Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

'You have the papers?'

Kamble stood up and held out an envelope, and then watched Zoya admiringly as she flipped through the sheets and the photographs. 'You are really very tall,' he said.

'Are these the originals?' she said, to Sartaj.

'They are what we found in Jojo's apartment, everything.'

It was a lie, and she knew it. But Sartaj was now standing up, not easy and pliable any more, and there was nothing to be gained from tussling with him right now. Zoya put the envelope down on a small glass table, and put her arms behind her back, and became suddenly tired and somehow girlish. 'I'll tell you something,' she said. 'I'm actually not six feet tall.'

'Arre, really?' Kamble said. 'You are, I'm sure.'

'No.' She walked behind them to the door, and into the hall. 'I'm really only five ten and a half. But Jojo told everyone that I was six feet, and everyone believed it. All the media made such a fuss about that. Now I can't get rid of it, this six-feet thing.'

Sartaj could see that Kamble was measuring himself against her shoulder. Kamble said, 'Why would you want to?'

'Some of the heroes, you know, they don't want to star with a tall girl. It makes them look small.'

'No,' Kamble said indignantly.

Sartaj could see down the hall, next to the kitchen door, the old man who had opened the door for them. He was polishing a silver dish and watching them.

'It's true,' Zoya insisted. 'I know I have lost very good roles just because of this. These men are just afraid, and they still dominate the industry.' She raised her shoulders and let them drop.

'We live in sad times,' Sartaj said.

'A real Kaliyug,' Kamble said, with a certain morose inwardness.

Zoya was amused. 'He used to say that all the time.'

'Who, Gaitonde?' Kamble said.

'Yes. He and his Guru-ji used to talk about Kaliyug all the time. About that and the end of the world.'

Sartaj was careful to let the moment pass, so as not to seem anxious. 'What else did they say about this?' he said, very gently.

'I don't know. He used that Hindi word for it, what is it? For qayamat?'

'Pralay?' Kamble said.

'Yes. Pralay. They talked about that.'

'Saying what?' Kamble was also very casual, but Zoya was now quite aware of the attention focused on her.

'Why? What is it?'

'Please, madam,' Sartaj said, 'we are just interested in everything Gaitonde said or did. Tell us.'

'I can't remember, exactly. I was supposed to be asleep. And it was all so boring. I didn't listen very much.'

'Still,' Sartaj said, 'you must have heard something. About pralay.'

'I don't know. I think they used to talk about how it was coming. Gaitonde used to ask if it was, and I think Guru-ji said it was. Something about the signs being all around.'

'They talked about how pralay was coming…What were these signs?'

Sartaj waited. Zoya shook her head.

'All right, madam. Thank you for your time,' Sartaj said. 'And if you remember anything else at all about this, or any other thing concerning Gaitonde, please call me. It's very important. And if we can be of any service, please call also. Any problems, anything, please call us.'

Zoya took his card, but she was troubled. 'Why, what are you worried about in all this? Why do you want to know about Gaitonde? He's dead.'

'We are just conducting an investigation into gang activities, madam,' Sartaj said. 'There is nothing to worry about. He is dead, yes.'

They left her worrying about her dead Gaitonde. In the lift they were both quiet, sweating suddenly after the uniform coolness of Zoya Mirza's white apartment. Her media image really was impeccable: there were no affairs and no scandals, and when other heroines said bitchy things about her in magazines she never ever replied. And all this she had built on a foundation provided by Ganesh Gaitonde. She's quite brilliant, Sartaj thought. The guards were dozing at the gate, and the moon had vanished, leaving behind only the orange circles from the streetlights. Near the motorcycles, Kamble finally spoke: 'We don't have any facts, really.'

'Just that Gaitonde had a guru, that's the only new thing. Nothing to bother Delhi with, really. I'll call in the morning.'

'Nothing to worry about.'

'I didn't know you were a religious man, Kamble.'

'What?'

'All that talk of Kaliyug.'

'You think this world we live in is anything but Kaliyug? Everything is upside-down, boss. That woman upstairs, living in that huge apartment, all alone. She has two policemen coming to her house, and she meets us alone in the middle of the night. She doesn't have a father or brother there, nobody.'

'I think she can look after herself.'

'That is my point, bhai. And yes, I am.'

'What?'

'Religious.'

'Buddhist?'

'Why do you assume that? No, I'm stubborn. I'm not going to give up anything, I'm going to take respect and whatever else I want from those Manuvadi bastards. Who are they to say what a man is, what level Hindu he is? Bhenchods. My father was like that also. For that, some people in our community fought with him.'

They left each other with a raising of the hand. Racing down an empty road in Goregaon, Sartaj tried to imagine pralay. He tried to see a storm of fire take up the bodies sleeping on the steps and the pavements, a terrible wind crushing the buildings, crumbling them. The images wouldn't stay, the fear flickered out. Life was all around, too much of it. And yet, Sartaj couldn't fall asleep for a good hour and a half. He lay twisted in bed, uneasy. Gaitonde had a guru. There was something teasing at Sartaj's mind, something hiding just beyond his reach but touching him all the same. He drank some water and stretched and turned on his left side, away from the window. Pralay receded altogether, but left behind a void in which random fragments of Sartaj's past chased each other about, an emptiness in which his mind raced. Out of this twilight flurry came a face that stayed with him, and Sartaj held on easily to Mary Mascarenas and floated into sleep.

* * *

The next morning, Sartaj made two very early phone calls, the first to Anjali Mathur in Delhi. Anjali Mathur listened to his report about Zoya and Gaitonde's guru and pralay, and said a few encouraging words and a quiet thank you. She told him to continue investigating, and hung up. In the sparkling sunlight of early morning, pralay seemed quite absurd, and Sartaj felt contempt for the deluded Gaitonde and his deluded guru.

Sartaj sat back in his chair, cracked his knuckles and prepared himself for the next call. He wasn't nervous exactly, no. He wanted to call Mary, and he felt like a bear emerging from an over-extended hibernation into blazing, disorientating sunlight. Once he had been quite suave, capable of flirting with women at a moment's notice, and asking them out on a whim. Now he was sitting at his coffee table, trying to work out a script. He resisted the urge to write down some lines and thought, Sartaj, what a lallu you've become. Just pick up the phone and do it. But he didn't. He got up, drank a glass of water and sat himself down again. Now he had to admit that although he was not nervous, not in that way he used to be when he was thirteen, he was afraid. What was he afraid of? Not just of the possible disasters, of rejection or unpleasantness or betrayal, but also of good things. He was afraid of Mary's sudden smile, of the touch of her hand. It was better to live inside a cave, walled in and comfortable.

Gaandu coward, you should be ashamed of yourself. He shook his arms from shoulder to wrist, picked up the phone and dialled. Mary picked up, and he told her in a rush that tomorrow, the next day, he was going to drive up to Khandala for an investigation, and he wanted to tell her about his meeting with Zoya Mirza, and he thought that perhaps she might want to come up to Khandala, since tomorrow was a Monday and he knew that was her day off, and they could get out of the city, for a sort of picnic with Zoya Mirza spice. Even as he was saying it, he realized that it was all too elaborate, that what he had to tell her about Zoya Mirza didn't need a long drive and a meal in some mountain café. He stopped himself. He was expecting her to refuse, or want to be persuaded further, but she quite straightforwardly agreed and asked what time he would pick her up.