by Keya Ghosh
‘Nobody,’ he says. ‘A perfect stranger.’
‘You flung yourself over me to protect me. A perfect stranger doesn’t do that. Who are you?’
‘Nobody at all,’ he insists. ‘Just an ordinary everyday guy stuck in a crazy place. Who likes bubblegum.’
I don’t believe him. ‘Did my father send you? Are you one of his men? Have you been told to keep an eye on me? Report back to him?’
‘No,’ he says. ‘I don’t even know who your father is. Who is he?’
He can’t be my father’s man. Not with the name he accidentally signed on the paper. I don’t answer his question. Instead, I ask him another one.
‘Who are you, Afzal?’
I can see the shock on his face when he hears this. He doesn’t try to deny it. ‘How do you know my name?’
I hand him the drawing that he had signed and given me. ‘Is that your name?’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Damn. I didn’t realize I did that.’
‘Is that the truth? Are you telling me the truth?’
He looks up at me and holds my gaze. ‘I swear that is my name. I swear I am from Srinagar. I swear your father didn’t send me.’
I ask him again, ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m an idiot,’ he says. ‘I saw you from across the road. Followed you in. Then I changed my name so I could stay.’
I really wish I could believe him.
‘Why did you follow me?’
He says nothing but he does not meet my eyes.
‘Why do you try to protect me?’
The question seems to make him very angry. ‘Because I’m an idiot! I saw you from across the road and—’
‘Stop!’ I tell him. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to see what’s in his eyes as he looks at me. It’s wrong. All wrong.
I take a deep breath and tell him my secret. ‘There is someone I love very much,’ I say. ‘I’m waiting for him. You really shouldn’t hope for anything at all.’
He doesn’t look at me. ‘I’m not hoping for anything at all,’ he says. ‘I’m not hoping. I quit on hoping some time ago.’ He makes it sound so sad. I harden my heart. I don’t want to sympathize with him. I have nothing to give him. Not even kindness.
‘Did you ever want something impossible?’ he asks. ‘I mean, you knew it was impossible, you weren’t hoping, but just for a little while in your head you were pretending it could be real.’
I want to tell him to stop. But I have pretended. I know how it feels.
‘Please,’ I say. ‘It’s no use.’
‘I know,’ he says, ‘but fate has brought me here at this time to be with you. Let me just be here until . . . until whatever is meant to happen, happens.’
‘You mean until we die.’
He looks me in the eye. ‘We’re in the middle of craziness. We’re out of control. We don’t know what’s going to happen. I just want to be there.’
‘I’m afraid of dying alone,’ I whisper.
‘You won’t have to. Maybe that is what fate put me here for. Just to be there for you.’
‘It shouldn’t have been you.’ I put my hands over my face and begin to cry. It shouldn’t have been him. It should have been Aman.
I weep and weep. He makes no move to touch me. Just sits there while I cry. I cry like I have cried night after night for Aman. I cry until the tears run out. Except that they never really do.
‘I think I’ll try to go to sleep,’ I say.
‘You sleep,’ he says. ‘I’ll keep watch.’
I curl up on the floor and close my eyes. I know if I open them, I’ll see him sitting there, watching me. It no longer makes me awkward. I have a friend I can die with.
Kabir
What a stupid thing to do. I hadn’t even realized I had done it. Signed my real name. And then she confronted me. It was the right time. I should have told her everything. Given her the letter. Finished it. But I held on. So little time. So little time. I couldn’t open my hand and let fall these few moments I held so tight. I am sorry, Amanbhai. I will give her the letter when she wakes up. These are the last moments that I will steal.
I watch her sleep. She turns away from me, curled into herself, everyone shut out. But I am happy just to watch her. I have no other expectations.
Around us, others are dozing. The two shop girls are whispering, consoling each other. The television sets drone on, anchors replacing each other in a frenzied relay. The shots show a crowd of people outside the mall. Dozens of cameras and the flat circles of mobile satellite stations. Policemen have set up a cordon. Everyone is waiting. The demands have been made. Something has to be given.
