The pink lady is too busy looking around the room for Bilawal to reply, but her husband, irritated at having his kebabs rationed, sucks unhappily on his toothpick and says fretfully, ‘Be fair, General! PAF was allocated just one Sabre squadron in East Pakistan. One lone squadron against the might of the IAF’s Eastern Command! Not your fault, of course – all this is decided at a level much above yours – it’s a fall-out of Yahya Khan’s idiotic the-defence-of-the-East-lies-in-the-West theory! If East Pakistan had been better equipped to defend itself from the air, it would have done so easily.’
Nikka, red-faced at the insinuation that there are levels above his, says with icy dignity, ‘Quait so. Luckily, the army has things well in hand, and when the Chinese join the fighting…’
The bureaucrat removes his toothpick from his mouth. ‘The Chinese will never become directly involved in this conflict, because they know that if they do, the Soviet Union will crack down on them in the Sinkiang region.’
‘No Chinese for you!’ the lady in the pink burqa rejoins the conversation. ‘All Chinese food is deep-fried in cornflour, you might as well—’
‘Eat poison and die,’ her husband concludes resignedly. ‘Maybe I will.’
‘Nonsense,’ she says absently, and then clutches his elbow hard. ‘Look, there’s Bilawal! Haiii … Allah ka shukar hai! It’s soo good to see him! Hain?’ She leans forward, adjusting her spectacles. Her face falls. ‘Oh! It’s someone else.’
As she lets go of her husband’s arm, disappointed, Nikka frowns.
‘You thought that tall dark chap was Hussain?’
She nods, too disappointed to speak.
‘But he’s a short, fair fellow with light eyes.’
‘Light eyes?’ she repeats. ‘No no. Bilawal’s eyes are black. And he’s tall – the tallest boy in our family.’
Nikka licks his lips.
Sshviccck!
‘You’re sure, madam?’
She nods, her face has clouded over.
‘I told you, he’s my brother’s wife’s sister’s son.’
‘I see.’ The general’s eyes narrow. He says softly, almost to himself, ‘And he didn’t know the name of his CO! If the girl hadn’t come up and saved his baco—’ He stops abruptly. ‘Excuse me.’
Saying which, he wheels about and walks away.
‘Haw!’ gasps the lady in the pink burqa, very put out. ‘That was rude of him! And what about Bilawal?’
Her husband, hot on the trail of a waiter serving bhuna ghosht, his toothpick in his hand, doesn’t bother to reply.
Nikka stands alone in the middle of the ballroom, the party milling around him, smoothing back his hair and thinking furiously. What does all this mean? Where has the impostor vanished to? Is there a larger conspiracy? All his paranoias – and he has many, being a man who has risen to his current post by surviving purges, succession battles, back-stabbings and intrigues – stir to life.
‘Sir,’ a rumbling voice sounds from behind him. It is his massive-impassive ADC, sprung miraculously to life.
‘What?’ Nikka says irritably over his shoulder.
The ADC comes around to the front and plunges into ponderous speech.
‘Sir, the journalist lady with the dimpals, whom we met yesterday…’
‘She doesn’t have dimples,’ Nikka snaps.
The ADC stands his ground. ‘She does, sir. Two small-small dimpals. Maybe you were looking at, er, something else of hers and didn’t notice. I noticed particularly, because I too … ahem!’ he clears his throat and continues coyly, ‘have the same kind of small-small dimpals. My missus always tells me.’ He bares his teeth in a wide smile. ‘See!’
Staring dementedly at his massive ADC’s impressive rictus, General Nikka Khan, the Butcher of Bengal, has to shake off the feeling that the world is going insane around him.
‘Stop babbling about dimples, man! You don’t know what you’re talking about!’
But the massive, no-longer impassive ADC shakes his head.
‘She went off with the impostor,’ he says. ‘I was observing them all evening. They met and argued, he left and then she followed him out. They’re in her room now. I’m sure of it.’
