by Tania Malik
Three pairs of inquisitive eyes swung to their mother.
She snapped at the children, suddenly aware of their presence. “Go inside,” she ordered. They turned, filing reluctantly away, her tone forbidding argument.
“You haven’t changed much,” she said when they were gone. “You look older, of course, a little gray here.” She touched her own temples to indicate. “But otherwise . . .”
He looked away from her self-consciously.
She looked down at her hands, the skin swollen around her diamond rings. “Are you married?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Children?”
He paused, that tricky question again. For now, he settled on saying, “No.”
“I heard you got married . . . soon after,” he said.
“My father didn’t let me continue with college. There was no more fight left in me. I decided to make do with what I had,” she said. “But I don’t understand. Why are you here?”
“Talking about children—” he said.
“Oh!” Her hand flew to her mouth.
“Neha.” He spoke fast. “My life has gone in so many different directions, it’s impossible to untangle most of them. But there is one thing I have to settle before I can go on with my life; one thing I’ve realized I have to know is . . . about . . .”
“You can’t be serious.”
“When I said I didn’t have any children, I meant that I have none I know of. I had a son. I lost him in an accident recently. It made me rethink everything in my life. It made me think . . . it made me want to know about . . . about our child.”
She gave a sharp cry, looking around as though someone may have heard him.
“I don’t want to cause any trouble,” he said. “I came to see if you have any idea, if you can give me any information about what happened. That’s all I want, and then I’ll go away. You’ll never see me again. I promise.”
She didn’t answer, kept shaking her head.
“Neha, haven’t you ever wondered? Haven’t you ever thought?”
“I never even saw the baby,” she said. “They took it right away. I asked, but both my mother and father refused. My mother said it’s better that way. I’m sorry.” Her gaze softened as she looked into the distance. “I made myself forget. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do.”
Forget me or forget what we made together? The query darted in his mind, but at the same time, as if to calm his thoughts, he realized her response did not matter. It had ceased to matter a long time ago. Their fleeting storm of passion had shattered with the first assault, and would never have lasted beyond the artless summers of their youth. If not for this child, he would have gone on with his life, never needing to seek her out.
He had wished differently for her, he realized as she walked him back to the car, the sound of her children babbling through an open window. When he thought of her, he’d always imagined that she’d found a way out. That she’d fled into the rest of her life, and was somewhere protesting environmental catastrophes, fighting for farmers’ rights, against police brutality and misogynistic edicts. He’d hoped she was leading the charge, penning manifestos. He thought she would have found a way to live by no one’s dictates but her own. But she was right here, not far from where he’d left her. Life had twisted them around since they had parted. They were both destined to live with their regrets. Or perhaps this was always how it was going to turn out. Perhaps there was less fight in her than he’d thought.
Jaggu got out of the car as they approached. “Is that your old friend?” she asked.
“Yes, it’s Jaggu.”
Acknowledging Jaggu’s greeting, she turned to Madan. “You were always lucky in the people who loved you.” She stood close now, not as aloof, more friendly, her eyes lost in her sad smile.
“Yes,” he agreed. His thoughts flew to Preeti, Ketan-bhai. “I still am,” he said.
CHAPTER 22
THEY RODE HOME IN SILENCE, AND WHEN THEY GOT BACK to the house it was dark. A car sat in Jaggu and Swati’s driveway, a black SUV. “Who could that be?” Jaggu asked. Madan was silent, though he felt he already knew. When they pulled up, a man got out of the front passenger side. “Saab wants to see you,” the man said to Madan.
“No,” Jaggu said. “Tell your saab he won’t come—”
“Jaggu,” Madan said. “It’s all right.”
“But you can’t—”
“You’ve spent enough of your life worrying about me.” He embraced Jaggu and, keeping his voice low and even-keeled said, “I knew I couldn’t come back without the news reaching him.” Before Jaggu could protest, he got in the waiting car.
As they drove away, he kept his gaze out the window at the houses flying past. They drove through town, and presently Madan noticed they were not heading toward the timber factory as he had expected. He began to pay more attention to the scenery. Somnolent fields glowed in the moonlight behind the town, and the car lurched over potholes before joining a smoother roadway. Madan’s stomach turned as he realized the direction of their journey. The car picked up speed on the deserted highway, and twenty minutes later he was standing at the entrance to Jeet Megacity.
