Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

Kamble looked very sceptical, and in the hard light of afternoon Sartaj had to admit that the link looked very tentative and fragile. But he tried to sound cheerful, and told Kamble about jumping on to his bike in the very early morning and speeding to the PCO near Santa Cruz station and calling Anjali Mathur in Delhi, waking her up. And how she had called back later in the morning to say that her organization was investigating the guru.

'Now they are looking into it,' Sartaj said, 'and they will find everything out. They have lots of resources. If there is really a threat to the city, they will find out about it, and fix it.'

But Kamble refused to be cheered up, even by the thought of an all-powerful national organization saving the city and himself from possible thermonuclear destruction. Sartaj had invited him to the Mughal-e-Azam Restaurant in Goregaon, for a celebratory lunch, to mark their breaking of the Kamala Pandey blackmail case. But Kamble was still scowling darkly. He shook his head and waved his hand at the window, towards the city and the world beyond. 'Boss, you want to save this ?' he said bitterly. 'For what? Why?'

They were sitting in the air-conditioned first-floor cabin, amidst a halfhearted attempt at Mughal splendour. There was a brass surahi on the window-sill next to each booth, and two faded paintings of princesses in long-nosed profile on the wall. But you could see the pile of dirty dishes in the washbasin next to the bathroom, and the glass on the window was stained and spotty. The city that Sartaj could see – in the direction of Kamble's contemptuous gesture – was equally dusty and shabby on this furious October day. They were protected from the dense swirl of exhaust and road rage by Mughal-e-Azam's wheezing air-conditioner, but that was only temporary. Soon they would have to emerge from this dirty haven into the dirt of the untidy streets, into the random and endless excavations by PWD crews, the jiggling and lawless streams of traffic, the sullen and sweaty walkers. None of it was pretty, but was it so bad that it all deserved to die? 'Come on,' Sartaj said. 'You're getting too emotional about all this.' Sartaj was amused by Kamble's romanticism, his anger at the pilot, but to wish for a final collapse was much too excessive.

'No, I'm very serious,' Kamble said. 'Better if it was all destroyed.' He moved his hand flat above the table, in a cleaning gesture. 'Then it can all start again, fresh. Otherwise, nothing will change. Like this, just like this, we'll go on.'

It was astonishing to Sartaj that Kamble still believed in change. How insidious and indestructible hope was if it refused to vanish from the breast of this corrupt, greedy, violent man. 'But if something happens, if the bomb goes off, we all go. Not just you and me. Your parents, your sisters, your brother, all, everything. You want that to happen?'

Kamble shrugged. 'Arre, bhai, if we go, we go. Everyone has to die. Better to all go together.'

Sartaj had to laugh at the grandiosity of Kamble's disillusionment. Kamble was very young, after all. His disappointment demanded a complete cleansing, a new start, nothing less. 'Don't be silly,' Sartaj said. 'Eat your chicken.'

A waiter put down a gloriously red tandoori chicken, and a plate laden with rumali rotis. 'Raita,' Kamble said, 'bring the raita, yaar.' He tore off a big hunk of breast and chewed it thoughtfully. 'Bastard, it's good.'

That was the trouble with the bedraggled Mughal-e-Azam. It was incapable of cleaning itself up, and its waiters were slow and sullen, but somehow the establishment produced spectacular tandoori chicken. Sartaj took a leg, and savoured the plump moistness, tinged slightly by clay. Kamble wielded a handful of rumali roti and took in another long strip of chicken, and closed his eyes in ecstasy.

'At the very least,' Kamble said, 'what we need in this country is a dictator. You know, to organize everything.' He chewed noisily. 'With that you have to agree.'

'If he organized everything, then he would catch you, right? And all your activities?'

'No, no. No, saab. If everything was good, I wouldn't need to engage in any of my activities. You see? I only do what I have to do, to live in this Kaliyug.'

It was an unassailable argument, quite perfect in its circularity. Kamble was enraptured by perfections: if there was no perfect world, he wanted a perfect destruction, or at least a perfect dictator. Sartaj felt his stomach churn, and waited for the raita. He tried to remember if he had ever believed in such unadulterated ideals, if he had ever been so young. Certainly, he had once believed that Meghna was utterly and wholly beautiful, and that he was the most handsome sardar in all of Bombay, if not in the entire southern half of the country. But that was a long time ago. 'Since we live in Kaliyug, my friend, let's decide what we are going to do about the pilot.'

'You know what I want to do.'

'You can't thrash him. A couple of slaps, maybe. But nothing else. Think about it, Kamble. There's not even a FIR, and this isn't some road labourer from Andhra. This chutiya could be big trouble if you leave him with a broken leg or something.'

'I know some other fellows who could do the breaking.'

'No,' Sartaj said.

'All right, all right.' Kamble waved a bone morosely. 'Let's take his money, then.'

'And his toys.'

'The film theatre?'

'Yes.'

Kamble chortled. For the first time that day, he got that ferocious, beady exuberance in his eyes. 'DVDs,' he said. 'I want all his DVDs.' He split a chicken breast in two, and pulled at a morsel within. 'Did you tell her yet?'

Sartaj shook his head. He hadn't told Kamala yet, and he wasn't looking forward to it. He was sure that she would weep, and maybe there would be hysterics. Maybe she would curse the pilot, and then herself. 'You want to tell her?'

'Are you crazy, boss? Me? I spend my life dealing with angry women. I'll go and talk to the pilot, read him his punishments. I'll tell him all the fines he has to pay. But her? No, no.' Kamble seemed restored, with his lips wet from the chicken. 'Anyway, you are the one she likes,' he said, grinning, and waved for more roti. 'You take care of her.' He turned his head towards Sartaj abruptly, his hand still in the air. 'Boss, why Santa Cruz station?'

'What?'

'You said you drove to Santa Cruz station to make the call. Why?'

'I was passing by.'

'At six in the morning you were passing by Santa Cruz?'

'I didn't say six.'

'You said you woke up the Delhi woman.' Kamble put both elbows on the table, leaned forward. 'My friend,' he said, 'where did you sleep last night?'

'Nowhere.'

'Nowhere?'

'At home.'

'At home. Home. Home.' Kamble puffed up his cheeks, and looked quite like a benign bulldog.

'Home-home what?'

'It is nice to find a home, Sartaj Saab. Especially a home that is near Santa Cruz.' Kamble twisted in his seat, and roared, 'Arre, have you gone to Aurangabad to get our rotis?' He came back to Sartaj, and beamed. 'What, did I say something? Eat, eat.'

* * *

'I need to go,' was all Kamala Pandey said when he told her who the blackmailer was. They were sitting at their usual table in the empty Sindoor Restaurant, towards the back and to the left. It was late in the afternoon, and the low sun through the frosted windows made a golden glow in which the white-clad Kamala had looked very pretty. Now, after hearing about the pilot and his perfidy, she clamped her jaw and a vein vibrated across her forehead, and she said only, 'I need to go.'

She swept her keys off the table and got up even as Sartaj said, 'Wait, wait.' He followed her towards the door, then came back to get her purse. When he got outside, she was sitting in her car, staring past the paan-wallah and the pedestrians. 'Madam?' he said.