by Vish Dhamija
Both clasped the gun.
Rita’s advantage was a lighter opponent. Anita, on top of Rita, had gravity assisting her. The two locked fingers around the trigger. For stark opposite purposes, Rita wanted to avert any shooting; she wanted Anita alive, to disclose what had instigated her. Anita, with her finger striving to pull the trigger, wanted to kill the DCP. Or herself. Now.
The women’s chests heaved against each other as they fought hard to get control of the gun they both held.
That is when Rita saw Anita closely. And it was then that it occurred to Rita what had happened; like a flash of lightning in the sky, it was distinct, and obvious, but the trigger got pressed.
The gunshot must have been heard on the floors below.
The recoil of the Glock unleashed the DCP’s reflexes. Rita kneed Anita in the stomach — it was easy with the latter on top —a few paces away. In the seconds that ensued, Rita could feel blood oozing out of her left shoulder. Surprisingly, as in any accident, the gun had twisted and triggered. Fortunately, for Rita, though she was wounded, she still held the gun firmly in her right hand with Anita thrown four feet away.
DCP had regained her status. She had to make a significant effort to sit up, reclining against the wall that cased the iron door. ‘Now Anita…now that I have you at my mercy, what do you have to say?’
‘Shoot me.’
‘That would reprieve you of your sins…’
‘Crimes. Crimes in your eyes, crimes in the eyes of law, not sins. Crimes and sins are two different entities, DCP. Every crime is not wrong in the eyes of the Lord —‘
‘Stop it. Don’t talk like a preacher. You killed all those human beings for no reason.’
‘Reason? Why does one need a reason to cleanse this world of fucking whoremongers?’
‘And who are you to do that?’
‘Viviane suffered them, and it wasn’t just her. It transcended a generation.’
Anita ambled back gradually towards the parapet of the roof terrace; it was only four feet tall. No one without sufficient training and appropriate gear was allowed on this terrace — there had been an occasional case of office couples making out in the open, but that was that. There was nothing to prevent someone climbing the dwarf wall.
‘Stop moving,’ Rita burdened with the pain in her shoulder called as loud as she could. If there was more loss of blood, she could lose consciousness, she knew. She had to hold on till Vikram or any other police officer came through. But, how could anyone? The latch on the terrace door had been fastened.
‘You will never understand that, DCP.’
‘I think I do. I know who you are.’ If she hadn’t been the investigating officer, the story, the pain of a human who chose to go against the will of God would have brought a river of tears to her eyes, but Rita decided not to empathise. ‘Don’t move back,’ she growled.
‘And what will you do if I move, DCP? Shoot me?’ ‘If required, I will.’
‘Don’t waste your bullet…or should I say my bullet, ‘cause you are holding my gun?’ ‘Whatever.’ Rita was wounded. She recognised she couldn’t get up, but with the
Glock in her hand, she had subverted Anita. ‘I understand —‘
It was too late. Anita was on the parapet now. ‘Goodbye,’ she said before she became invisible to Rita.
Anita Raizada flung herself from the twentieth floor.
Rita remembered that her head hung from her shoulders, a tear dropped too, before she aimed at the door latch and took a shot. The bullet hit the metal latch and ricocheted to the other side. Before she collapsed, she heard the medivac helicopter in the distance.
THIRTY-ONE
2006
Jay Desai boarded the Rajdhani Express from Mumbai Central station. The next morning, he was in Delhi where he changed trains to travel to Gorakhpur. The local bus carried him across the border in Nepal. There were jeep-taxis available, which he hired to take him to Kathmandu. His flight to Bangkok was a day later. He could have taken a direct flight from Mumbai to Bangkok, but he didn’t want anyone — should anyone ever look for him — to trace his path. Or destination.
Jay’s appointment with Dr Boonsom in the latter’s clinic had been booked a month prior to his arrival. He had carried all related documents, and money for his treatment.
‘Good morning Mr Desai.’
‘Good morning.’
‘I’ve seen your file, spoken to you over the phone a few times, and I understand that you are uncomfortable with your gender. It is my duty, however, to advise you to reconsider your decision. Gender reassignment surgery is virtually irreversible...much like crossing the Rubicon, I'm sure you understand.'
