Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

'And you were home,' Guru-ji said softly. 'When did you become Ganesh?'

'The first time someone asked my name. I don't know why. I just said it.'

'Ganesh is the survivor. He always lives, no matter what. He overcomes.'

Then I sat for a long time, in silence, with Guru-ji's hand on my head. I was exhausted, as if I had climbed a mountain and come down the other side, but I felt calm. And with every pulse that beat through me, I grew stronger.

'Ganesh, beta,' Guru-ji said, 'you should go now. Otherwise my attendants will wonder.'

'Yes, Guru-ji.'

'You took a risk, but I am happy you came. Meet me in Singapore, as we planned.'

'Yes, Guru-ji.'

He hugged me close, held my bald head to his cheek. Then he sent me away. I touched his feet again, and left. But I left only his body, his crippled flesh. He had looked at me, into me. He had given me darshan, and he had had his darshan of me. He was in me now. He beat inside my heart. I took his great strength with me, and felt it throb through my arms, as real as my own blood. I whisked through the city, flew down the familiar avenues and through the packets of late traffic with an effortless ease. I could predict how the cars and auto-rickshaws would come close to each other, where they would part, I could see the geometry of their travel. I knew where they were going, the future of the streaking headlights. And I inserted myself into the gleaming stream, and I was fearless, my body knew the flow of this river. The waters came through me.

* * *

I got home, ate with Bunty and told him to book me on the first flight to Singapore. And then I had another short journey to make. I got back on the scooter, waved away Bunty's housewifely grumbling and sped away. Again, I found smooth roads and green lights, and was at Yari Road in twenty-five minutes. I had to ask two taxi drivers for directions once I got there, but once I turned the last corner, with the cigarette shop on the corner, I knew my way. I had had Jojo describe it for me a dozen times, so I could imagine her streets, her home. I took the curve to the left, and parked by her gate. Her blue Honda was parked in the second parking spot to the right, number 36A. I counted my way up the storeys, one two three, and found the corner apartment. Her lights were on. I dialled.

'Ganesh?' she said. 'Ganesh?'

'Who else would it be on this phone?'

'Don't act smart. Where have you been?'

'I had to travel.'

'Travel means you can't call? What is wrong with you?'

'Everything is right, Jojo. Why are you so angry?'

'Because you are a careless idiot.'

I had to laugh. Nobody else in the world spoke to me like this. 'I think you like me, Jojo.'

'Very little. And even that, I don't understand why. I must be mad.'

A shadow crossed the second window. I could imagine her, stamping about and jabbing with her free hand at the idiot far away. 'If you like me a little, Jojo, I have a suggestion.'

'What?'

'Let's meet.'

'Gaitonde, I thought we had been through that.'

'This is different.'

'Why?'

'Because I'm different now.'

'How?'

'You just have to meet me and see. Otherwise you'll never know.'

She thought about it. The shadow crossed the window again. She said, 'Gaitonde, I'm still the same.'

'So you don't want to meet?'

'I don't want to meet.'

'Last chance.'

'Don't argue with me, Gaitonde. I'm too tired.'

I didn't argue with her. I talked to her for ten more minutes, about her work, her new thoku, her girls. It was good to speak to her, to fall back into our banter and our friendship.

'You sound happy,' she said.

'I am,' I said. 'I am.' I raised my hand at her building watchmen, two of them, who finally, after all this time, had noticed I was there, and had roused themselves to come to the gate from their comfortable chairs. 'I have to go, Jojo,' I said. I hung up.

'What, hero?' one of the watchmen said through the gate. 'You're blocking our gate.'

I wasn't blocking anything, and they were being bothersome, but I was feeling kindly. 'I'm going,' I said quietly. I turned the key in the ignition, and switched on my headlight. She came to her window then, Jojo did. She must have seen the single weak shaft of yellow in the dark. I saw her, the touch of light on her head and shoulders. But I'm sure she didn't see me.

* * *

I was in Singapore when we hit the mullah in London. 'Maulana Mehmood Ghouse Assassinated in London,' the Straits Times announced at the bottom of the front page. The BBC World Report devoted a full segment to the killing, and then had a panel discussion with two reporters and one professor. They discussed the implications of the killing, and listed the possible assassins: rival militant organizations in Pakistan, revolutionary Afghan groups, various intelligence agencies, the Israelis, the Indians, the Americans. The consensus was that it was probably the Israelis.

The date for the mullah's visit to London had been moved up, and Mr Kumar had moved up the date of the operation, to the mullah's first day in London. 'If you can, get him before he opens his mouth to the media,' he had said. And we had. Despite all the hurrying up, we did it clean. It was difficult. He had two layers of security, his own men and the British police. We had been told not to use a big bomb, there was to be no massacre of civilians in a friendly capital. So we did it with a small bomb. His hotel room had been swept, and the car he used also. All very tight. Mr Kumar knew far in advance the name of the small and exclusive hotel he would stay in, and also that in this hotel there were only two suites on the top floor. The detailed brief that Mr Kumar had sent us emphasized the fact that the mullah had once been an electrical engineer, that he travelled with a laptop that he used for reading the newspapers around the world and – probably – exchanging encrypted e-mails with his people. Mr Kumar's file told us that he liked to do this in bed, at night, while munching on pistachios. So we had rigged the outlets on both sides of the bed, in both suites. The security teams checked for bugs and bombs, but the outlets passed. On his first night in the hotel, the mullah plugged in his laptop, and fried his power supply and the machine itself. He cursed, ranted and had his people call reception. The woman at reception apologized, and offered to open the business centre downstairs so he could use the broadband connection there. The mullah cursed some more, picked up his bowl of pistachios and went off to the business centre. His security people went over the room, but he was fuming and angry and talking to them from just outside the door. The computer inside was already up and running, and the mullah wanted the broadband very badly. He was impatient. In he went, and sat at the machine. For ten minutes he skimmed from newspaper to newspaper, and littered the floor with pistachio shells. Then a certain man, a white European who was sitting in the lobby, made a call on his handy. And then another man, an Indian man sitting in a parked car outside the hotel, pressed at something in his pocket. And the keyboard under the mullah's hands exploded, and blew off both arms at the elbow. And sent little plastic keys marked with English letters dashing into his brain.

It was sleek and brilliant, our operation. Even Mr Kumar said so. 'Nobody will ever believe this is an Indian operation,' he said.

'What, they think that my boys aren't smart enough to pull something like this off? We're too dehati to do anything involving computers?'

'Not just you, Ganesh,' Mr Kumar said. 'The entire world, including our very own, very free Indian press, will refuse to believe this is ours.'

'Saab, I can provide positive proof…'

'Let it be, Ganesh. Let them think it was the mighty Israelis. Let them underestimate us. A confused enemy is always better than an impressed but careful enemy. Let it be. I told you, we are the invisible soldiers, we win no medals.'