Security guards manned the barricades at the entrance, and barbed wire surrounded the development. Floodlights blazed from above, spotlighting the temporary barracks that ringed a large dirt lot and housed the offices of the project managers. The guards watched him step out of the car and look around. This was a strange place to bring him. What could they do to him here?
He waited for one of the men to say something, tell him what to do. The driver was on a cell phone, and, clicking the phone shut, he told Madan to look back.
A long sedan maneuvered in behind them. The driver jumped out and opened the back passenger door.
Madan held still. Avtaar Singh emerged from the car, a walking stick in his hand.
Madan took a few automatic steps toward him, and then stopped. If Avtaar Singh wanted to talk to him, he would have to come to Madan.
Avtaar Singh dug the end of the cane into the dust, grasped the molded silver handle and adjusted the shawl draped lightly over his shoulders. He straightened up and looked around. Avtaar Singh didn’t hesitate. He made his way to Madan, the high-pitched buzzing of the floodlights drowning out the scrape of his cane on the dusty ground. There were the usual markers of time on his face, his jowls looser, his dark eyes cocooned deeper into the folds of skin, his thick hair and mustache turned ashy white, but the confidence of his lean, trim bearing remained untouched by the years. The gleaming wooden cane, it seemed, was no more than a stylish accessory.
At Madan’s side, he extended his hand. But Madan didn’t reciprocate, and Avtaar Singh let his hand drop. Together they turned and regarded Jeet Megacity, bright and pulsating like a giant interloping spaceship, the creak and groan of timber and steel drowning out what they could have said or what they wanted to say.
“Is it you who is responsible for this monstrosity?” The cane twirled a depression into the ground. “If you wanted to kill me, there were easier ways. But I should have known. No one else could do this.”
The guards talked into their radios and kept a watchful eye. Madan wondered how Avtaar Singh had found out. Had the news of Madan’s arrival juxtaposed two opposing thoughts and jolted Avtaar Singh into making an accurate guess? Standing next to Avtaar Singh, he was finding it impossible to get a fix on his own thoughts.
“You know who this is?” Avtaar Singh said to his men standing a few feet away.
They regarded Madan without interest.
“He is a son of Gorapur, you useless sons of bitches,” he shouted. “And see what he has done—” Avtaar Singh swept his cane up and around to encompass the whole city, his shawl slipping off his shoulders and into the dust. “See what he has done to you, to Gorapur and to . . . me.”
The squealing of the walkie-talkies filled the quiet following Avtaar Singh’s outburst. No one moved. “You have nothing to say to me?”
Avtaar Singh huffed.
Madan bent down and picked up the shawl, his earlier dread and anxiety dissolved into numbness. Anything this bickering, aging man said no longer had the power to scare or cow him. He shook out the shawl and folded it into a neat square. Taking Avtaar Singh by the elbow, he guided him back to the car. Avtaar Sigh sank down into the seat with relief, jerking his arm out of Madan’s grasp.
“Gorapur is not my home,” Madan said. “You took that away from me.”
Avtaar Singh’s knuckles gleamed white against the dark polished wood of his cane. He stared straight ahead to the cranes and bulldozers parked alongside the road.
“Get in,” he said finally to Madan.
The guards looked relieved when they saw the cars pull out. In the backseat with Avtaar Singh, Madan watched as Jeet Megacity dimmed to a point as they drove away.
“This may not be your home, but it is mine,” said Avtaar Singh. He fidgeted with the cane resting between his legs and, seeming bothered by it, tapped the shoulder of the man in front. When he turned around, Madan realized it was the man who had been rallying the farmers in the cell phone clip. Avtaar Singh passed his cane to the man, and sat back comfortably.
“We can’t stop progress,” said Avtaar Singh. “The whole country is in a rush. They’re not waiting for this century to finish, they’re already propelling us into the next. I myself have had to diversify. Can’t count on these boys anymore,” he said about the men in front. “They want to be waiters in the fancy hotel and photocopy boys in big offices. Idiots, all of them.”
