Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

Her hand was shaking against the side of the steering wheel, scraping the key against metal. She looked down, collected herself and tried again. This time she managed to fit the key in.

'Madam,' Sartaj said gently. 'Don't drive right now. Please.'

He opened the car door, and she let him take her by the elbow and draw her out. She stood with her hands straight by her side while he leaned into the car for the keys, and then he had to turn her around and walk her back into the restaurant. He seated her first, then sat himself down across from her. Her eyes were a translucent amber, and she was looking straight through him. 'Madam,' he said. 'Madam, would you like some water?' He slid a glass towards her, and then reached out and took her hand and curled it around the bottom.

She began to weep. She withdrew her hand, put it into her lap, and the sharply defined lines of her face seemed to blur, and a sound came out of her and shivered down Sartaj's spine. He had heard it many times, this guttural, child-like cry. He had heard it from parents whose children had been murdered, brothers who had lost sisters in accidents, old women who had been made into paupers by their relatives, and yes, from lovers who had been betrayed. This low bawling was always hard to confront when it started because you knew there was nothing you could do. Sartaj had learned to wait it out. Kamala was quite unaware of him, and she howled without shame, or reserve. A waiter poked his head out of the kitchen door, and then Shambhu Shetty looked through. Sartaj raised a hand, just slightly, and shook his head. Then he waited.

Kamala cried herself out, and then she pressed both hands to her face. Sartaj took a sheaf of tissues out of a glass on the table and held them out. She dabbed at her face, and took a deep breath. 'I love him,' she said in English.

'Madam, he is a very bad man. He has stolen from you. He has used you.'

'No, not him . My husband. I was talking about my husband.'

That paused Sartaj. He fumbled for more tissues to hide his incredulity, and he cleared his throat. 'Yes, madam, of course.'

She leant forward, and she was fierce now. 'No, you don't understand. I know you think I am a bad woman.' Her make-up had been smudged away, and Sartaj had never seen her face so bare, not even on that first morning when she had been quarrelling in her nightclothes. 'But you don't understand. I want to be married to my husband. I don't want to leave him, I don't want a divorce. If I wanted to leave, I would have left a long time ago. I don't want to leave. I want to stay. Do you understand?'

She had the apradhi's need to explain herself, even after the danger of punishment had been extinguished. 'Madam?' Sartaj said.

'Are you married?'

'No.'

'No?'

'No.' Sartaj had no intention of explaining himself to Kamala Pandey, of trying to explain his own failures to this failed woman.

'Then you can't know.'

'Know what, madam?'

'Marriage is very hard. Falling in love, getting married, that is easy. But then you have a whole life left. You have years and years. And you want to stay, you want to. To stay, sometimes you need something. I know it sounds like a lie, like an excuse. But it is true. Having him there, he, you understand…'

She didn't want to say the name, Umesh, on her tongue, it was too bitter. 'The pilot?' Sartaj said.

'Yes, the pilot.' She shook her head from side to side, marvelling at herself, her life. 'He made it possible for me to stay with my husband. I swear. Otherwise I would have gone. I have my own job, I have a house to go to, with my parents. But I love my husband.' Her shoulders shook, and she cried a little, and blew her nose into tissues. She looked very young now, with strands of hair sticking to her cheeks. 'You have a bad opinion of me and my husband because you saw us fighting and all that. But really we are better than that. We are good together. You didn't have a chance to see that.'

Sartaj was sure that this was right, and true, that Kamala Pandey and Mr Mahesh Pandey were happy husband and wife, when they were not hitting each other. In marriage, as elsewhere, nothing was simple. Maybe Kamala needed the pilot, as her husband needed her, as she needed her husband. Somewhere within this tangle of need and loss and lies, there was the truth of love. 'Madam,' he said to Kamala Pandey, looking straight into her eyes, 'I understand.'

'I won't do it again, though. Not anything like this again, with some other man. It's not worth it.' She was troubled still, of course, guilty and unsure of herself and the future. She touched her hair, smoothed it behind a ear. 'How I must look. Are the bathrooms here clean?'

'Only medium-clean,' Sartaj said. 'And sometimes there is no running water.'

'I'll wait till I get home. I'll go home.' She began to gather up her purse and keys.

'Madam, we will get the pilot and talk sense into him. But please, don't you do anything. Don't talk to him, don't confront him. If he tries to get in touch with you, you refuse any calls or anything like that. And let us know.'

'I don't want to talk to him. I don't ever want to see him again.'

'Good. If there was an FIR and a case, we could have thrown him into jail. But we'll teach him. We will get any tapes and information he has, don't worry. And we will try and recover your money from him.'

She shuddered. 'I don't want anything from him. Just keep him away from me.'

'We will, madam.'

Then there was nothing else to say. She slid out of the booth, and tottered a little in her high heels. She was still shaky, but she would be all right. She would make it home. Women were strong, stronger than they looked. Even fancy women like Kamala Pandey.

'Oh, your money.' She rummaged in her purse, handed him a brown envelope.

'Thank you, madam.'

'Thank you,' she said. She straightened up. He saw her pull herself together and take command of her surfaces, put them together bit by bit, and now she was almost the Kamala he had known before. She turned sharply and walked away, very decisive and crisp.

Sartaj watched her go, her pert, gym-conditioned bottom and her confident walk, and thought that if she was very lucky he would never see her again, or hear from her. If, that is, she managed to hang on to the regret and fear that she had suffered for the past few weeks, and to all the anger against the pilot that would come in a day or two. But it was her confidence and self-possession that would lead her down ambiguous alleys, sooner or later. She would forget the hard lessons she had just learnt. She would believe that nothing like this would happen to her again. She would need to live with her husband, and to live a little apart from him. Life was long, and marriage was hard. She would maybe make mistakes again, because she loved her husband. Love, Sartaj mused, was an iron trap. Caught in its teeth, we thrash about, we save each other and we destroy each other.

Anyway, the case was closed. It was none of his business now, unless she called him again. He put his money in his pocket, and went back to the station.

* * *

Parulkar had just finished watching a demonstration of a new laptop when Sartaj knocked at his cabin door. 'Come in, come in,' he called. He acknowledged Sartaj's salute with a wave, and pointed him at a chair near the desk. Then he folded his hands over his belly and watched benignly over the young salesman, who was wrapping cords and cables and tucking them away into a carrying case.

'I will wait for your call, sir,' the salesman said.

'I will not call, someone from the technology committee will call,' Parulkar said. 'But be positive. You have very good technology.' He waited until the salesman was out of the room with his various briefcases, and then grinned at Sartaj. 'They have good machines, but very expensive. And they are not willing to compromise on price, to contribute to the strengthening of the police department and the country. So they will suffer.'