• • •
Ishaan awakens peacefully an hour later to find moonlight slanting over the crisp white sheets of a tumbled bed. It is an incredibly soft bed, nothing like the metal fauji bunks he is used to – soft yet firm, huge and fluffy. And in the middle of said bed, her head resting on the pillow of his unhurt shoulder, one slender brown arm thrown possessively across his chest, sending up waves of sweet, drowsy heat like the kind that rises from a just-baked cherry bun, lies India’s sweetheart, Freesia girl Tinka Dadyseth, her sumptuous bits gift-wrapped just for him in skimpy grey lace as delicate as a spider’s web.
Staring down at her sleeping face, he is rocked by waves of gladness and gratitude so intense they are physically painful.
He turns and pulls her to him almost roughly, pinning her under him. She acquiesces sweetly, her body accommodating his, her limbs limp and willing.
Ishaan bites her ear gently.
‘You realize you’re not leaving this bed till I’ve had my evil way with you?’
She smiles, arching against his body, her eyes closed, her cheeks flushed.
‘Yes.’
Heart constricting with exultation, he speaks against her softly parted lips.
‘And you’re okay with that?’
Her body strains towards him, her arms cling tighter.
‘Yes, please.’
He gives her a little shake.
‘I’m engaged to somebody else, Dadyseth.’
Her lips curve upwards. She smiles – an implet with dimplets. Then, pushing out her lips, she whispers one word.
‘Balls.’
Ishaan laughs.
‘Really? But you were so angry about it downstairs.’
Her eyes fly open. They’re alight with a glow so wanton and tender that he catches his breath.
‘There’s a ceasefire on,’ she whispers. ‘All warring parties have to lay down their arms by decree of the United Nations.’
Staring down into those openly vulnerable eyes, Ishaan feels his heart flip over inside his chest. Wordlessly, he buries his face in her shoulder, hugging her, too moved to speak. Tinka feels a telltale wetness against her collarbone.
She raises a hand to his hair, tousling it with fingertips that feel hyper-sensitized.
‘Isn’t this your maiden flight, Flying Officer? D’you even know what to do?’
Shaanu raises his head and smiles, the sparkle in the damp Kota-grey eyes bashful and eager and confident.
‘I’ll figure it out,’ he tells her. ‘But you’ll have to be a good navigator.’
• • •
Dressed in a brown Pathan suit and grey monkey cap, Maddy has been hanging about the parking lot of the Intercontinental all evening, befriending the drivers and bellboys and chatting up the tall, snooty doorman with the handlebar moustache. This maharaja-like personage is a hard-core snob who remembers the good old days when this entire hotel was a white-people-only property and darkies like Maddy (who is particularly brown, being the colour of the Kodava hills from whence he springs) were allowed in only from the service entrance.
But Maddy’s soft southern charm slowly has its usual effect. By the time the Twelve-days-to-Christmas ball is in full swing, his story of being the new driver of one of Dacca’s major personages has been bought, and he is warming his hands over the glowing orange ring of an electric heater owned by Nikka Khan’s driver himself, engaged in a heated discussion on the Indian cricket team’s tour of England.
‘Bhagwat Chandrasekhar’s performance was just a ruddy lappa,’ says one of the drivers. ‘Sheer, stupid luck.’
‘And he ran out of luck with Luckhurst!’ chimes in another one. ‘The thing is, you see, that Indians lack the killer instinct. Pakistan now…’
‘Is there going to be a Bangladesh cricket team?’ Maddy
asks. ‘Who’ll captain it?’
There is a nonplussed silence. Everybody looks at everybody else.
‘Hassan?’ someone hazards doubtfully. ‘He played for the Quaid-e-Azam trophy. But only as twelfth man…’
‘We’ll have a football team!’ another driver says vigorously, to much applause. ‘Football, now that’s a game to warm the blood of every Bengali! Why, I rem—’
But nobody gets to hear what he remembers, because at that moment, the sound of a heated altercation comes to their ears. It seems to be coming, not from the street, where the plebeians dwell, but unbelievably, from inside the glass-fronted lobby of the posh hotel.
‘The soldiers are roughing up the lobby manager,’ one of the ancient bellboys comes panting up to report. ‘Not that I’m fond of him or anything – but what is this hotel coming to?’
Unease stirs in Maddy’s heart. Making some casual excuse, he walks away from the group of drivers, picking up speed as he nears the lobby. Peering through the glass-fronted windows, he sees a posse of West Pakistani soldiers manhandling the front office manager, a portly young Bengali in a dark suit and black-rimmed spectacles. He is standing behind the marble-countered lobby desk, flanked by two smiling thermocol Santa Clauses, shaking like a leaf, but looking resolute.