‘I know that. I’ve checked with a specialist back in Mumbai, the psychological evaluation has been done. I faxed the report to you last week.’
‘Yes, I’ve seen that. What about legal documentation, how would you fly back to Mumbai on your current passport?’
‘I’ve taken that into account, the papers are being prepared as we speak,’ Jay lied; he already had a counterfeit passport.
‘Okay.’
‘How long would it take for me to recover?’
‘I see from your papers that you have no intentions of waiting for a uterus donor, which means despite become a woman, you shall never be able to bear children.’
Jay Desai nodded, kept silent. After what his childhood had meant for him, he had no desire to bring another soul into this dirty world.
‘The other surgical procedures — gender resignation and facial feminisation — can take anything between three and four months to heal completely, but you’d require some non- surgical procedures like facial and body electrolysis. I would say you should be fit to leave in five, maybe six months. That’s the worst-case scenario,’ Dr Boonsom elucidated.
Jay Desai believed him. After all, Dr Boonsom was the one of the biggest names in sex-change operations in the country where the largest number of such surgeries in the world were performed. ‘What do I need to do next?’
‘You’ve already sent us the fees, the surgery is scheduled for day-after, but I’d like you to come tomorrow morning at eight. We’d like to admit you into our care and run some further tests.’
‘Thanks.’
The surgery, and recovery was successful.
Jay Desai kept his promise; he did not return to Mumbai. Anita Raizada did. She had enough money to live her life normally; if ever the police looked for the killer of Fernando, they’d look for Jay Desai. She wasn’t Jay Desai anymore.
Anita had pictured a peaceful life after the surgery, a life away from crime, a clean break from the past. But, within the first few weeks, she realised she had been horribly wrong in her assessment. Although Jay Desai had lost interest in women, had shown homosexual tendencies, he wasn’t in any way psychologically arranged to be in a woman’s body. Anita thought like a man, behaved like a man, acted like a man.
The psychological evaluation had been erroneous. The nightmares returned.
The raison d’être of her devastation wasn’t merely that a man was captive in a woman’s body; it lay in her past: in Viviane’s exploitation, her suicide, Jay’s abuse by Fernando that had rendered him a misfit to face the world.
She lay awake at nights. Crying. She spent days at her mother's grave. She couldn’t think of another surgery. In any event, she knew, she wouldn’t be happy if she metamorphosed into a man again; she never was, when she was Jay.
The demons were elsewhere. The demons couldn’t be exorcised. The demons had to die.
On her visit to Viviane’s grave a month after her return, Anita promised sotto voce, her lips quivering. ‘You never said goodbye to me mother, but I’m not saying goodbye, just yet. I will return, this goodbye shall be in blood.’
Yes, there could be a million reasons to live, but Anita Raizada chose only one, which was an early warning sign. Any psychologist could have foreseen that if she only had one reason to live, it would very quickly become an obsession.
But, who was looking?
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THIRTY-TWO
2007
How could so many people go so wrong? How could victory feel so bad? How could it rain in Mumbai in September? Rita's subconscious was restless. The rational mind consoled, even congratulated that evil had lost, the incoherent emotions, however, overwhelmingly stymied all rejoicing. Something bothered her, besides the fact that she was in a hospital, intubated, and on a bed, recovering from the bullet wound in her left shoulder. Fortunately, the bullet had just grazed the collarbone; the slug had been extracted, the gash sewn up. The morphine was working. She couldn’t feel the pain. Just a bit of numbness. Recovery would take a week, two maximum.
The physical wound, she acknowledged, would heal with time; the seismic psychological shock might take a lifetime. How did she — DCP, Crime Branch — miss the killer that she, and the entire Mumbai Police, was looking for when she had been so close?
They — the alleged experts — had been wrong all along: a leopard could change its spots, after all. It was only when Anita was on top of Rita, in the catfight on the roof terrace, that she had noticed the latter's Adam’s apple. Facial feminisation surgery seldom reduced the masculine prominence on the neck; the intent is to reduce the extrusion by twisting the angle. Dr Boonsom had done his job diligently, but it wasn’t possible to conceal the lump entirely. It had taken less than a second for Rita to comprehend that she was dealing with a transgender killer.
