Manu Joseph - Serious Men

As the regime sat in uneasy calm, Jal steamed in holding loose sheets of paper, an envelope and a newspaper. His excitement seemed unreasonable.

‘Where have you been?’ someone asked him. ‘You know what has happened, right?’

‘I know a lot more than that,’ Jal said, stopping for an instant when he heard his voice on the television describing Dalits as genetically handicapped. He put the things he was holding on the centrepiece and rubbed his hands. ‘You will not believe this,’ he said. ‘You will not believe this.’

‘What has happened?’ Nambodri asked. There was a faint ray of hope on his face.

‘Cheer up, my friend, we are going to war. These last few days, I’ve been checking up on that guy and his son. And what I’ve found is very, very strange. Here is Adi’s answer-sheet. It’s unbelievable. He got thirty-nine.’

The answer-sheet passed from hand to hand. Jal’s enthusiasm now infected everyone in the room.

‘This means he is in the top five. A boy of eleven in the top five. Now, let me try to be coherent,’ Jal said. His glasses quivered on his nose-bridge. ‘Let me begin at the beginning. Do you remember the day when Ayyan showed us a clipping of his son winning a science contest hosted by the Swiss Consulate? I checked with the Consulate. They have never held such a contest. Never. I managed to call the reporter. His name is Manohar Thambe. He said that the news was given to him by Ayyan. Apparently, some language newspapers officially take money to cover news.’

Nambodri began to pace the floor.

‘Are you listening, Jana?’ Jal asked.

‘Go on,’ Nambodri said, beginning to understand.

‘Then I noticed something strange,’ Jal said. He looked at the television screen. A commercial was underway. So he took the remote and started flipping through the channels until he arrived at one which showed the face of Adi.

‘Look, look. Look carefully. He is wearing the hearing-aid in his left ear.’ Jal then showed the picture of the boy in The Times. ‘This picture went with the article about how he could recite the first thousand primes. His hearing-aid is in the right ear. The article clearly mentions that the boy is deaf in his right ear. But in every other image I have seen of the boy, he is wearing the hearing-aid in his left ear.’

‘What does that mean?’ Nambodri asked.

‘Think, Jana, think. How can a boy of eleven recite the first thousand primes?’

‘I don’t believe this,’ Nambodri said, sitting down slowly.

‘But what about the quiz?’ someone asked. ‘Hundreds of people saw the boy.’

‘Maybe his father had whacked the questions. Like he probably did with JET?’

‘He stole the JET, didn’t he?’ Nambodri said softly.

‘But that’s impossible,’ one of the astronomers said. A supportive murmur followed.

‘Listen to me. Listen to me,’ Jal said impatiently. ‘I called up our printers and asked them if there had been any enquiries from Aryabhata Tutorials recently. Two of them said that they didn’t know, but one of them distinctly remembered someone calling less than eight weeks ago asking when the consignment was expected to be delivered. I don’t know how he got the JET, but I tell you, he did. An eleven-year old boy cannot score thirty-nine. Come on, we have seen geniuses; we know them. We know what is possible. Put it all together, Jana. Ayyan Mani is a con. His genius son is a fraud.’

Jal then appeared thoughtful. He chuckled.

‘What is it?’ Nambodri asked.

‘But that bastard did get into Mensa.’

The door opened. The astronomers looked with the eyes of the dead as Ayyan Mani entered with some faxes. He went to Nambodri’s desk and laid them out neatly. As he walked back to the door he told Nambodri, ‘I am sorry I’m late, Sir. I had to attend a press conference.’

‘That we know,’ Nambodri said.

‘I wish I could get you coffee, Sir, but I think the peons are missing.’

‘We know that too.’

Ayyan was about to leave the room when Nambodri asked, ‘Is your son deaf in the right ear or the left?’

The astronomers held their breath. They waited to see fear on the face of Ayyan. But he smiled.

‘Both the ears, Sir,’ he said. ‘But Adi likes wearing only one hearing-aid at a time.’

Nambodri put his hands on his hips and studied the floor. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Ayyan, how did you steal the JET?’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about, Sir.’

‘We know that he did not win any science contest. We know that your son cannot recite the first thousand primes and we know that he is no genius. If you cooperate, we will ensure that you don’t go to prison.’

‘I forgot to tell you, Sir,’ Ayyan said, looking towards the window. ‘It is not safe for you to be here. Anything can happen. I suggest you go home.’

‘We will manage, Ayyan.’

‘Do you know what is happening at the gates, Sir? I think you should look.’

Nambodri first raised his eyebrows in defiance but the defiance slowly, inexorably, became curiosity. He went to the window and looked. A mob was standing outside the gates with metal rods, sticks and banners. They were standing calmly, as if waiting for a decisive sign.

Nambodri walked back to the sofa and said, ‘We will manage this, Ayyan. Why don’t you think of yourself?’

‘I’ve always thought of myself, Sir.’

‘Let’s make a deal, Ayyan. You confess that you have cooked up these recordings and we will not press charges against you.’

‘What charges, Sir?’

‘Listen, Ayyan. If the boy is interrogated for one minute by any science graduate, it will become clear that he is no genius. I can publicly challenge him to recite the first thousand primes. The Swiss Consulate is going to make a statement this evening saying that it did not hold any contest. Your reporter Thambe has agreed to give it in writing that he was paid for the article about your son. The game is over, Ayyan. But we can help you, if you are willing to make a little confession.’

Ayyan left the room. The radio astronomers looked at each other. They were tense, but they could now see the first signs of hope. The way Ayyan had fled the room was consoling. Then he returned.

‘The minister wants to talk to you,’ he told Nambodri, handing the phone to him.

Nambodri held the instrument to his ear and said, ‘It’s a pleasure talking to you.’ He listened. Finally, he said, ‘I am sorry, this is not agreeable to me, Minister.’ He gave the phone back to Ayyan and said, ‘Ayyan, you have another five minutes to decide.’ Ayyan laughed and left the room, shaking his head in private mirth. That unsettled the astronomers.

‘He seems to know something we don’t,’ Jal said. ‘What did the minister say, Jana?’

Nambodri rubbed his nose and said, ‘He told me that if we don’t go public with what we have found out about Adi, he will promise us safety.’

‘Safety?’ Jal said nervously. ‘What did he mean by safety?’

‘Relax,’ Nambodri said. ‘I know how to play this game.’

He took out his phone and was about to dial a number when they heard a sound. The glass of the huge square window had cracked. The astronomers fell on the floor and lay on their stomachs. There was another sound and this time the window crashed. They could hear the roar of the mob down below. Five more stones landed in the room. They could hear other windows break and the sound of things being beaten to pulp, and the shrieks of women. They lay on the floor without moving. Then they heard the riot come closer. Things were exploding, men were screaming. The astronomers crawled closer to each other and stared at the door as the sound of death grew louder and louder.