‘What’s happening, janab?’ Maddy asks the snooty doorman. ‘What do they want?’
That worthy shakes his head.
‘These West Pakistani scum are such uncultureds. No manners, no ettikate.’
‘But issue kya hai?’
The snooty doorman shrugs grimly.
‘Issue is ki their general wants to know the room number of a lady journalist who is living here and the lobby manager is refusing to give it.’
Maddy’s heart sinks. Tinka.
‘Why won’t he give it?’ he asks as incuriously as possible.
The snooty doorman strokes his moustaches, his dark eyes glinting militantly.
‘Because that is the rule. This a proper hotel. A British-era hotel where we respect the privacy of our guests. And their general is a horny goat. Everybody knows. And also, this is a neutral zone. These lechers have no standing here! Besides,’ he adds after a pause, ‘we are broad-minded people, not like these narrow Punjabis, and we think-so she is entertaining her boyfriend in the room and will not appreciate being disturbed.’
Baaz, thinks Maddy. Fuck, I have to get in there before they do.
A scream of agony reaches his ears. The lobby manager has been bent backwards like a bow and is sobbing aloud. The leader of the soldiers is bellowing at him.
‘Tell us the room number, or we’ll go from room to room shooting your guests!’
The lobby manager raises his head, his chubby face as white as thermocol.
‘It’s 1152!’ he gasps. ‘Her number’s 1152. I swear it is. Let me go!’
The soldiers drop him and he crumples on the marble-topped desk, his glasses broken, his hands trembling.
The watching bellboys suck in their breath in sympathy.
As the soldiers make for the stairs and the elevator, the doorman rushes to the lobby manager, urgently asking if he is all right. He is rewarded with an irately hissed, ‘Yes, I’m fine. Please do not make a scene and kindly return to your post! This is a five-star hotel, the only five-star hotel in Dacca!’
Rather shamefacedly, the doorman returns to his position by the door. The portly young manager finger-combs his hair back into its sleek side-parting, straightens his tie and sits down at his desk, avoiding eye contact with anybody.
Meanwhile, Maddy gets to his feet and walks away slowly, picking up speed as he rounds out of the vision of the other drivers.
1152 means the eleventh floor. The soldiers would be working fast to cordon it off from within. But there is a without. All the rooms at the Intercon have a huge glass-fronted picture window facing the Race Course, easily accessible by air. And Maddy has seen a Medicines Without Borders helicopter parked at the corner.
He stops at his car in the darkness, feels around for the Sten gun Macho da has provided and starts to run full pelt.
He has to get there before they do…
• • •
‘Who’s your Mercury?’
They are lying in the big fluffy bed, staring up at the panelled ceiling, their clothes strewn on the floor. His arm is around her and he is running the backs of his fingers lightly against her bare shoulder, but at this question he groans, throws his head against the pillows and slaps his forehead. ‘Not you too! Who taught you that stupid game?’
She props herself up on her elbow and twinkles down at him.
‘Sulo did. On the train to Kalaiganga. So, who is it?’
Ishaan pulls her atop him.
‘Who’s your Mercury?’
‘Careful!’ she cries. ‘You don’t want to hurt your shoulder!’
He ignores this protest.
‘Tell me.’
Tinka gives a defensive shrug, and gently lays her head down on his chest. Fingers caressing the bandage on his shoulder, she says, ‘Well, my solar system’s pretty small. My mother’s dead, my brother’s dead, my dad…’ Her voice falters to a stop.
‘How’s that going?’ He asks with careful casualness. ‘Are you not talking to him at all? Still?’
He feels her shrug against his chest. ‘Oh I talked to him.’ She says crossly. ‘Because of what you put in my head! Maybe I’ll even go live with him when all this is over. In Defence Colony, buried knee-deep in Punjabis. So okay fine, Ardisher is my Earth.’
Shaanu catches her hand and kisses it.
‘Fine.’
‘Kainaz fui gets to be my Venus because she’s so beautiful.’ She lifts her head to look at him. ‘That’s only logical, right?’
