…it was just a tilt of my head, just a thing that happened for half a second, but she caught me out.
“Balram appreciates the statue,” she said.
Mr. Ashok chuckled.
“Sure, he’s a connoisseur of fine art.”
She cracked the egg open—she lowered the window and said, “Let’s see it,” to the beggar child.
He—or she, you can never tell with beggar children—pushed the Buddha into the Honda.
“Do you want to buy the sculpture, driver?”
“No, madam. I’m sorry.”
“Balram Halwai, maker of sweets, driver of cars, connoisseur of sculpture.”
“I’m sorry, madam.”
The more I apologized, the more amused the two of them got. At last, putting an end to my agony, the light changed to green, and I drove away from the wretched Buddha as fast as I could.
She reached over and squeezed my shoulder. “Balram, stop the car.” I looked at Mr. Ashok’s reflection—he said nothing.
I stopped the car.
“Balram, get out. We’re leaving you to spend the night with your Buddha. The maharaja and the Buddha, together for the night.”
She got into the driver’s seat, started the car, and drove away, while Mr. Ashok, dead drunk, giggled and waved goodbye at me. If he hadn’t been drunk, he never would have allowed her to treat me like this—I’m sure of that. People were always taking advantage of him. If it were just me and him in that car, nothing bad would ever have happened to either of us.
There was a traffic island separating the two sides of the road, and trees had been planted in the island. I sat down under a tree.
The road was dead—then two cars went by, one behind the other, their headlights making a continuous ripple on the leaves, like you see on the branches of trees that grow by a lake. How many thousands of such beautiful things there must be to see in Delhi. If you were just free to go wherever you wanted, and do whatever you wanted.
A car was coming straight toward me, flashing its headlights on and off and sounding its horns. The Honda City had done a U-turn—an illegal U-turn, mind you—down the road, and was charging right at me, as if to plow me over. Behind the wheel I saw Pinky Madam, grinning and howling, while Mr. Ashok, next to her, was smiling.
Did I see a wrinkle of worry for my fate on his forehead—did I see his hand reach across and steady the steering wheel so that the car wouldn’t hit me?
I like to think so.
The car stopped half a foot in front of me, with a screech of burning rubber. I cringed: how my poor tires had suffered, because of this woman.
Pinky Madam opened the door and popped her grinning face out.
“Thought I had really left you behind, Mr. Maharaja?”
“No, madam.”
“You’re not angry, are you?”
“Not at all.” And then I added, to make it more believable, “Employers are like mother and father. How can one be angry with them?”
I got into the backseat. They did another U-turn across the middle of the avenue, and then drove off at top speed, racing through one red light after the other. The two of them were shrieking, and pinching each other, and making giggling noises, and, helpless to do anything, I was just watching the show from the backseat, when the small black thing jumped into our path, and we hit it and knocked it over and rolled the wheels of the car over it.
From the way the wheels crunched it completely, and from how there was no noise when she stopped the car, not even a whimper or a barking, I knew at once what had happened to the thing we had hit.
She was too drunk to brake at once—by the time she had, we had hurtled on another two or three hundred yards, and then we came to a complete stop. In the middle of the road. She had kept her hands on the wheel; her mouth was open.
“A dog?” Mr. Ashok asked me. “It was a dog, wasn’t it?”
I nodded. The streetlights were too dim, and the object—a large black lump—was too far behind us already to be seen clearly. There was no other car in sight. No other living human being in sight.
As if in slow motion, her hands moved back from the wheel and covered her ears.
“It wasn’t a dog! It wasn’t a—”
Without a word between us, Mr. Ashok and I acted as a team. He grabbed her, put a hand on her mouth, and pulled her out of the driver’s seat; I rushed out of the back. We slammed the doors together; I turned the ignition key and drove the car at full speed all the way back to Gurgaon.
Halfway through she quieted down, but then, as we got closer to the apartment block, she started up again. She said, “We have to go back.”
“Don’t be crazy, Pinky. Balram will get us back to the apartment block in a few minutes. It’s all over.”
