Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

'Caught?' Sartaj said very quietly.

She cleared her throat. 'I was at work. I started feeling very sick, weak. There was a viral fever going around at that time. Everyone had it. You could feel the temperature on my skin. The shop-owner said, go home. So I went home. They were in my bed.'

There was danger always in this moment, when the subject first revealed her or his humiliation. Too heavy a touch, even of sympathy, and you would lose them as they curled up around their exposed pain, closed up and hid all the essential detail. 'I understand,' Sartaj said. 'He must have tried to say it was all right, that nothing had changed.'

At this she was faintly startled, surprised by him, and now he could see the glisten of her pupils. 'Yes,' she said. 'I think he had some idea that we could all live happily together. That I would keep working for them, making the money to dress both of them and send them to their meetings.'

'And she?'

'She…she was angry at me. As if I had done something wrong. "I love him," she said. She kept saying that. I love him. As if I didn't. I finally said that. He's my husband, I said. And she said, no, you don't love him. You can't. She was screaming. And I was so angry. To hear my sister say that. To know what my sister and my husband had done. Get out, I said to her. Go away.'

'Then?'

'He left with her. He came back two days later to get their clothes.'

'Yes.'

'Then we divorced. It was very difficult. I couldn't pay the rent. I tried to get into the women's hostel, but they had no space. For a while I stayed at the YWCA. Then I had to live in a jhopadpatti, in Bandra East. All kinds of places I've seen.'

'You didn't want to go home?'

'To my mother? To that house I grew up in, with Jojo? No, I couldn't live there. I couldn't go back.'

So even a slum was better, better than that home left far behind. 'You have a good place now,' Sartaj said.

'It took a long time. I started in this salon cleaning the hair from the floor, washing the scissors and combs.'

'Did you see her again?'

'Two, three times. The judge makes you go to counselling before they let you get a divorce. She was there to meet him afterwards. I didn't speak to her. Then I saw her when the judge granted the divorce.'

'And after that?'

'I heard about them once or twice, from relatives and friends. They were living in Goregaon. Still trying to get her into films, anything. I saw her on television once, some advertisement for saris. Bas, that was it.'

'You never spoke to her again?'

'No. My mother was very angry at her also. Ma was sick, and Jojo tried to get in touch, but Ma said no, she didn't want to speak to her, to that sinful, shameless girl. She died without ever speaking to Jojo. And I didn't really want to know anything about Jojo.'

'So, not even a little news from somewhere?'

She shook her head. 'Once. Maybe two, three years ago. I have an aunt in Bangalore. My mother's sister. She said she saw Jojo at the airport.'

'Your aunty spoke to her?'

'No. She knew what she had done.'

'Jojo was getting on a plane?'

'Yes. She must have made money. I don't know how. I don't know anything about her. About what happened to her.'

What happened to her. How an ambitious, lovelorn teenager became a trader in bodies, how she ended up dead, murdered by a suicidal bhai. He didn't know how, but he could imagine it, the descent from filmi parties into many kinds of underworld. 'We also have very little information about her,' he said. 'She worked in television, produced some shows. There were some other activities.'

'Activities?'

'We are investigating. When we know more, I will tell you. If you hear anything, anything at all, please call me.' She would, Sartaj thought. She had a certain hope in him now. From these little scraps, these fragments, maybe she could reconstruct her sister, and forgive her, and herself. 'I'm glad you spoke to me,' he said.

'She was a sweet girl,' Mary said. 'When we were small, she was scared of thunder. She used to crawl into my side of the bed late at night and push her head into my stomach and sleep.'

Sartaj nodded. Yes, Jojo was also that scared little girl, holding on to her sister. It was a good thing to know. He drove Mary home. From the car, he watched her climb the stairs to her room. The light went on inside, and he reversed out into the main road. On the way home, as he veered left into the curve at Juhu Chowpatty, it began to rain.

* * *

Iffat-bibi called Sartaj just as he was finishing his dinner of Afghan chicken and tandoori roti from the Sardar's Grill down the road. 'Saab, I have an answer.'

'To my question?'

'Yes. Bunty was thokoed by two freelance shooters.'

'Working for whom?'

'Nobody. It was personal. Bunty took a girl from one of them some three, four years ago.'

'Took?'

'She liked Bunty's money better than the freelancer. This idiot freelancer was in love with her.'

So Bunty had died for a woman, not land or gold. Or for anything to do with Ganesh Gaitonde. 'Okay,' Sartaj said. Bunty had wounded a lover, and the lover had waited and nursed his anger and been patient until Bunty's fortunes fell into steep decline. 'Okay.'

'You want them?'

'Who?'

'The freelancers. We know where they are right now, where they will spend the night. Where they will be tomorrow.'

'You want to give them to me?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'Think of it as just a gift between new friends.' Her Urdu was impeccable, and her voice could go cushiony and soft.

Sartaj got up, stretched and walked to the balcony. He leaned over the railing, and watched the treetops swaying in the damp breeze. The lamps threw the shadows of their leaves across the smooth surfaces of the cars.

'Saab?'

'Iffat-bibi, I am not worthy of such a gift. You have an old relationship with Parulkar Saab. Why don't you give it to him? I don't handle these bhai and company and shooter matters.'

'Is this true? Or do you think I am not worthy of giving you something?'

'Arre, no, Bibi. I am just afraid that when the time comes, I will have nothing equal to give you in return. I am a small man.'

She made a smacking sound full of exasperation. 'The son is just like the father. All right, all right.'

'Bibi, I meant no offence.'

'I know. But really, I used to tell this to Sardar Saab also, how will you get ahead if you don't make the big deals? And he always said, "Iffat-bibi, I have flown as high as I can. Let my son go further."'

'He said that?'

'Yes, he spoke about you often. I remember when you passed your twelfth, he distributed sweets. Pedas and burfis.'

Sartaj remembered the pedas, the saffrony taste of them that contained all the future. 'Maybe I am like him also, yes. Parulkar Saab moved ahead.'

'Yes, with Sardar Saab's help all the time. Parulkar was a sharp one from the beginning, see. Always thinking, thinking. There was this case, a robbery gang on the docks.'

She told him then about this gang, which had people on the inside and outside of the docks. They pilfered goods, of course, but they also took equipment and fuel, anything worth a little money. Parulkar had broken the case, with lots of Sardar Saab's help, his contacts and sources, all of which Sardar Saab was glad to give him. But when the time came for arrests, Parulkar let a senior inspector take the apradhis in and enjoy all the credit. 'It would have been a big case for Parulkar, but he saw ahead, see? Lose some heavy arrests now, but profit later.'

'He's fast like that.'

'How fast, you don't even know. But you haven't learnt much from him.' He knew she was smiling, and couldn't help smiling back.

'What to do, Bibi? We are who we are.'

'Yes, we are as Allah makes us.'

They said their farewells, and Sartaj went back to picking at his chicken. He was craving a peda, but it was late and he was tired. He comforted himself with another shot of whisky, and promised himself two pedas at lunch. He was sure it was going to be a good day.