about as a suicide bomber. You press a button, boom, you’re gone before everyone else. You’re not around to feel the guilt, either.”
“So who are these people you want me to kill?”
“Foreigners. Infidels.”
“What kind of foreigners?”
“Westerners.”
“Westerners?”
“It’s war. They kill Muslims and defile our holy sites. With God on our side, we’ll win.” Ali’s face was clenched with determination.
Sanjit blinked. What kind of war was this? And how did you go from wanting vengeance on those who maimed you to killing a random collection of people held together by a label: foreigners? What dark twists and turns had brought Ali to this point, where you hated someone you’d never even met?
“It’s your war. Why drag me into it?”
“Because nobody will be expecting a non-Muslim to do it. Can you imagine? The panic. The confusion. The paranoia. Suddenly, the enemy isn’t someone with a beard. It could be anyone.” Ali beamed.
The glow on the face said everything. This was his brainchild, and Sanjit was going to be the prototype, the beta version of a non-Muslim suicide bomber. If it worked, it would look good on the resume and enhance Ali’s standing in the Jihadi circles. This wasn’t about religion. This was about climbing the ladder.
“What if I say no? Are you going to kill me?”
“What kind of a person do you think I am?” Ali frowned as if offended by the question. “Of course not. You’re free to walk if you don’t want to do it.”
Sanjit turned to the door.
“Go on,” Ali goaded, confident Sanjit wouldn’t. And he didn’t.
He exhaled softly and leaned back against the wall.
“Excellent. So you’re in?”
Sanjit gulped. He needed more time. Not to decide, because the decision had already been made for him, by the disease, by his bank account, by life in general. But he was yet to come to terms with a set of words that would be forever joined to his name.
Sanjit Sharma, suicide bomber.
In this country, parents wanted their kids to grow up to be doctors, lawyers, engineers and business tycoons, certainly not suicide bombers. On the shame scale, it was marginally better than being a pedophile. But let’s take a step back for a moment.
There were people that sold tobacco even when they knew it caused cancer. People that had dropped nuclear weapons on cities, operated gas chambers that murdered on an industrial scale. Each one of them must have had a reason for doing what they did. He had one, too. Freedom from the misery of birth and rebirth, from the grinding poverty of hell. As far as justifications went, it was way better than some warped sense of duty, medal, pay rise, promotion, or belonging to a club.
“When did you think of it?” Sanjit asked. “Was it on my birthday? After the cricket match … when I said I was going to end it?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does to me. Answers are in short supply. I like to get them when I can.” Ali nodded.
“So I was crying, baring my soul, and you were busy making a plan. You weren’t really going to Delhi. You just wanted to leave me alone at home so I’d ‘find’ the leaflet. You hoped I’d fall for the trap, and I did.”
“Would it bother you if I said yes?”
Sanjit searched Ali’s face for signs of guilt. When he couldn’t find any, he sighed.
“No. Gone beyond that now. One last question. Will it hurt?”
“Your heart will stop before the brain can feel the pain.”
“So I’ll be dead before I feel anything?”
“Precisely.”
15.
IT WAS A DONE DEAL. AS SOON AS THEY RETURNED home from the bank, Sanjit felt the presence of a heavy cloud in his body. The exuberance of having three hundred thousand Afterlife Dollars had quickly given way to the reality of what he’d agreed to do for it. Suddenly he felt like someone who’d lied at the interview to get the job. And now that he’d got it, he was out of his depth.
I’m no killer.
He caught Ali looking at him and ducked behind a half smile. He didn’t want his employer thinking he wasn’t up to it.
He lowered himself onto the sofa. Ali scraped a steel chair across the floor. Farid stood near the window, blocking the light. His arms were folded as he watched Sanjit closely.
“We’re going to train you. Prepare you mentally and psychologically. Understand?” Ali said.
Sanjit nodded, relieved that they weren’t expecting him to do it straight away.
“Normally, this takes months. But in your case, we haven’t got months and you’re not a Muslim. So we’re going to impr
ovise. The good news is you’re ready to die. So you’re halfway there.”
Sanjit swallowed. There was something in the way Ali had said it. A sense of finality. Dying was no longer an abstract idea in the future. It had entered the room and was sitting right next to him on the sofa.
Next, Ali explained the rules: No leaving the house. No phone calls. No movies, television or watching cricket. The outside world was closed off until further notice.
Sanjit nodded quietly, accepting that he’d signed away his freedom along with his body when he signed on that dotted line an hour earlier. “So when do we start?”
“Look at him. Raring to go.” Ali slapped Sanjit’s back, proud of his protégé. “Let’s eat.”
Yes, food before everything. Even murder and carnage.
After lunch, Sanjit was told to sit on the sofa. Farid closed the curtains, reducing the sun to thin lines around the window. Ali knelt down and inserted a disc into the DVD player.
The screen flickered and turned black. An Arabic title spun like a revolving door before settling in the middle of the picture. The English translation appeared below it: Srebrenica, Bosnia.
A lineup of bodies kneeling in the grass: men, women, children, barrels of Kalashnikovs hovering above their heads like angels of death. The barrels smoked. The bodies slumped to the ground at the same time as if they had been tied together, the weight of one dragging down another.
Sanjit flinched. The undigested biryani in his stomach moved.
The video cut away to a shot of a freshly excavated mass grave, a heap of coffee-colored mummies entangled like pretzels. Men and women in jumpsuits, dusting off skulls and bones as if they were rare archaeological finds. A woman in a white headscarf, resting her head on a domed coffin lid. As the camera closed in on her tears, an angry voice railed in Arabic. Sanjit couldn’t understand the words, but he felt the hate seeping into his skin.
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