Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

'Yes, sir.'

'Only your Ma uses it?'

'Yes, sir. I have even stopped using it since I got my mobile, sir, it is cheaper to make calls on the mobile than on the land line. But Ma, sir, she doesn't like mobiles. She says they're too small and have too many buttons.' Sartaj was suddenly aware that he was saying 'sir' too much. Calm down, he told himself. Look at the man. But don't stare at him. Drink your chai. Don't shake the cup.

'All right,' Parulkar said. He always made decisions that suddenly. He weighed the alternatives, ran down the moves as far as he could and then he jumped. He had the courage and faith of a good gambler, and the confidence that he would win. 'All right. But tell Iffat-bibi that the call comes in at three precisely. If they are two minutes late, I leave. And we will keep the conversation short. Ten minutes maximum.'

'Yes, sir.'

'And Suleiman Isa is not to use my name during the call, or his.'

'I will inform them, sir.'

'Right. Shabash, Sartaj. Let us get this over with. And don't tell your mother I am coming. We will surprise her as well.'

'Of course, sir,' Sartaj said. He stood up, saluted. He could feel his shirt wet against his lower back. The stain would be huge, despite the humming air-conditioner. He moved the chair aside, awkwardly, and backed away. He was almost at the door when Parulkar called.

'Sartaj?'

'Yes, sir?'

'You look very tired. What is the matter?'

'That alert from Delhi, sir. They have us all running around.'

'All nonsense. Their intelligence is too vague, there is nothing specific. It is all very ridiculous. There is no bomb-vomb. You take some rest.'

'Yes, sir.'

Outside, Sartaj nodded at Parulkar's guards and walked towards the staircase. He wanted very much to sit down on one of the benches and rest his wobbly legs, but he made it downstairs and kept walking, out of the station, past the crowds and the guards, through the high gate with its curving sign overhead, and stumbling along the street, through the preoccupied pedestrians and the swooping cars and the stray dogs with their scabied flesh. He stood at a corner, blinking. He did not know where he was. He turned to peer up at shop windows and street signs, and he realized he had somehow crossed a busy road. It was as wide as a black river, and the hungry eddies of vehicles swept by unceasingly. He did not know how he had come across, at the risk of his life, but here he was. His mouth was painfully dry, but he did not want a drink. He just wanted to get back to work. Far down to the left, there was a traffic light with a crossing. The bright circles flashed orange and green, green and orange. Sartaj made his way back to the station.

* * *

On Thursday, Sartaj drove out early. He told himself that he wanted to get to Ma's and prepare, that he wanted to travel in the cool of the early morning. But he had been unable to sleep, and finally it was easier to get up and start the car and drive than toss about in the musty sheets. It was good to be up in the mountains, to twist and loop along the old road. If he went fast and recklessly, the danger pushed everything out of his head, and he roared through Matheran and Khandala with only a thin skirl of memories trailing behind him, Megha and college picnics and walking up a domed hill. And then he was in Pune, and there was nothing to do but go home to Ma.

She was squatting in the front room, surrounded by open trunks. 'Look at these old sweaters,' she said to Sartaj. 'I forgot I even had them.'

Sartaj bent low to her. 'Peri pauna, Ma.' He lowered the battered lid of a black trunk and sat on it, his calves against the almost faded stencilling of Papa-ji's full name. 'What are you doing?'

'Beta, there are too many things here. If you also don't want them, what is the use of keeping them here?'

Ever since Papa-ji had died, she had gone on these cleaning binges every six months. She had given personal and household effects to cousins, aunts, uncles, servants, neighbours and beggars. She had shocked Sartaj sometimes with her ruthlessness, her detachment from old chairs and walking sticks and blue blazers. The only things that had seemed safe were old photographs and letters, but maybe even those would disappear in this round of vetting. Ma had an old photo close to her, on the floor. Sartaj knew it well, that blackened silver frame, as long as he could remember Ma had kept it in her cupboard, nestled close to her dupattas, where she would see it every morning. He picked it up, and there she was, held for ever in blooming youth, Ma's lost sister. She was lovely, she flung a flow of jet-black hair over her shoulders as she laughed, turning back to the camera, and her body was a taut curve leaning into the far horizon. Sartaj knew every detail of the picture, he knew her name was Navneet, and that was about all he knew. Ma hadn't liked to speak about her. Now, perhaps, beautiful Navneet would also vanish. Sartaj didn't like it, this slow erosion of the home that he remembered, that he carried within himself. It was terrifying sometimes to come back to Pune and find another few pieces of it gone. One day, he thought, all that will be left will be these white walls. And then, not even that.

But he couldn't stop Ma. How could you argue with generosity? And in old age she had become stubborn and independent. She did what she wanted. 'Yes, Ma. That's true. But do you really want to give that cardigan? You really liked that one.'

She held up a green cardigan by its shoulders, and then ran a finger along its red border of flowers. 'Where will I need this? All these Maharashtrians come out in heavy coats in December, and it doesn't even feel like winter to me.'

She prided herself on her northern love of low temperatures, and her Punjabi hardiness. 'If we go up to Amritsar,' Sartaj said, 'you will want it.'

'When? For months you've been telling me that, beta.'

'Soon, soon, Ma. Promise.'

She didn't seem at all convinced, but she did put the green cardigan on the right, in the small pile of items that were to be retained. Sartaj didn't want to watch any more, this patient excavation and disposal of their life together. 'I'm going for a walk,' he said.

She nodded, working at the stubborn lock on another trunk.

'All this will be scattered about all day?' he said.

'I have to do the work. Why?'

To warn her of Parulkar's visit was impossible, so Sartaj shrugged. 'Do you want anything from the market?'

She didn't. She seemed entirely more self-sufficient than he remembered from his childhood, when Papa-ji and servants and sometimes neighbours had been required to fetch and carry, to run errands and escort her from here to there. Sartaj couldn't decide whether she had actually changed, or whether she had whittled down her needs and desires so much that the only person she really required was herself. He had no doubt of her love for him, and of her faith in Vaheguru, but even these attachments now sat lightly on her. She wanted only to go to Amritsar, and maybe she was readying herself for another journey. Sartaj shivered, and walked faster.

The lane to the market was busy with white-haired women and men carrying jholas full of vegetables and fruit. Sartaj greeted some of them, the ones he knew from the gurudwara or from walks with Ma. In this locality of many retirees, the morning shoppers had time to stop and chat, and Sartaj was glad to listen to their reports about their sons and daughters, their thoughts on crime and their complaints about politicians. But finally there was no way to avoid going home, to what was to happen, and he trudged back. He was laden with packages himself now. It was hot, even under the rain trees and the gulmohars, and his feet sweltered and ached inside his shoes.

'What have you brought?' Ma said. Next to her, the pile of things to keep was just about the same size as when Sartaj had left, and the other stacks had grown.