“We hit something, Ashoky.” She spoke in the softest of voices. “We have to take that thing to the hospital.”
“No.”
Her mouth opened again—she was going to scream again in a second. Before she could do that, Mr. Ashok gagged her with his palm—he reached for the box of facial tissues and stuffed the tissues into her mouth; while she tried to spit them out, he tore the scarf from around her neck, tied it tightly around her mouth, and shoved her face into his lap and held it down there.
When we got to the apartment, he dragged her to the elevator with the scarf still around her mouth.
I got a bucket and washed the car. I wiped it down thoroughly, and scrubbed out every bit of blood and flesh—there was a bit of both around the wheels.
When he came down, I was washing the tires for the fourth time.
“Well?”
I showed him a piece of bloodied green fabric that had got stuck to the wheel.
“It’s cheap stuff, sir, this green cloth,” I said, rubbing the rough material between my fingers. “It’s what they put on children.”
“And do you think the child…” He couldn’t say the word.
“There was no sound at all, sir. No sound at all. And the body didn’t move even a bit.”
“God, Balram, what will we do now—what will we—” He slapped his hand to his thigh. “What are these children doing, walking about Delhi at one in the morning, with no one to look after them?”
When he had said this, his eyes lit up.
“Oh, she was one of those people.”
“Who live under the flyovers and bridges, sir. That’s my guess too.”
“In that case, will anyone miss her…?”
“I don’t think so, sir. You know how those people in the Darkness are: they have eight, nine, ten children—sometimes they don’t know the names of their own children. Her parents—if they’re even here in Delhi, if they even know where she is tonight—won’t go to the police.”
He put a hand on my shoulder, the way he had been touching Pinky Madam’s shoulder earlier in the night.
Then he put a finger on his lips.
I nodded. “Of course, sir. Now sleep well—it’s been a difficult night for you and Pinky Madam.”
I removed the maharaja tunic, and then I went to sleep. I was tired as hell—but on my lips there was the big, contented smile that comes to one who has done his duty by his master even in the most difficult of moments.
The next morning, I wiped the seats of the car as usual—I wiped the stickers with the face of the goddess—I wiped the ogre—and then I lit up the incense stick and put it inside so that the seats would smell nice and holy. I washed the wheels one more time, to make sure there was not a spot of blood I had missed in the night.
Then I went back to my room and waited. In the evening one of the other drivers brought a message that I was wanted in the lobby—without the car. The Mongoose was waiting for me up there. I don’t know how he got to Delhi this fast—he must have rented a car and driven all night. He gave me a big smile and patted me on the shoulder. We went up to the apartment in the elevator.
He sat down on the table, and said, “Sit, sit, make yourself comfortable, Balram. You’re part of
the family.”
My heart filled up with pride. I crouched on the floor, happy as a dog, and waited for him to say it again. He smoked a cigarette. I had never before seen him do that. He looked at me with narrowed eyes.
“Now, it’s important that you stay here in Buckingham Towers B Block and not go anywhere else—not even to A Block—for a few days. And not say a word to anyone about what happened.”
“Yes, sir.”
He looked at me for a while, smoking. Then he said again, “You’re part of the family, Balram.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now go downstairs to the servants’ quarters and wait there.”
“Yes, sir.”
An hour passed, and then I got called upstairs again.
This time there was a man in a black coat sitting at the dinner table next to the Mongoose. He was looking over a printed piece of paper and reading it silently with his lips, which were stained red with paan. Mr. Ashok was on the phone in his room; I heard his voice through the closed door. The door to Pinky Madam’s room was closed too. The whole house had been handed over to the Mongoose.
“Sit down, Balram. Make yourself comfortable.”
“Yes, sir.”
I squatted and made myself uncomfortable again.
“Would you like some paan, Balram?” the Mongoose asked.
“No, sir.”
He smiled. “Don’t be shy, Balram. You chew paan, don’t you?” He turned to the man in the black coat. “Give him something to chew, please.”