Even the terrorists are dozing. But I’m awake and alert.
Suddenly, there is noise. Salim screaming at us. ‘Get up! GET UP RIGHT NOW!’
The other hostages are being shoved into the room. They too look disoriented and petrified. One woman is crying hysterically. Two other women are trying to hold her as she thrashes from side to side, weeping. They crowd in, worried and afraid.
‘Get up right now!’ yells Salim. He stands in front of the screens. ‘I want you to watch this. I want you to pay attention.’ No one moves their eyes from him.
‘I am a man who has tried to be just and fair. I gave your government an offer. And they took me for a fool. We’ve been waiting five hours now. I have run out of patience.’
He gestures. Two of his men step forward, and as the crowd shrinks back, they grab a random man. His wife begins to scream. He fights them, but one of them clubs a gun across his face and he is dragged, dazed and stumbling, from the room.
‘Watch,’ says Salim. ‘And learn.’
Everyone turns with dread to the screens. All of them show a single image while the presenters’ voices speak in a multitude of tones. ‘Salim Mukhtar has just sent an ultimatum.’
We scarcely hear what the presenters are saying. Everyone is riveted to the images on the screen. We see the entrance to the mall. It is deserted. The police have set up a cordon at some distance. The door opens and the man who has been dragged from our midst stumbles out. He stands there blinking in the sunlight, looking bewildered. He has no idea what to do. He takes a step forward and suddenly falls to the ground. He has been shot.
In a bizarre echo, we hear the actual shot before it sounds from the screens.
The screaming woman begins to shriek louder. ‘They’ve killed him! They’ve killed him!’
It isn’t over. The man isn’t dead. As we watch in horror, he begins to move. Slowly, he gets to his knees and tries to crawl down the stairs. He is heading for the cordon.
A volley of shots rings out. We hear them reverberate from outside and from the screens. We see him jerk again and again. Somehow, he just doesn’t go down. He gets to the first step. He slowly begins to crawl down the steps, leaving a wide streak of blood behind him. He moves very slowly. The shots have stopped. Nothing seems to be happening except that man keeps moving with incredible slowness, fumbling his way from one step to another. Second step. Third. Fourth.
Then the door opens. A terrorist runs out, takes aim and puts a bullet through his head. He runs back through the door. The man slides down another step or two. No one moves as they will him to get up. To make it to the safety line of cameras and policemen. But this time he is still.
Salim steps in front of the screens to face us. ‘I have given the government a new deadline. One hour. One life. Every hour they delay, one of you will die. That should help them move.’
Diya
They bundle the other hostages back out of the room. The man’s hysterical wife has to be carried by two terrorists. Salim goes with them.
He leaves and there is a silence thick with horror. I’m trying not to be sick. The sight of that man on the stairs has made my stomach churn.
Malini is holding her children and praying. I don’t think I could pray. To pray, you first have to believe that God is listening. I don’t think he listens at all.
Only Mr Bho
nsle seems undaunted. I guess because he’s drunk. ‘The army is coming!’ he announces loudly. ‘They’ll kill all you bastards. I’ll kill one of you myself. With my bare hands.’ Lucky man. It must be nice to have reality cushioned with alcohol and not think all of this is real. It is. It is real. And we are all going to die for real.
‘It’s really going to happen,’ says Harish. ‘We are really going to die.’ It had been something we’d been worrying about. But now it is real. I look around the room, and on every face is reflected the shock of the reality of death. Coming quick, for each of us.
‘I’m eighteen,’ says Harish.
‘Me too,’ I say.
‘I guess we’ll never have to worry about growing old. About having backaches and things,’ says Harish morosely. ‘Grey hair. Having to swallow half a bottle of Digene after dinner and praying for a good crap.’
I stare at him. In the middle of all that black terror, he’s worrying about a good crap. It is so unexpected, I burst out laughing. And so does Kabir.
