Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

'Yes, yes. Where?'

'Why, here, of course,' Sartaj said, pointing to his lips.

'Not that, you silly man.' Mary made a mock-angry face, but kissed him anyway, a quick peck where he had pointed. 'I meant, where? In her father's bedroom?'

'The first time, in the family room of a restaurant in Colaba. She had two girls with her, but they left us alone. Then, after that, you know, on the rocks in Bandra.'

'On the seafront? Really, she was shameless.'

'Sudha? No. She was just Sudha.'

His smile must have been a little too fond, because Mary pinched him again. 'So what happened? Did you marry her?'

'I was too young. She married someone a couple of years later. All arranged by her parents. I went to the wedding.'

'Oh. Poor boy.'

'No, it wasn't like that. We never thought we would get married. I was too young. And not from her caste either.'

'And still she seduced you. My God.' But Mary was teasing now, and stroking at his chest. 'But I suppose she just couldn't resist Sartaj Singh.'

'Yes. I was already almost my full height, you know.'

'And almost as handsome as you are now. A full hero, almost.'

She was mocking him now, gently, and he scooped her up and over himself. 'Are you making fun of me? Are you?' He had discovered already that she was very ticklish, and now she shrieked and twisted under the tips of his fingers.

'Only a little fun,' she finally got out.

Her breasts flattened against him, hiding and then revealing the dark rounds of her nipples. She saw him looking and reached for the sheet. She was strangely shy for a woman her age, one who had been married and divorced. Maybe that is what village girls were like. Sartaj had never been with one before. This particular one was now lying on her side, the sheet pulled up to her chin, gazing intently at him. 'What?' Sartaj said.

'What what? Don't think you're going to distract me just like that. Okay, so this fast girl got married to some unfortunate man. Then what happened? Who did you marry?'

So he pulled her close and told her about Megha, about the thrill of their impossible college romance, which went across class and the impenetrable boundaries of accent and clothing and music. He told her about how Megha had found his affection for old Shammi Kapoor numbers quite incomprehensible, and how she had trained him not to wear flared pants. And how, finally, they had married and failed. Or maybe they had succeeded in some small way, in not hurting each other too much.

Mary murmured sympathetically as he told the story, and then she sighed and her breathing evened out. Her body made small twitches, extensions and contractions of her arms and legs, and Sartaj smiled. Her hair brushed across his nostrils, and he remembered those long-ago days of walking with Sudha on Marine Drive, of being maniacally excited and terrified as he pressed his thigh against hers in the back booth of an Irani restaurant. He had thought a lot about sex and love in those days, sometimes it seemed that not a minute passed without some overwrought image of sex skittering through his brain. And there had been that anguished longing for an imagined someone, a hazy and yet incandescent woman who was beautiful, and good, and understanding, and sexy, and supportive, and everything else. He had once thought that Megha was all these things, and Vaheguru only knew what Megha had imagined him to be. They had disappointed each other. He had thought he might never recover from the disillusionment, and for a while he had fancied himself a cynic. Then he had discovered that he was still very much a sentimentalist, that he wept late at night over Dilip Kumar in Dil Diya Dard Liya , that he felt a huge lump in his throat when he read newspaper stories about poor boys who had studied by the light of streetlamps and made it through the IAS exams. Now there was this woman, this Mary resting against him. This was not illusion, or heated filmi romance, or cynicism, or sentiment, this was something else. Love had turned out to be something altogether other than what he had imagined it would be, at fifteen.

Sartaj moved his shoulder from under Mary's head, and settled her on a pillow. He turned towards her, rested his fingers on her thigh and tried to sleep. But now he couldn't help thinking of the bomb. He was feeling safe now, so he tried again to imagine what it must look like, this device, and could only come up with some silly image of a tangle of wires against steel, inset panels that displayed racing neon numbers. Maybe this device would take Mary away from him, just as he had finally found her. He knew this to be true, and yet he didn't feel the strong emotion that he expected, some rage, or black melancholy, or despair. He touched Mary's cheek. We are all already lost to each other, he thought. In the moment of our possession we lose those we love, to mortality, to time, to history, to themselves. What we have are these fragments of generosity, these gifts of faith and friendship and desire that we can give to each other. Whatever comes later, nothing can betray this lying in the dark, this breathing together. This is enough. We are here, and we will stay here. Perhaps Kulkarni was wrong about the people of Bombay, perhaps they would stay in their city even if they knew that a great fire was coming. Perhaps they would wait for the bomb in these tangled lanes, grown out of the earth without forethought or plan. People came here from gaon and vilayat, and they found a place to sit, they lay down on a dirty patch of land, which shifted and settled to take them in, and then they lived. And so they would stay.

* * *

Still, of course, the search for the guru and his men continued. Sartaj followed leads, went to apartment buildings in Kailashpada and Narain Nagar, where people had reported their suspicions about their neighbours. And also bastis in faraway Virar. On the Friday afternoon, Sartaj stopped in at the Delite Dance Bar. Shambhu Shetty gave him a Pepsi and asked, 'Boss, what's going on? I'm getting two visits from the constables per day, at least. They come thumping in, and ask my staff about some wheelchair man and some foreigner. And why would sadhus come into a bar anyway? But your people barge in every day. It's not good for business, you know.'

'It's just one of those alerts from Delhi, Shambhu,' Sartaj said. 'There is some information, so we have been told to follow up on it. That is all. It is very urgent, so we have to look everywhere. You never know where you can hear something. The constables have their orders.'

Shambhu was still irritated. 'Why do they disrupt work like that? They come in during busy times also, it really affects our collections. As it is, our whole business is in danger. There are rumours that if the government changes in the next elections, those Congress bastards may ban dance bars altogether. If it's not one gaandu trying to protect Indian culture, it's another one. Bastard politicians. You know how many times I get MLAs and ministers asking me to send girls for private parties?' Shambhu was complaining, but he looked prosperous and well-fed. Marriage seemed to agree with him.

'Yes, Shambhu, I know. But right now, let the constables do their job. This is an emergency. Could be serious. Really, if you know anything you should let me know. Okay?'

Shambhu stretched and scratched his belly. 'What, is it those bastard Muslims again?'

'No,' Sartaj said. 'It's not Muslims. Not at all. Just look out for a wheelchair and a foreigner, Shambhu. It's very important.'

But Shambhu wasn't convinced. He slouched off, muttering. He had recently made a contact at MTNL who arranged free long-distance calls on the red phone in his office. So he had invited Sartaj in to share the bounty, and had taken the opportunity to make his complaints about the constables. Sartaj picked up the phone and dialled. If Shambhu was getting irritated by the questioning, and his customers were noticing it, it was likely that the apradhis also knew that they were being pursued. A big investigation left a big footprint, and subtlety wasn't something that came easily to tired constables at the end of their shifts.