The man in the black coat reached into his pocket and held out a small green paan. I stuck my palm out. He dropped it into my palm without touching me.
“Put it in your mouth, Balram. It’s for you.”
“Yes, sir. It’s very good. Chewy. Thank you.”
“Let’s go over all this slowly and clearly, okay?” the man in the black suit said. The red juice almost dripped out of his mouth as he spoke.
“All right.”
“The judge has been taken care of. If your man does what he is to do, we’ll have nothing to worry about.”
“My man will do what he is to do, no worries about that. He’s part of the family. He’s a good boy.”
“Good, good.”
The man in the black coat looked at me and held out a piece of paper.
“Can you read, fellow?”
“Yes, sir.” I took the paper from his hand and read:
TO WHOMSOEVER IT MAY CONCERN,
I, BALRAM HALWAI, SON OF VIKRAM HALWAI, OF LAXMANGARH VILLAGE IN THE DISTRICT OF GAYA, DO MAKE THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT OF MY OWN FREE WILL AND INTENTION:
THAT I DROVE THE CAR THAT HIT AN UNIDENTIFIED PERSON, OR PERSONS, OR PERSON AND OBJECTS, ON THE NIGHT OF JANUARY 23RD THIS YEAR. THAT I THEN PANICKED AND REFUSED TO FULFILL MY OBLIGATIONS TO THE INJURED PARTY OR PARTIES BY TAKING THEM TO THE NEAREST HOSPITAL EMERGENCY WARD. THAT THERE WERE NO OTHER OCCUPANTS OF THE CAR AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT. THAT I WAS ALONE IN THE CAR, AND ALONE RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL THAT HAPPENED.
I SWEAR BY ALMIGHTY GOD THAT I MAKE THIS STATEMENT UNDER NO DURESS AND UNDER INSTRUCTION FROM NO ONE.
SIGNATURE OR THUMBPRINT:
(BALRAM HALWAI)
STATEMENT MADE IN THE PRESENCE OF THE FOLLOWING WITNESSES.
KUSUM HALWAI, OF LAXMANGARH VILLAGE,
GAYA DISTRICT
CHAMANDAS VARMA, ADVOCATE, DELHI HIGH
COURT
Smiling affectionately at me, the Mongoose said, “We’ve already told your family about it. Your granny, what’s her name?”
“….”
“I didn’t hear that.”
“…m.”
“Yes, that’s it. Kusum. I drove down to Laxmangarh—it’s a bad road, isn’t it?—and explained everything to her personally. She’s quite a woman.”
He rubbed his forearms and made a big grin, so I knew he was telling the truth.
“She says she’s so proud of you for doing this. She’s agreed to be a witness to the confession as well. That’s her thumbprint on the page, Balram. Just below the spot where you’re going to sign.”
“If he’s illiterate, he can press his thumb,” the man in the black coat said. “Like this.” He pressed his thumb against the air.
“He’s literate. His grandmother told me he was the first in the family to read and write. She said you always were a smart boy, Balram.”
I looked at the paper, pretending to read it again, and it began to shake in my hands.
What I am describing to you here is what happens to drivers in Delhi every day, sir. You don’t believe me—you think I’m making all this up, Mr. Jiabao?
When you’re in Delhi, repeat the story I’ve told you to some good, solid middle-class man of the city. Tell him you heard this wild, extravagant, impossible story from some driver about being framed for a murder his master committed on the road. And watch as your good, solid middle-class friend’s face blanches. Watch how he swallows hard—how he turns away to the window—watch how he changes the topic at once.
The jails of Delhi are full of drivers who are there behind bars because they are taking the blame for their good, solid middle-class masters. We have left the villages, but the masters still own us, body, soul, and arse.
Yes, that’s right: we all live in the world’s greatest democracy.
What a fucking joke.
Doesn’t the driver’s family protest? Far from it. They would actually go about bragging. Their boy Balram had taken the fall, gone to Tihar Jail for his employer. He was loyal as a dog. He was the perfect servant.