He scrutinized Madan, as if compelling him to speak or offer some rebuttal. When Madan didn’t, Avtaar Singh charged on. “I may not like the changes, but I understand. This will be the new Gorapur. A reincarnation, a rebirth. You have your money and your reputation on the line, and as you know, I can make things easy, or I can make them difficult.”
A week ago, if a massive flood had swept over Jeet Megacity, wiping it off the face of the earth, Madan, bereft of spirit and strength, would not have cared. With Arnav gone, he’d found it hard to understand how the whole world could go on, yet Jeet Megacity had forged ahead unfaltering.
Avtaar Singh could sit here and choose to forget how he’d betrayed the promises he had made, spoken and unspoken. He could forget how he had repaid Madan’s devotion with his bloodthirsty demands. Avtaar Singh could forget. Madan could not. He thought he’d lost the will to go on, but he vibrated now with a rare possessiveness at the thought of this man getting anywhere near Jeet Megacity.
“No,” Madan said. “I’ll never allow it.”
“It seems you haven’t changed that much,” said Avtaar Singh. “Still as stubborn as ever. How it irritated Pandit Bansi Lal. He said you were spiteful, difficult, but I knew it was merely your firmness of mind. When you knew what you wanted, nothing would deter you.
“But you must remember how Pandit-ji thrived in his discourses?” Avtaar Singh rolled along with his memories, taking everyone in the car with him. “He was very fond of the story of King Hiranyakashipu. Have you boys heard it?” There were some noncommittal noises from up front. “In his quest to become invincible, the king prayed and sacrificed to Lord Brahma, and was granted a boon that he could not be killed indoors or outdoors, at daytime or night, neither on the ground nor in the sky, nor by human being or animal.”
The boon had indeed made the tyrannical king undefeatable, but when the time came, his nemesis, Lord Vishnu, took the form of half lion, half man and, by placing Hiranyakashipu on his lap so he was not on the ground or in the sky, struck the fatal blow in that in-between time of twilight, when it was not day or night, in the courtyard of his palace so they were neither indoors nor out, thus circumventing the parameters of the boon.
“You think you’ve covered all the possible angles, shielded yourself from every possibility, made sure you’re unbeatable.” Avtaar Singh laughed derisively. “But there is always that one small opening, one possibility you haven’t considered, and in that unguarded space the dagger darts in and slays you.”
The car came to a stop outside Jaggu’s home. He clicked the door open, eager to put some distance between himself and Avtaar Singh.
“I took a tour of Jeet Megacity a short while ago,” Avtaar Singh said as Madan exited. “Actually, it is truly stunning.”
Madan stood flabbergasted at the gate as the car skidded away. Avtaar Singh had seen Jeet Megacity, walked up and down, admired every corner, when Madan had not even entered the place yet.
His immediate instinct was to run behind the car and flag it down. He wanted to hear more. Soak up what Avtaar Singh had seen as he gazed up at the tall towers; bask in his impressions as he considered the land, altered beyond recognition. Madan gave himself a mental shake, and wondered how Avtaar Singh had gained access to Jeet Megacity. Regardless of all the safeguards and barriers he’d put up, Avtaar Singh had found a way in.
“Are you okay?” Jaggu hurriedly undid the latch of the gate. “What did he want?”
“What he always wants,” Madan said, reassuring Jaggu that he was fine. “More than he deserves.”
“Forget him for now,” Jaggu said. “I thought of someone who might know something about the baby.”
Kasturba Gandhi Hope and Healing Center was a boxy building with high walls as long as its name. Jaggu turned into a parking spot near the entry gate. They were going to see Feroze, Avtaar Singh’s old goon with the eyes that missed nothing. Feroze, whose name was known to every prostitute at Champa’s and who had arranged the same for Jaggu and Madan that first time. Feroze, thought Madan soberly, who had beat him up and left him for dead.
“Because if Pandit Bansi Lal needed help getting the child out of Karnal,” Jaggu had explained, “he would have asked someone he knew, who would do it for money but keep his mouth shut. That’s Feroze. I’ve seen him off and on over the years, we’ve greeted each other from afar. But I heard recently that he’s moved into an ashram.”
