Vikram Chandra - Love and Longing in Bombay

*

Late that night I came back to the gym on Atreya Lane. Now there was a man in a khaki uniform sitting on a stool by the door. It was past ten, but I could see through the door that the room was crowded with heavy-shouldered men in banians and T-shirts. The music was heavy and loud.

“Members only‚” the doorman said.

“I want to talk to your manager. Owner?”

“Nobody is here. Members only.”

“Will your manager be coming later tonight? Anybody? Who is in charge?”

He shrugged. He was chewing a paan , and now he turned his head and spat into the darkness.

“I’ll wait here,” I said, pointing to the gate. “When whoever is in charge comes, you tell him that I want to talk to him.” I groped about in my pocket and held out a twenty-rupee note. He chewed, and looked disinterestedly at the first button on my shirt. I walked to the gate, and leaned against the cracked concrete. Above my head a streetlight made buzzing noises. I waited, and now and then men came out of the gym, carrying bags. For all of them I had the same question, “Do you know Rajesh Pawar?” I believed the first one when he shook his head and hurried away, looking at the ground, but when none of the first four knew him I grew angry. I snapped out my question at the next one, and he looked at me carefully. I was afraid then, because he was very big, with a neck so thick that he had to turn his whole body to look at me. But he said, quietly, “No,” and walked away. I asked each one who went in or out, until midnight, and the doorman watched me from his stool. A little after twelve he got up, stretched, and began to shut the door. I hurried up to him.

“Manager?” I said.

“Didn’t come,” he said, and spat past my knee. He shut the door in my face. I looked at the chipped paint on the wood for a minute, then went home. I walked most of the way, even though twice I could have caught the bus if I had run a little, to the stop. I was punishing myself, I think. I felt that I could have done more, should have. I entered the house very late, fell exhausted into my bed without taking off any clothes, and dreamt of childhood.

The next morning I made my usual call to Dilip. He began our usual small talk, but I cut him off, and asked, “Who are those people that Rajesh is supposed to have worked with?”

“Who?”

“The bhai log . Who are they? Do you know any names?”

“Iqbal,” he said. I could feel, over the line, his fear. It was there, present, as thick as the exhaust fumes on the street outside. “Why do you want to know such things?”

“Tell me,” I said.

“I don’t know anything specific, you understand,” he said. “But I have heard the name of Govardhan bhai .”

“What else?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Be careful.” And then he hung up.

I went back that evening to Atreya Lane. Again the doorman at the gym regarded me with infinite boredom. But when I said, “I want to see Govardhan bhai ,” he straightened up.

“Wait,” he said, and disappeared. A few minutes later he came back and led me inside, past the loud room with the muscles straining against weight, and into an office at the back. There was a man sitting behind a desk, a man with a thin moustache, about forty, in a plain white shirt. And another one, younger, heavyset, standing next to the desk.

“You’re asking about Govardhan bhai ?” the man with the moustache said.

“Are you Govardhan bhai ?” I said.

“No, no, I’m not him,” he said. “I am merely a friend of Mr. Rajan here, who is the owner of this establishment.” He waved a hand in the air. But Mr. Rajan was leaning over to light his cigarette, and when the match flared I knew where I had seen the man with the thin moustache before: outside the Pushkara Gallery, when I had been waiting for Sandhya, and I had thought he was a driver. Until this moment I had had a brittle kind of courage, a thin belief that nothing had happened to Rajesh, and that nothing would happen to me, but now I was very afraid. He pulled at his cigarette and watched me.

“Your good name, please?” I said.

He smiled and shook his head, nodded at Mr. Rajan, who left the room, shutting the door behind him. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Yesterday you were asking about Rajesh Pawar. Already the police has been here, with his brother I think it was. You are?”

“His friend.”

“His friend. Very good. Name?”

“Iqbal. Iqbal Akbar.”

“Iqbal,” he said. “That’s a good name for a friend to have. I had a friend named Iqbal once, long ago.”

“Do you know where Rajesh is?”

He raised his hands, palms upward. “No. Why would I?”

I was breathing fast, and the room seemed dark to me. I said, very fast, “Because I saw you outside the gallery the other night. I think you work for Ratnani. I think Rajesh also worked for Ratnani. Rajesh met you here, in this place. He started working for you and Ratnani.”

“Interesting story. What does he do for me?”

“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “He’s strong. Maybe he kills people?”

He laughed, throwing his head back. “You’re mad,” he said. “ Arre , Rajan,” he called, not very loudly, but the door behind me opened instantly and Rajan appeared behind me. “Throw this madman out. And don’t let him in again.”

I tried to struggle, but Rajan had one of my arms twisted behind my back, and I discovered again what I already knew: I am not very strong.

*

Even at that time of night it took me only an hour and a half to find out where Ratnani lived. You can search in this city forever for a poor man, but the mansions of the rich are landmarks. I made phone calls, and told the friends that I got on the line to make more phone calls, and before long I knew that Ratnani lived off Pali Hill Road, near KetNav, in a bungalow at the very end of a dead-end lane. Behind a high wall covered with creepers. As I paid off the autorickshaw driver and walked up the lane I could see a huge metal gate let into the wall, and high over the wall, the exotic turrets and lovely red tiled roofs of the castle that Ratnani had built for himself. I pounded on the gate with my fist and it rang loud, like a huge bell. The man was right: I was a madman. Sweat poured down my face and I lashed with both fists on the iron. A little window opened in the middle of the gate, and eyes peered out at me. “What?”

“I want to see Ratnani,” I bellowed.

“Don’t shout, you bastard,” I heard behind me, and then I was on my knees, holding my head. Under my left hand the top of my ear and the side of my head throbbed with pain.

“Who the hell is he?” I heard.

When I managed to focus my eyes I saw three uniformed guards with lathis in their hands standing over me. To the left there was a man in plain clothes, with hair cut very short and a very straight back. In his hands he held a Sten gun, the muzzle pointed directly at me. And stepping through the gate there was the man with the clipped moustache from the Atreya Lane gym.

“You again?” he said, mildly. “Never mind,” he said to the armed man, who was jerking glances over his left shoulder and right, and looked ready to shoot. “It’s all right. I’ll take care of him.”

He put a hand under my elbow and pulled me to my feet. I was still looking at the gun, which looked heavier than anything I had ever seen in the movies, and my legs gave out from under me. “Steady,” my moustached friend said. “That’s Mr. Ratnani’s police protection. You made him nervous.” He was walking me towards a black Matador van parked at the head of the lane. “You’ll get yourself in real trouble if you keep pulling this kind of crazy stunt.”