Desai.
If Anita Raizada was once a man, the only man she could have once been was Jay
The commotion outside Rita’s room could only mean one thing: that the Commissioner of Mumbai Police was in the building. Bang. Sexy was the first to visit Rita at the hospital in the morning. To felicitate, and to display his softer side, he had brought a bouquet too. Rita saw him at the door talking to her nurse, ensuring everything was in order. ‘Good morning, DCP Ferreira.’ He put the bouquet on the credenza near the bed. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine sir.’
‘Astonishing, who could have envisioned an androgynous serial killer?’
Only Sexy could have come up with the adjective, and he was the only one permitted to. Rita wanted to laugh, but she was sure the sutures would hurt. She wondered how long she would be able to control a chuckle if Sexy carried on in his typical flowery speech, peppered with obscure adjectives. Or adverbs.
‘Thanks for the flowers sir.’ Rita passed an appreciative smile.
‘Outstanding job, I must say. You’ve shown tremendous courage, grit and adeptness in bringing a closure to this labyrinthine case. I shall recommend you to the Chief Minister for an award.’
‘Thank you sir. I have only done my duty.’
‘I think you should relax. Take a few days off.’
What did he think? That she planned to go to Crawford Market straight from the hospital? Rita acknowledged the favour granted with a smile. ‘Thanks, sir.’
‘Do you need anything?’ ‘No sir.’
‘If you do, don’t hesitate to call me directly.
Rita hadn’t realised she had fallen asleep till she heard muffled chatter at her door. She could vaguely identify the voice, but it was impossible. She turned her head and gave a sideways glance. What could he be doing here?
‘Good morning gorgeous.’ Ash Mattel walked in with an even bigger bouquet. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Found out about your conquest, and your injury. I had to fly in to congratulate you.
What a triumph, my girl.'
There are times you don’t know if it’s a victory or a defeat. Was there any closure — other than Anita’s suicide — that fitted better? Was Rita, somehow, exculpating Anita or Jay Desai, in her mind? There was only one person who could tell: Jim.
‘Take me home,’ she beamed and softly said as Ash bent down to kiss her on her forehead.
***
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Dear reader,
No manuscript is a work of one individual. There are several people who work behind the scenes to help an author shape it into a complete book that you have in your hands now. It is impossible for me to thank each and every one, but there are a few without whom this story could never have been told.
Firstly, I admit I am a huge fan of Mr James Ellroy — the American crime fiction writer of the famous LA Quartet series (LA Confidential, Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, White Jazz). A serial killer murdered Mr Ellroy’s mother, back in 1958. The case remains unsolved. In my opinion, the LA Quartet encapsulates what noir is. No one ever fuelled my imagination like he has.
For details on police procedures and weapons, retired police officers in India and at Scotland Yard helped me immensely — I cannot name them for privacy issues. I have stayed true to their advice, but I have consciously changed certain details for security reasons. A big THANK-YOU to all of you — irrespective of country you work in, it is for men and women like you who keep us safe.
The first edit was done by Ms Sue Lacy — thank you, Sue.
The subsequent and final edit was done by Mr Rahul Puri — thank you very much.
I thank my publishers, Reekrit and Radhika (Rumour Books, India) for signing this book deal with me.
Last, and certainly, not the least — it is you, my dear readers, who complete the book.
There isn’t much point in writing something if no one reads it, is there? So a big THANK- YOU to all of you.
As you can appreciate feedback is an essential part of any improvement I would like to hear from you what you liked or disliked about Bhendi Bazaar.
With lots of love and best wishes,
VISH DHAMIJA
www.facebook.com/VishDhamija.Author
PS: As mentioned earlier in the book this is a work of fiction. Any resembles to any person, living or dead is purely coincidental. I have taken the liberty of using names of cities, locations, and certain establishments to provide a realistic backdrop to the story. I promise nothing untowardly ever happened in those locations or establishments.
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