‘What?’ says Harish. ‘My grandmother does that.’
We just laugh harder. I think we are a little hysterical. Around the room, dazed, uncomprehending faces turn towards us.
Harish says, ‘I’m only trying to look at the bright side of things. Cheer us up.’
‘You have,’ I say, trying to hold back the hysterical giggles that bubble out of me.
‘We won’t have to worry about going crazy and talking to plants,’ says Kabir.
‘Sprouting warts everywhere,’ says Harish.
‘Growing long hair out of our nostrils,’ Kabir says.
‘What about arthritis?’ I say. ‘And Alzheimer’s? We won’t have to worry about those things.’
‘You don’t have to worry about Alzheimer’s,’ says Harish. ‘If you have it, you just forget that you’re old.’
That sets us off on another round of giggles. Mr Bhonsle glares at us from his corner. He hates us. One more bonus point to dying young. We will never be bitter and angry all the time, like him.
The laughter dribbles out of us, and we go back to being silent. To waiting. ‘What is the time?’ asks Harish.
I look at my watch. Five minutes gone. Only fifty-five minutes left. God. How little that really is. How very small a span of time is one hour.
‘If I’m going to die, I would like to die laughing,’ says Kabir. ‘So, did you hear about the terrorist who tried to blow up a car? He burnt his lips on the tailpipe.’
Harish and I begin to chuckle. It is crazy. It is defiant. It is our way of holding on to life even as we know death is ticking closer.
We spend the rest of the time laughing. It seems like the only thing to do. Kabir tells awful jokes. And we laugh.
Stupid. But God, how we laugh.
Kabir
There is no death. There is only me. And I am going to die. Some great thinker said that, and I had thought it was a really stupid thing to say, until now. I am going to die. And that makes it real. I don’t know if I care too much. It would be a relief, I think. I only care that she will be gone.
I close my eyes and try to imagine death. Going into the darkness. No. Death has never been darkness for me. Death for me has been white. A white stretch of snow. Cold and silent. A blanket for me to pull over myself and close my eyes.
The TV presenters are starting to look all tense. A babble of worry reaches us.
‘Only ten minutes remain in the deadline that the terrorists have set . . .’
‘New Delhi is yet to respond, though the prime minister has been in a special cabinet meeting for the last forty minutes . . .’
‘All of India is now waiting as the minutes tick by . . .’
‘There are only ten minutes left in the deadline that Salim Mukhtar has given for the death of another hostage . . .’
Ten minutes. And one of us in the room will be dead. I look around the room, wondering who will be chosen.
An old woman with a big heart. A security guard dying in agony. A young mother with two children. Two young and bewildered girls. An old and angry man. A young man who doesn’t want to be dead. A beautiful young girl filled with sadness. And me.
Eight minutes. The screens are showing shots of people holding candles and praying. There are people in temples, in churches, in gurdwaras, and even in mosques. People on roads, linking hands and praying. They hold up placards. One of them reads, ‘Killing innocent people is the problem, not the solution.’ Another says, ‘Spread love and peace, not guns.’
Seven minutes.
Six minutes.
Five minutes.
The damn prime minister stays silent. An election rally every day. Hours of speeches. And now, for this, he has no words.
Four minutes. ‘We have a special bulletin. The prime minister has appealed to the terrorists, saying that the government is working out the details. They will respond to the demands but need one more hour.’
What is the government waiting for? Some more dead people? There are reactions to the announcement. Tears.
Two minutes. Would it be us? Or someone from one of the other groups of hostages? It seems really shitty to hope for someone else to die. Through the door, we can see Salim pacing up and down. The hostages are being held in four different rooms. Which room will he enter? Which group will win the unlucky lottery?
One minute.
Salim enters the room. It’s us.
We all jerk in fright as the phones begin to ring again. Please let it be the prime minister. Let him have something to offer them.
Salim raises a hand. ‘Let them ring. I think they need to know that I am very serious.’
