Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

Agavane's face came up to the light. He was weeping. 'Saab,' he said. 'Saab.'

* * *

It was eleven when Sartaj got to Mary's. He pulled up, suddenly aware of how loud the motorcycle was. The staircase was far from the single flickering light bulb at the end of the lane and very dark. Sartaj toed his way up, noticing for the first time the creepers on the wall to his left, the thick cushiony covering of leaves and vine. He knocked on the door twice, and was just starting to think of going down the stairs when it creaked open. Mary was fuzzy-eyed and very slow. She mumbled something, and shuffled backwards to let him in.

'I fell asleep,' she got out finally, through a huge yawn. There was a mother duck and little ducks on her very large yellow T-shirt.

'Sorry,' Sartaj said. 'I couldn't get out until now. I can go.'

'No, no.' She shut the door. 'I was just watching television, I closed my eyes.'

On the screen, a line of zebras, brilliant black and white, went leaping over a ridge. Sartaj reached out and touched Mary's cheek.

'Sartaj Singh,' she said, 'you are smelly.'

Sartaj stepped back. 'Sorry,' he said. 'A whole day of work, you see.' He was aware suddenly of his own reek, of the awful petroleum-tinged seams of dirt and sweat that had settled over his body, forehead to ankles. 'I should go. My plan was to go home first, but it got very late.'

Mary laughed. 'You're blushing,' she said. 'I didn't know that policemen could blush. Listen, you don't have to go. Why don't you take a bath?' She tipped her head towards the door behind Sartaj.

'A bath?' She was right, he had blushed, Sartaj could feel the flush on his chest and neck. He had never been shy, but now the thought of taking his clothes off behind that thin plank of wood made him feel unbearably exposed.

But Mary became brisk and efficient. 'Go,' she said. 'I'll get a towel. I'll warm up the food, it'll be ready when you finish.'

Sartaj bent over near the front door to take his shoes off, and then changed his mind and took them off outside, on the landing. He tucked the brown socks far back into the shoes, and smiled back at Mary.

'Do you take off your, your…?' she asked, holding out a green towel.

'Pugree. Usually.'

'So?'

He sat on the chair at the foot of her bed and unwound his pug. She watched him intently. It had been a long time since he had done this in front of a woman. His heart was squeezing fast, and his face felt warm.

'It's very long,' Mary said. 'That's a lot to carry on your head.'

'You get used to it.' Sartaj was wrapping the long swathe of blue cloth from elbow to hand as he took it off his head. 'Like a woman with a sari, no?'

Mary nodded. 'So did you catch her?'

'Who?'

'The woman who was blackmailing that girl.'

Sartaj froze. Anger and an inexplicable tincture of shame burned through his belly. Men are bastards, he thought, rakshasas. He didn't want to tell her who the apradhi was, but knew he had to. He took up another turn of cloth around his arm, and drew in a breath. 'No, we caught one of the low-level boys. But now we know who the blackmailer is. The bastard we caught, he told us everything.'

Mary clapped her hands, once, twice. 'Come on, tell. Who is it?'

Sartaj shook his head, and unclamped his jaw. 'It's the boyfriend,' he said.

'Which boyfriend? Whose?'

'Kamala's old boyfriend. The pilot. Umesh.'

'Wait, wait. The good-looking one? The one you met?'

'That one.' Sartaj stood up, ceremoniously laid his folded-up turban on the chair. 'This fellow we found today, his mother used to work for the pilot's family before she died. So the pilot recruited him for this job. To make the calls, to get the money.'

Mary's face had settled into an opaque blankness. 'Blackmailing this woman who,' she said, 'who…' She turned towards the wall, and her neck was taut.

'Umesh has expensive tastes,' Sartaj said. 'I think he saw too much cash in Kamala's purse, decided he needed some of it.'

'What are you going to do?'

'I don't know. We can't arrest him. There's no official case. We haven't decided yet.'

Mary picked a fragment of thread from her T-shirt, flicked it aside. 'Beat him,' she said. 'Beat him.'

'Yes,' Sartaj said, and then he didn't know what to say. Mary's shoulders were hunched under the fine yellow cloth.

'You can use my shower cap,' she said. 'If you want.'

'Yes.' Sartaj was glad to be able to escape to the bathroom now. He had trailed the sewer-smell of crime into Mary's home, and had upset her. In her anger there was the pain of her own history. He wasn't being a very successful suitor, he thought as he shut the door to the tiny bathroom. On the sill, under the ventilator, there was a row of shampoos and lotions and soaps. There were two hooks on the back of the door, both laden with towels and clothes. He didn't want to put his clammy shirt on top of her nightie. He moved the gown – soft, very soft – to the other hook, and the towel underneath, holding by the very tips of the fingers. He unbuttoned his shirt. Kamble had wanted to beat the pilot also, when Anand Agavane had told them who the blackmailer was. Kamble had been furious. He had wanted to pull the bastard pilot from his cockpit right then, or go to his house and beat him in the middle of his bhenchod movie-theatre room. Kazimi and Sartaj had both been surprised by Kamble's vehemence, and Kazimi had finally said, 'Why do you want to beat, bhai? The bastard has lots of money.' And Sartaj had nodded.

Sartaj put Mary's shower cap over his patka, and turned on the tap. There was no shower. Sartaj waited for the red plastic bucket to fill, watched the water froth. Kamble was very young. Under that cynicism, which he wore like armour, there was a romantic after all. 'Arre, I have lots of girls,' he had said to Kazimi and Sartaj, 'but I don't make money from them. I spend maderchod money on them, as much as I can, more than I have. This pilot is a badhwa.' It had taken a while before they could calm him down, before they could convince him that beating was only a temporary pleasure, that it was no real punishment for a man like the pilot. He was still muttering when they had left each other. 'She had love for him,' he said, using the English word 'love' and stabbing at them with a forefinger, 'and he just exploited her. Bastard.'

Sartaj dipped mugs of water from the bucket, over his shoulders and belly. He was sitting cross-legged on a white aluminium stool, facing the tap. They had been so sure the apradhi was Rachel Mathias, scorned and insulted and vengeful. But it had turned out to be the beautiful lover himself who had wronged his beloved. Kamble, the amazing man, believed in the unspotted ecstasy of unadulterated love, in the dreams they sang about in the songs. ' Gaata rahe mera dil, tu hi meri manzil .' Sartaj hooked the mug on the edge of the bucket, and sat with his hands on his thighs, eyes closed. Was it possible to come back to belief again, to leave behind too much knowledge and the comfortable distances of exile? Sartaj thought of the woman on the other side of the door, just so close, and how strange and unexpected it was that he was in her home, in her bathroom. He rubbed a bar of Lux over his shoulders, and thought of that other woman, the woman who had loved the pilot. Umesh was not a good man, but Kamala wasn't so good either. But Sartaj didn't want to remind Mary that Kamala had a husband, that she was selfish and frivolous and unfaithful, he didn't want to argue the point. Not here, not now. He wanted, just now, only quiet, and Mary close. There was always the possibility of arguments in the future, of betrayal and pain and damage, but this evening he needed a small enclosing circle of faith. The future wasn't here yet, and the past was gone. He turned the tap to full, and splashed large mugfuls of water on to his head, his chest, his thighs. He was grinning. He hummed the song: ' Kahin beetein na ye raatein, kahin beetein na ye din .'