‘Right.’
She lays her head back on his chest. ‘And so, in the position of the planet that’s closest to the sun, which is me…’ Her fingers twitch within his grasp, she takes a breath so deep that he feels the pressure of it depress his chest and says lightly, ‘There’s you.’
There is silence for a long moment and then Shaanu hugs her so tightly that she has to protest in a muffled voice.
‘What the hell, lemme go, I can’t breathe!’
‘Then don’t breathe,’ he growls laughingly even as he loosens his grip enough for her head to come up and her eyes to glare down at him reproachfully.
‘Who’s your Mercury?’
The grey eyes start to sparkle.
‘Mine?’
‘Uh-huh.’
She stacks both palms upon his chest, rests her chin atop them and regards him expectantly.
He makes a loose fist and cuffs her gently against her nose.
‘Well, you know, I studied in this very bakwaas school in my dusty backward village,’ he emphasizes.
‘I’m a cow.’ She kisses his chest contritely.
‘And the teacher wasn’t really qualified so I’m not at all sure about the order of the planets…’
‘My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets.’
‘What?’ He has been sliding his hands down her back, but at this he stops and looks up at her blankly.
‘It’s to help you memorize the order,’ she explains. ‘My-Mercury, Very-Venus, Educated…’
‘Ooooh teeeriii!’ He throws up his hands. ‘Why didn’t anybody ever tell me that before?’
‘You don’t know it?’ She is surprised. ‘I learnt it in grade two.’
‘In America.’ Shaanu looks wistful. ‘Wow, you’re so rich, Tell-me-na.’
‘Shut up.’ She frowns, embarrassed. ‘I’m not.’
He smiles, pulling her down to him, his hands sliding down smoothly to grip her bottom.
‘My very educated mistress just showed us nine planets,’ he whispers, pushing her up against him, his eyes darkening to smoke.
She shakes him. ‘Tell me!’
Ishaan groans and shifts her weight slightly.
‘Okay, let’s see. Pluto would be �
�� my Flight Commander, Hosannah Carvalho. At Neptune, my brother Shelly, who’s a bit of a donkey. Uranus would be Surinder bau, my brother who’s training to be a vet. At Saturn … Juhi, she’s practically like a sister, Jupiter would be Jana-Gana-Mana, my fellow Gnatties – what’s next?’
‘Mars.’
‘Mars is Maddy and Raka, Earth my little sisters, Venus is…’ He checks abruptly, then goes quiet.
‘Sneha!’ Tinka predicts confidently.
Ishaan stays silent for a long moment, then draws a long, shuddering breath.
‘Yes.’ he says simply. ‘That’s only logical because she’s so beautiful, right?’
Tinka smiles. ‘Right.’
He lies back.
‘And so we come to the top position. There are other contenders for it, but in this new spirit of love and forgiveness-for-fathers, I’ll grant the top spot to my mother’s husband, Choudhary Chimman Singh.’
Tinka gives a gasp of outrage and rears up, her hair whirling around her face.
‘Chimman!’
‘He’s my stepfather, after all,’ Ishaan says piously. ‘I have to give respect—’
‘Fuck you!’
‘Hey, don’t get so upset…’
But Tinka has already scrambled to her knees, a pillow in her hands, whacking him across the face with it as hard as she can.
‘Jat! Dog! Jog!’
‘Stop!’ Shaanu protests, trying to sit up. ‘Hey, my shoulder, Tinka! Stop, be careful! You’ll bust open my wound!’
But she continues to hit him steadily.
Laughing, ducking, protesting, Shaanu finally manages to wrestle the pillow from her and throw it across the room. Foiled, she whirls away from him and flops down on the bed on her stomach, her chin on her knuckles, staring at the moonlit wall.
‘Why so much physical violence, yaar?’ Shaanu demands as he drops down beside her, slightly out of breath. ‘You hit the DUSU president with a copper bell, then the first time we met you camel-kicked me right me in the crotch…’
Tinka rolls her eyes.
‘Uff, how much you whine about that one kick in the crotch! What d’you want, a written apology?’
‘You could kiss it better,’ he suggests.
She considers this, tucking her hair behind her ear, her expression serious. Then she smiles.
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