Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

'Why did you take the money, Ganesh?'

'Why did you go away?'

'I told you that we would never see each other again.'

'But not that you would vanish.'

'Ganesh,' he sighed. 'Ganesh. After all this time you haven't understood that fundamental teaching I tried to give you. We are all lost to each other already. To cling in love is to betray love itself.'

'Big words,' I said. 'Big-big words.' There I was, Ganesh Gaitonde, standing on the side of the highway, within sight of hundreds of men and women as they went to home and work, stamping my feet. There were passing gaggles of blue-skirted schoolgirls who could see the tears I was wiping from my eyes. But I didn't care. 'I was calling you, and there was no reply,' I said. 'But it was only when you lost some dollars that you cared to call me.'

'It's not the dollars, Ganesh,' Guru-ji said. 'It's the inconvenience. I am in the middle of a big project. I need the cash to make certain payments. I don't care about money, but the rest of the world wants hard currency.'

'What is this project?'

'I will tell you that it is a big project, Ganesh.'

'Did you make me a part of it?'

'Everyone has a part in it.'

'Don't play games with me. Answer me. Answer me.' I fought for control over myself, lowered my voice. 'You had us bring in some kind of nuclear material. Don't tell me you didn't. My men died.'

He sighed. 'Yes, Ganesh. That is true enough.'

'What are you going to do with it?' I said. He was silent. 'Tell me, and I'll give your money back.'

'Will you, Ganesh? Will you really if I tell you the purpose?'

'Yes,' I said. 'I will.'

'I wonder if you will have the courage. But why do you ask me, Ganesh? I think that perhaps you already know.'

I felt a stab of outrage, that this old man was questioning my courage. Me, who had risked so much for him. But I stopped myself, I said nothing. For what would I not have courage? I turned, and looked at the untidy roofs of a basti stretching away below the raised road, and the clustered buildings beyond. This man had first come to me wanting weapons. He was preparing for war. I wasn't afraid of battles, I had thrown myself into combat all my life. But if his war came, it would be a big one, it would burn through every corner of India. It would be painful, he had said to me, but afterwards we will be better. We will find peace. And then I remembered standing on the roof of the house he had built close to the border, and seeing a sea of green, and glimpsing – for only a moment – a perfect happiness, everything fresh and completely new and unstained, and me, I was young again and full of hope, and the world was again newborn and vast, and I was smiling.

And in that moment, I knew.

I heard myself say, against the living roar of the city, 'You want a bigger war.'

'Very good, Ganesh. A war bigger than the one you thought we were getting ready for.'

'You built…a bomb?'

'Don't ask me such questions, Ganesh. I can't answer those. I told you, you know already. What would I do with such a thing?'

'Set it off. In a city somewhere. In Mumbai.'

'And who would be held responsible?'

'You would make sure it was some Muslim organization.'

'Very good. And then what?'

Then? Bloodshed. Murder everywhere. If there was tension on the border, maybe some kind of retaliation. Maybe even if there wasn't tension, war would come, a real war, a war that would eat millions, a war unlike anything we had ever heard of. But these were only words. I tried to imagine it, but I couldn't. I could only feel a hole inside myself, an emptiness so deep that it could swallow Mumbai, the country, everything.

'Listen,' I said. 'You shouldn't do it.'

'Why not?' he said. 'Are you afraid of dying? You've been so close to death so many times, you can't be afraid of it. And you know you will die, if not today, then tomorrow. You have dug holes for so many, someone will dig a hole for you. You told me that, once.'

'I don't care about my own death.'

'But you care about the death of many? A few thousand, or a few million? Why, Ganesh? You have killed a few hundred in your life, at least. What does it matter, a few more?'

I didn't have an answer for him. I didn't know why it mattered, but it did. I imagined this crawling ants' nest of a city eaten by fire, all of it crumpled and black and twisting and finally gone. They led miserable, small lives, these scuttling millions. After they were gone, after the great cleansing wind that would take not only this city but every other one, there would be space for a new start. From all the sermons I had listened to, from fragments of lessons and from wisps of Sanskrit, came this certain knowledge: this is what Guru-ji wanted, this complete erasure of everything I knew. And I was scared. I couldn't speak.

He understood this. 'You are weak, Ganesh,' he said. 'Despite my best efforts you lack strength. You are wilful and violent, but all that is only a thin covering for your frailty. Underneath you are as sentimental as a woman. But it's not your fault. This is the general condition of the human race in this Kaliyug, Ganesh. All these United Nations, these dreamy-eyed do-gooders who rush to stop conflicts, they don't understand that some wars must be fought, that killing must happen. They think they have stopped war, but all they ensure is a state of constant, smouldering war. Look at India and Pakistan, bleeding each other for more than fifty years. Instead of a final, glorious battle, we have a long, filthy mess. These well-meaning idiots always chatter on about the progress of the human race, but they don't understand that progress cannot occur without destruction. Every golden age must be preceded by an apocalypse. It has always been so, and it will be so again. But now we have become too cowardly to let time move on. We stop up its wheels, we clog it up with our fears. Think of it, Ganesh. For more than fifty years we have put off the fight on our borders, and suffered small humiliations and small bloodshed every day. We have been dishonoured and disgraced, and have become used to living with this shame. We have become a whole race of quailing Arjuns fleeing from what we know to be our duty. But enough. We will fight. The battle is necessary.'

'But everything will be finished,' I said, in a child's quavering voice. 'Everything.'

'Exactly so. Every great religious tradition predicts this burning, Ganesh. We all know it's coming.'

'Why? But why?'

'You told me yourself, when you were making that film. What was it called?'

' International Dhamaka .'

He gurgled with glee again. 'Yes, Dhamaka . You told me that every story needed a climax, and a big story needed a big climax. Read the signs in this world, the signs all over this life we lead, and see what it needs. It wants an ending, Ganesh. It needs a close, so it can start over again. You're only scared because you're seeing it from the inside. Step outside and take a look, and you will see how it cannot end any other way.'

'I'll stop you.'

'How, Ganesh? I've learnt security from you. And you have taught me well. You found me once, long ago, because my people were careless. But you won't find me again. You haven't found me after all these months of searching. You can't do anything. Nobody can do anything. Time will move on. The inevitable will come. You took my money, and all you did was delay what must happen, what has to happen. That is all.'

'So what do you want from me, then?'

'Don't fight me. Don't go against the mechanism of history. Give me back my money.'

'No. I won't be part of this.'

'You are already a part of it, Ganesh. You made it possible, you ran part of it, and whatever you do now, you will help it to happen. Whether you act or don't act, the war will come, the blood will flow. You can't stop it. You can't stop yourself, Ganesh.'