“He’s found God?” Madan had asked, disbelieving
“No, not that sort of ashram. It’s the type of place you go when you’re sick and you have no one. They give you a bed and take care of you until the end.”
In the car all the way to the ashram, they’d tried to recall Feroze’s last name, but it did not come to them.
“More than his name, first we’ll have to see if he’s alive,” Jaggu had pointed out when they arrived.
They walked now into the deserted foyer, where informational posters on AIDS and hepatitis B lined the walls. There was no one by the desk in the corner, and they walked through to the central courtyard, visible on the other side of the inner doors.
Outside, people in white kurtas milled about, some playing a game of cards under the shade of a large tree. Madan and Jaggu spotted a nurse standing off to the side. “Excuse me,” Madan said, “we’re looking for a friend of ours, Feroze—”
Before he’d completed his sentence, she bellowed out, “Feroze, visitors!”
Jaggu and Madan’s gazes snapped in the direction she had shouted. A man sitting cross-legged on a cane chair, a newspaper in his lap, looked up at her call. Slowly he uncrossed his legs and stood up. His skeletal face peered vacantly ahead as he shambled toward them.
Madan and Jaggu met him halfway. “Jaggu?” he said, his pale eyes cloudier with age.
“Feroze!” Jaggu embraced him eagerly, caught up in the relief of finding him.
Feroze began to cough, and Jaggu stepped back. “Sorry,” Jaggu said.
“No, no it’s okay.” Feroze waved his hand. “I’ve become too fragile, as you can see.” He studied Madan curiously, but said to Jaggu, “How come you remembered me after such a long time? I used to see you running in and out of your cinema. You forgot your old friend then, ha?”
Jaggu fidgeted uncomfortably and moved back, nearly stepping into Madan. “We’ve come for some information,” Jaggu said.
Again Feroze peered unsurely at Madan, trying to place him.
“Okay,” said Feroze. “Let’s go to my room. This is the first time anyone has come to see me.”
They followed him to a small room in the east wing of the building. A metal bed, a cupboard and a wooden writing desk and chair were the few fixtures in the sparely furnished room. Madan pulled out the chair and Jaggu and Feroze sat on the bed.
“Nice place,” said Jaggu, looking around.
Feroze laughed bitterly. “Yes,” he said. “It’s the fucking Oberoi Hotel. So what do you want?”
“You still haven’t recognized him, have you?” asked Jaggu.
“Who?” Feroze said. “Your friend?” He turned to look at Madan again.
“My very good friend,” Jaggu affirmed. “From many years ago, when we all used to roam the streets together. He was our leader, though you fancied that you were.”
But Feroze wasn’t listening. “No,” he whispered in disbelief, leaning forward, looking closely at Madan.
“Hello, Feroze,” said Madan. Feroze fell back as though Madan had hit him. “Don’t worry, I’m not here for revenge. I need to know something.”
“Madan,” Feroze squeaked out. “Madan, Madan, Madan. You’re harder to get rid of than this disease that’s eating me alive.” He shook his head, incredulous. “I can’t believe I’m here to see this.”
He leaned toward Madan again as if to ascertain Madan’s undeniable presence. “When you turned up alive in Karnal, I got into so much trouble. I thought those were my last days. Now I wish they were.” He dabbed the beads of sweat on his upper lip with his kurta sleeve. “Sorry,” he said, “with this sickness my body temperature goes up and down.” He took in a ragged breath, but couldn’t seem to stop talking.
“When we got back to Gorapur, Pandit-ji was going on about your appearance in the hospital, your clothes all dirty and torn, like a tramp off the streets. ‘But where is he?’ Avtaar Singh kept asking like a child. ‘Why didn’t you bring him to me?’ We didn’t know what to tell him. All we could say is, you ran off. Suddenly Avtaar Singh got up and walked out. Like he’d had enough. He just went. Left us both in the office with our mouths open. And no one saw him for a few weeks after that. Sick, Minnu memsaab said. Can you believe it?” He shook his head, knowing only they would understand the improbability of this. “Even a cold first asks permission from Avtaar Singh to visit him. When has Avtaar Singh ever been sick?