Malini shoves her children behind her. She’s praying loudly. The phones ring on and on and on.
‘We need a volunteer,’ Salim says. ‘Anyone feel like dying?’
Nobody moves. Beside me, I can hear Harish starting to breathe so hard, he sounds like he’s been running.
‘Come on,’ he says, smiling. ‘You’ll be on TV.’
He begins to walk slowly from one to the other, looking each person in the face. People cringe and look away or lower their eyes. He’s enjoying this. I guess it’s a kick to have people really be scared of you. Every schoolroom bully knows the feeling. I would really like to see what he’s like at the other end of a gun.
‘Let me see,’ he says. ‘Who’ll play out well on TV? Tug at their heart strings? Make them cry? The young mother who leaves behind two weeping children?’
Malini scrabbles away from him, desperately holding her children to her chest.
‘Or a young girl with her whole life before her?’ He stops in front of the two salesgirls. They cling to each other, too afraid to even weep.
He turns to where Diya sits. ‘How about a beautiful young college girl?’ Diya says nothing. My heart beats faster.
He smiles at Diya. ‘Has anyone told you that you really should be on TV? You have a very pretty face.’
I can’t help it. I stand up. ‘I’ll volunteer.’
Every eye turns towards me. Salim takes his time facing me.
‘Why?’ he asks.
‘All these people have someone waiting for them at home. I have no one to miss me.’
‘Oh,’ says Salim. ‘Shall we take it that you’re ready to die because you’ve been kissed?’ He leans forward and whispers, ‘So, who was it? I don’t think it was Mother India. Or the old buddhi.’
His eyes drop to Diya and he grins. ‘Congratulations. She’s pretty. Worth dying for?’ he asks.
I say nothing. He looks around the room, slowly and deliberately. All of us wait. Then he points. It’s not to me.
His men step forward and grab one of the salesgirls: the intern. The other girl shrieks and tries to hold on to her. They have to hit her to let go. She crawls back and makes another desperate grab, and is left holding a shoe as the girl is hauled out of the door, screaming for her mother.
We turn our eyes to the screens. The entrance to the mall blinks its ne
on and crystal sign. The door opens, and the girl is pushed out. She runs. She runs as fast as she can across no man’s land, towards the safety of the police cordon. She runs awkwardly with one high-heeled shoe off. She’s halfway there when a shot rings out. Her hands jerk into the air, and she spins around and falls.
We watch it all. We can’t not watch it, horrified fascination holding us wide-eyed. A group of policemen behind bulletproof shields run out and grab the body. They drag it away, and it leaves a long streak of blood in its trail.
There’s a young reporter on the spot. She speaks as the body is shoved into an ambulance, the urgent wail of its siren overlapping her words. She is wearing a black armband as she says, ‘Salim Mukhtar ignores the government’s plea for more time. This is the second hostage who has been killed. We are told the prime minister is in an emergency meeting with the home minister and top police officials. We are expecting an announcement soon.’
Salim turns to leave the room. Then he stops and points at me. ‘Majnu, you’re next,’ he says.
I walk back to my place and sit. Then I think I’m having a heart attack. While you’re doing the stuff, you stay calm. But when it’s over, your body kicks in and lets you know that it definitely doesn’t appreciate a hero. It takes ten minutes for my heartbeat to get back anywhere near normal.
The last thing I expect is for Diya to be furious.
‘Stop doing that!’ she hisses at me. ‘Stop trying to save me all the time. I don’t want you dying for me. I don’t want your life!’
I don’t know what to say. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Why do you keep doing this? You don’t even know me!’
But I do.
‘Let me be!’ she says. ‘Just leave me alone. This is a really bad time to get a crush on me, all right? I am not going to—whatever!’
I feel like I should explain. ‘About the—what he was talking about—I’m sorry. It’s not what you think. When he said to give him one good reason to stay alive, I told him . . . er . . . that I had never been kissed.’