Vikram Chandra - Love and Longing in Bombay

When Sartaj asked about Chetanbhai Patel, Kshitij fell silent for a minute, a cup suspended halfway to his lips, his mouth open. Then, looking down into the cup of tea, he talked about his father. Chetanbhai was mostly a textile trader. He travelled often, to the interior sometimes, and they had thought he was late coming back from Nadiad this time, which is why they reported him missing two days after he was supposed to have returned. He did some export, mostly to the Middle East, but some to America and of course he wanted more. It was a long-established business, from before Kshitij’s birth. Like many businessmen he had sometimes been the victim of petty crime. Once a briefcase with cash in it had been stolen from a local train.

“Did he seem afraid?” Sartaj said. “Any enemies that you know of?”

“Enemies? No, of course not. Why would he have enemies?”

“Somebody in business that he had a quarrel with? Somebody in the locality?”

“No.”

“What about you?” Sartaj said. “Do you have any enemies?”

“What do I have to do with it?”

“Sometimes people die because they get caught in their children’s fights.”

Then there was again that flare of resentment in Kshitij, muted in the eyes but so strong in the shoulders and in the coil of his body that it was a kind of hatred.

“Do you have fights? Quarrels?” Sartaj said.

“No,” Kshitij said. “Why would I?”

“Everyone has enemies.”

“I haven’t done anything to make enemies.” He was now assured and confident and calm.

“Right,” Sartaj said. “I think now we will look around your house. And I would like to meet Mrs. Patel.”

*

In the jeep Sartaj considered his own vanity. He was sensitive to other people’s feelings about him, and had still not learnt to be indifferent to the fear he caused, to the anger of those he investigated. He hid this uneasiness carefully because there was no place for it in an investigator’s craft. To be hated was part of the job. But in college he had wanted to be loved by all, and Megha had teased him, you’re everyone’s hero. Then yours too, he had said. No, no, no, she said, and she shook her head, and kissed him. You have a terrible Panju accent, she said laughing, and your English is lousy, but you are just beautiful, and then she kissed him again. They had married out of vanity, their own and each other’s. He had been the Casanova of the college, with a dada ’s reputation that her friends had warned her about. But she had been so very sure of herself, of her very good looks like a hawk and that shine she had of money, and they were so handsome together that people stopped in the streets to look at them. After they married they liked to make love sitting facing each other, his hair open about his shoulders so they were like mirror images, hardly moving, eyes locked together in an undulating competition towards and away from pleasurable collapse. The memory rose into his throat and Sartaj shook it away as the Gypsy rocked to a halt. A double line of young men in khaki shorts was plunging across the road.

“Bloody idiots,” Sartaj said. “Won’t even stay home in the rain.”

“They’re Rakshaks , sir,” Katekar said, grinning. “Tough boys. A little rain won’t stop them. After all they want to clean up the country.”

“They’ll all catch colds,” Sartaj said. The banner carried at the rear of the procession was soggy and limp, but Sartaj could see one of the crossed spears. “And their mothers will have to wipe their noses.”

Katekar grinned. He rattled the gearshift to and fro and the Gypsy jerked forward. “How is Mata-ji?” he said.

“She’s very well,” Sartaj said. “She remembers you often.” Katekar was a great devotee of Sartaj’s mother. Every time she stayed with Sartaj, Katekar made a special point of coming up to the flat, and touching her feet, not once but three times, bringing his hand up to his throat. Sartaj knew Katekar’s mother had died just after Katekar had joined the force.

“Please tell her I said pranaam. ”

Sartaj nodded, and looked over his shoulder. Kshitij was staring dully at the window and crying. His hands were locked together in his lap and the tears were sliding down his face. Now Katekar cursed softly as the jeep growled through a long patch of flooded road, leaving a wake behind. Sartaj turned away from Kshitij and shifted in his seat. Katekar was leaning forward, peering through the regularly spaced waves of water that the wipers were making on the windshield. He was cursing the water, the streets, and the city. His hands around the black plastic of the steering wheel were thick, with huge bulky wrists. He looked at Sartaj and smiled, and Sartaj had to grin back at him. In the rearview mirror, Sartaj could see Kshitij’s shoulder, the line of his jaw, and he thought, it’s always hard on the serious ones, they were always tragic with their earnestness and their belief in seriousness. He remembered two boys who were the grandsons of farmers in his grandfather’s village near Patiala. He recalled them vaguely from a summer visit to the village, remembered them in blue pants and ties. There had been a celebration of their results in the seventh class exams, and he had tried to talk to them about the test match that everyone was listening to but had found them boring and uninformed. After that he had never seen them again and had not thought of them for years until his father had mentioned them during a Sunday phone call. They had been caught by a BSF patrol as they came over the border in the dunes near Jaisalmer laden with grenades and ammunition. They had tried to fire back but had been neatly outflanked and machine-gunned. The papers had reported the death of two Grade-A terrorists and had reported their names and their affiliations. There had been a grainy black-and-white photograph of sprawled, bloodied figures with open mouths. Sartaj had never heard of their organization but had no doubt it was a very serious one.

*

The Apsara stood among a crowd of mourners, holding her pot tipped forward. The door to the apartment was open and Kshitij was surrounded by young men as soon as they stepped from the lift. In the front room neighbours sat and talked in whispers, and an older man embraced Kshitij for a long moment. Then Kshitij stood facing the door to the bedroom at the back of the house, and the seconds passed, and in his shoulders there was a huge reluctance, as if the next step were from one world into another. Finally the old man took Kshitij by the elbow and led him forward. Sartaj and Katekar followed behind closely, and over many shoulders Sartaj saw a woman sitting on the ground, surrounded by other women. They were holding her by the shoulders and arms, and she had one leg curled under her and the other straight out in front. She looked up with a blank face and Kshitij stopped. Sartaj wanted very much to see the boy’s reaction, and he started to push gently past the old man but suddenly the woman started to keen, it was a long wailing sound that arched her back and the others strained to keep her still. It came again and Sartaj shivered, it was somehow quite expressionless, like a long blank wall stretching forever, and as stunning. Kshitij stood helplessly before it, and the room was very close, bodies pushed up to each other and the light broken up somehow into fragments of faces, and then Sartaj turned and walked out of the room. It was bad technique but he couldn’t bring himself to look at them any more. The rest of the house was also filled and stifling, and Sartaj jostled shoulders and pushed until he was out.

*

Sartaj sat wrapped safely in the loneliness of his flat. It was very dark, moonless, and the small space between the gleams on the furniture held him comfortably in its absolute silence. He knew that if he disturbed nothing, not even the shadows on the floor, he could hold on to the madly delicate balance of peace that he had struggled himself into. He was trying not to think, and succeeding from moment to moment, and then the phone shrilled across the back of his neck. He held on for an instant, but on the third ring he turned his head and reached behind and picked it up. His hand was damp on the receiver and now he felt the sweat running down his sides.