The judges? Wouldn’t they see through this obviously forced confession? But they are in the racket too. They take their bribe, they ignore the discrepancies in the case. And life goes on.
For everyone but the driver.
That is all for tonight, Mr. Premier. It’s not yet three a.m., but I’ve got to end here, sir. Even to think about this again makes me so angry I might just go out and cut the throat of some rich man right now.
The Fifth Night
Mr. Jiabao.
Sir.
When you get here, you’ll be told we Indians invented everything from the Internet to hard-boiled eggs to spaceships before the British stole it all from us.
Nonsense. The greatest thing to come out of this country in the ten thousand years of its history is the Rooster Coop.
Go to Old Delhi, behind the Jama Masjid, and look at the way they keep chickens there in the market. Hundreds of pale hens and brightly colored roosters, stuffed tightly into wire-mesh cages, packed as tightly as worms in a belly, pecking each other and shitting on each other, jostling just for breathing space; the whole cage giving off a horrible stench—the stench of terrified, feathered flesh. On the wooden desk above this coop sits a grinning young butcher, showing off the flesh and organs of a recently chopped-up chicken, still oleaginous with a coating of dark blood. The roosters in the coop smell the blood from above. They see the organs of their brothers lying around them. They know they’re next. Yet they do not rebel. They do not try to get out of the coop.
The very same thing is done with human beings in this country.
Watch the roads in the evenings in Delhi; sooner or later you will see a man on a cycle-rickshaw, pedaling down the road, with a giant bed, or a table, tied to the cart that is attached to his cycle. Every day furniture is delivered to people’s homes by this man—the deliveryman. A bed costs five thousand rupees, maybe six thousand. Add the chairs, and a coffee table, and it’s ten or fifteen thousand. A man comes on a cycle-cart, bringing you this bed, table, and chairs, a poor man who may make five hundred rupees a month. He unloads all this furniture for you, and you give him the money in cash—a fat wad of cash the size of a brick. He puts it into his pocket, or into his shirt, or into his underwear, and cycles back to his boss and hands it over without touching a single rupee of it! A year’s salary, two years’ salary, in his hands, and he never takes a rupee of it.
Every day, on the roads of Delhi, some
chauffeur is driving an empty car with a black suitcase sitting on the backseat. Inside that suitcase is a million, two million rupees; more money than that chauffeur will see in his lifetime. If he took the money he could go to America, Australia, anywhere, and start a new life. He could go inside the five-star hotels he has dreamed about all his life and only seen from the outside. He could take his family to Goa, to England. Yet he takes that black suitcase where his master wants. He puts it down where he is meant to, and never touches a rupee. Why?
Because Indians are the world’s most honest people, like the prime minister’s booklet will inform you?
No. It’s because 99.9 percent of us are caught in the Rooster Coop just like those poor guys in the poultry market.
The Rooster Coop doesn’t always work with minuscule sums of money. Don’t test your chauffeur with a rupee coin or two—he may well steal that much. But leave a million dollars in front of a servant and he won’t touch a penny. Try it: leave a black bag with a million dollars in a Mumbai taxi. The taxi driver will call the police and return the money by the day’s end. I guarantee it. (Whether the police will give it to you or not is another story, sir!) Masters trust their servants with diamonds in this country! It’s true. Every evening on the train out of Surat, where they run the world’s biggest diamond-cutting and-polishing business, the servants of diamond merchants are carrying suitcases full of cut diamonds that they have to give to someone in Mumbai. Why doesn’t that servant take the suitcase full of diamonds? He’s no Gandhi, he’s human, he’s you and me. But he’s in the Rooster Coop. The trustworthiness of servants is the basis of the entire Indian economy.
The Great Indian Rooster Coop. Do you have something like it in China too? I doubt it, Mr. Jiabao. Or you wouldn’t need the Communist Party to shoot people and a secret police to raid their houses at night and put them in jail like I’ve heard you have over there. Here in India we have no dictatorship. No secret police.
The White Tiger: A Novel Page 13