Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

'Sir, about our video camera…I'm sorry.'

'Sorry for?'

'For making the video.'

Sartaj felt a daze settle over his shoulders like a fine mist. 'The video. Yes.'

'It wasn't my idea.' Thomas managed to tell it all now, in fits and starts. It wasn't his idea. It was Lalita's idea. Lalita was his girlfriend, a year older than him. They had been in a relationship for a year. When Thomas had got his new video camera they had taken it out and shot footage of all their friends, and of the city, and of random people on the streets. For a few days they had shot a short film written by Thomas, but they abandoned it half-way because they were bored. Then Lalita wanted to shoot them, the two of them together, just hanging about in Thomas's room. Then once the camera was on, they forgot it was on.

'Forgot?' Sartaj said.

'Yes.' For a while they forgot. When they remembered, Lalita didn't want to switch it off. So there was a shot of them kissing.

Sartaj rubbed his eyes, and pinwheels spiralled and disappeared. He dropped his hands, and Thomas was still there, young and handsome in his tight white T-shirt, with his string of small beads around his neck. Still there, and inexplicable and yet real and present. 'Only kissing?' Sartaj said.

'Yes, yes. Our clothes were always on.' So their clothes had stayed on, but still his mother had been furious when by chance she had picked up the camera and switched it on and seen them on the LCD. Yes, one or two of Thomas's friends had seen the video, but that was all. And Rachel Mathias had immediately destroyed the footage. And that was the end of it, until Sartaj showed up, asking questions about video cameras.

Sartaj knew he should say something, maybe shout at the boy, terrify him. He was certain that shooting the video had been Thomas's idea, not Lalita's. Or maybe not. Maybe the Lalita that Thomas was describing did exist. Yes, Sartaj was sure she did. What did Sartaj know about the world these boys and girls lived in, with their video cameras and their internet and their relationships at fifteen? Who were these people? He lived next to them, along with the thousands of other lives in the city, and he knew them and didn't know them. All of it existed together somehow. Sartaj made an effort, and finally managed to be stern with Thomas. 'If you do this kind of thing at this age,' he said, 'you will ruin your whole life.' He went on, but he didn't know if he believed any of it himself. As he walked Thomas to the door, a hand on his shoulder, Sartaj surprised himself. 'Listen,' he said, 'look after your mother. She's all alone, and she works very hard for you and your brother. Be good. Don't give her trouble.'

He hadn't planned on asking for virtue for Rachel Mathias's sake, but Thomas seemed to be affected by it, more so than by the warnings and admonitions that Sartaj had just delivered.

'Yes, sir,' Thomas said, his eyes wet. 'Sorry, sir. I will.'

* * *

Sartaj woke up from a deep, dreamless sleep, to a fan making a hazy white circle over a green ceiling. With a great effort, he turned his head. Mary was sitting on the floor, flipping through a magazine. The sound was down on the television, and a great, silent herd of gazelles leapt over a rise and vanished into yellow grass. 'What time is it?' Sartaj said. It was dark outside.

'Nine-thirty. You were very tired.'

'I was. What are you reading?'

'It's a travel magazine. There is an article about diving in the Andaman islands. It's so beautiful under the water. Look.' She got up and sat on the bed next to him. Orange and red fish swam in water that was so blue that it jumped from the page.

Sartaj propped himself up on an elbow. 'Why don't you go?' he said. 'You should take a vacation.'

'Will you come?'

'Me? No, I don't even know how to swim.'

'I am saving for Africa anyway.'

'Yes. But, meanwhile, take a vacation. How about Kodaikanal?'

'I've been there.'

'Then go to your village.'

'There's nothing there to go back for. Why are you trying to send me away?'

Sartaj sat up. He took the magazine from her, and held both her hands in his. 'It's very dangerous here in the city, right now. We are expecting a big terrorist action. They are going to do something, we know that. So maybe you should go away.'

Mary's shoulders hunched. 'Will you come?'

'I have to stay here.'

'Why?'

'It's my job.'

'To find them?'

'Yes.'

'What are they going to do?'

'Something, something very bad, very big.'

She burst out laughing. Then she stopped herself, and was very serious. 'Sorry. I believe you completely. That's why I'm laughing. What else can you do but laugh?'

'You are very brave.'

'No. Not brave at all. I'm afraid. But it's too crazy to think about.'

'So will you go?'

'No. Not alone. What is the point? Everything I have is here.'

Her eyes were moist. He kissed her then, and she curled into him. She kept her lips on his, and her tongue was warm and supple, and she moved up over him. They laughed together as he winced and moved his thigh from under her knee. She kissed him, on the corners of his lips, and then she reached down and took his hand. She drew it up, put it on her breast. For a quiet moment, they were still, and Sartaj saw how the flecks in her eyes moved in the lamplight, and behind those there was a soft, unknowable darkness. They smiled at each other. Sartaj began to undo the buttons on her blue shirt, one by one. The buttons were very small, and he had difficulty with each one. He felt quite clumsy. Mary chortled at him, and arched her back as he went lower, to help him. He imitated her giggling, and she came back to him, her cheek against his beard, and they laughed together. She drew the shirt off her shoulders, revealing a lustrous sweep of brown skin, and slipped down beside him. Sartaj leaned over her. She put a palm on the back of his neck, and drew him to her.

* * *

Lying with Mary under a sheet, skin against skin, Sartaj told her about his childhood. She wanted to know his life from the beginning. ' Tell me,' she had said. They were now up to his teenage years. It was very late, long past midnight, but Sartaj felt alert and strangely content. His body was relaxed, the pleasant ache in his muscles was the memory of their sex. He had been clumsy, and insecure, and too solicitous afterwards, but somehow none of that mattered. It had been good to be embraced by her, to feel the living pulse inside her. It was good to lie with her, to move her hair behind her ears, and answer her questions. Now she wanted to know, 'So what was her name?'

Sartaj had been telling her about his first girlfriend. 'Sudha Sharma. She lived two buildings down, and her brother was my best friend at the time.'

'Later he found out about you and his sister and beat you up?'

'No, no, he never found out. He would have killed me. But we were very careful.'

'How old were you?'

'Fifteen.'

'Fifteen! At fifteen I knew nothing about sex, absolutely nothing. You were so bad at fifteen?' Mary pinched the skin on his shoulder, hard.

'Arre, I didn't say we had sex. Where was there to have sex? In her father's bedroom? There were so many aunts and grandmothers in that house you couldn't turn around without having some woman ask you what you were doing.'

'But you corrupted that poor girl anyway.'

'Me, corrupt? Ha. I wouldn't have had the courage to look at her, even. She was three years older, and she was the one who gave me extra aampapad to eat every time I went over there. And held my hand under the table. I was so scared I couldn't drink my glass of water.'

'These Bombay girls are too fast. So then?'

'We used to meet after her tuitions in the afternoon.'

'And then you kissed her?'

'She kissed me.'