Akhil Sharma - An Obedient Father

"Don't worry," Ajay said in English, as if his speaking a foreign language would make me more confident.

"Don't worry," the Haryanvi-accented man repeated in English, and laughed.

"This is illegal," Ajay said.

"lam the police."

"You're not the police. The BJP has the police."

When I hung up, Ajay and the man were still arguing.

Now that Congress had confronted me, I knew that Mr. Gupta

had to win or Congress would, if I was lucky, put me in jail for corruption. I couldn't imagine the man being Central Bureau of Investigation, because he would not have revealed himself I moved the phone from my lap to the stool beside the bed, where it usually sat.

I didn't want to look at Anita, but when I did, she was staring at me. "Mr. Gupta is running for Parliament," I said. My voice quavered. "He's taken the money we'd raised for Congress and is using that."

"Now this," Anita said. She sounded tired, and the fact that her cartoon voice could hold fatigue was surprising.

"I had no say in this."

"Of course you did. You could have said no. You could have said I am not doing any of this."

"It's not like that. I'm Mr. Gupta's man. Everything that happens to him happens to me also. If Mr. Gupta agreed to do this and I went to Congress to warn them, the BJP would come after me. Or he would."

"What's happening?" Asha asked from her bedroom. "Can I come in?" She moved into the doorway. Since neither of us said no, she entered the living room and sat on the love seat beside her mother.

"Mr. Gupta was going to do what he wanted," I said quietly.

"It's never your fault. You can never do anything. Your idiocy will never end." Because of the pride I had been taking in being Mr. Gupta's man her accusations felt deserved. Of course, God was punishing me. The wrinkles on Anita's forehead were ruler-straight. "I'm handcuffed to a crazy man."

"It was wrong," I said. "You were twelve," I started saying. Listening to myself, I wondered why the only response I had to Anita was admitting my crime. "I remember the newspapers under you so that if you bled…"

"Go," Anita screamed at Asha, and shoved her off the love seat. Asha fell onto the floor. "This is not for you."

Asha sped from the room.

The shout had shocked me and I didn't know whether to continue. "Anything I could say wouldn't be enough," I said, trying to

suggest I could add more if wanted. But I had already said all that needed to be confessed and there was no value in repeating it.

''Stop/' she said, and stood and put her hand over her mouth. The space between sofa and love seat was so narrow she was standing over me.

I stopped.

"Don't talk about that with Asha here. What would I do if she knew?'' I didn't understand her, and Anita must have seen this, for she said, *"'She'd be frightened all the time if she knew."

''I don't want to hurt Asha."

"I'm not angry about back then," Anita said. "This is about today." I did not know how to respond. "You think I can't tell the difference between the past and the present? I'm not crazv. You are bringing danger now."

Because I had no answer to this, my jumbled thoughts made me say, "You don't have to be unkind to Asha. I won't ever go near her."

"You want me to rely on your self-control?"

"Anita," I said, and then I had no more words.

''Even by chance, you should sometimes do the right thing."

I wondered if our bargain was going to be broken.

Mr. Maurya, of course, knew the dozen or so property developers with enough contacts to buy large pieces of school property Instead of phoning, I went to see him. This time I did not have to wait on the veranda with the tea-drinking supplicants.

I had been at a party once with a developer he recommended, Mr. Mittal. One night he and I rode to the school in his car. Other than asking directions, he did not talk. I was glad for this, because I was lost in worries.

We parked along the periphery of Kamla Xagar, a kilometer from the school, because I believed Congress might try to follow us. For extra caution, we climbed the Hill and approached the school from its back. The woods were dark and we had to light our wav with

flashlights. Birds were scratching and twitching. We walked around a monkey sitting in the center of a path eating its own lice. Because it was out at night we were afraid it might be rabid and made a wide circle around it. We crossed a small pond spanned bv a wooden bridge. The air was light and the temperature a few degrees lower than it had been on the road. I wondered how anyone could not want property here.

I called for Mr. Gaur from the veranda. The school was lit with kerosene lanterns because they had no electricity. Mr. Gaur asked us in for tea, but we made excuses, and then he led us around the grounds. He had a hutch full of hares in one corner of the compound, which surprised me, because Mr. Gaur was Brahmin and a vegetarian. "I catch them m the Hill. I let the children play with them and I sell them," he explained. We walked all over the property, sometimes going along its edges and sometimes cutting through it at various angles so that Mr. Mittal could develop a feel for its dimensions. Though the sky above was a city sky, the mild air and the birds nearby made me feel as if I were far from Delhi. Mr. Mittal asked a few questions: where the nearest electrified building was, who had built the school.

We left the same way we had come. Only then did we begin discussing the price. Mr. Mittal was tall and thin, with round glasses. He, along with his brother, ran their family's property business. "I have to wait till I talk with my brother," Mr. Mittal said. He was ahead of me, climbing a series of dirt steps which was kept from turning into a slope by planks. ''I think we will offer six lakhs." I had begun liking the school so much that I found the offer rude. I kept following Mr. Mittal. "There is no running water and no electricity, so we have to pay the municipalitv for that, and for keeping things secret. And, of course, there is this BJP-Congress election."

"This is a fifty- or sixty-lakh property"

"If you were selling counterfeit monev, would I even pay a fifth of the face value?"

"This is not paper."

'Taper is easier to hide." He stopped and turned to me. I could

not see his face. "I have to be paid for taking this much risk. Land Uke this is not an easy thing." We cHmbed the rest of the steps. "It will take at least a day to talk with my brother and get the money. See other developers."

I did not want to show the property to several developers for fear of rumors. All I could do was repeat, "You know how expensive land is here."

"It is," Mr. Mittal admitted. "But even if there were no election, I would still only pay eight, maybe ten lakhs. Jail time makes everything cheaper." We were crossing a grassy field and heard a peacock screech.

"We guarantee that if we win, we'll make sure the papers are done."

Mr. Mittal stopped. "If you didn't guarantee that, we wouldn't bid."

I was selling something that was not mine for enormous money, but I felt cheated. There was not another property like this in Delhi.

We came out of the Hill onto a road lined with tall, expensive houses. We started walking toward Kamla Nagar. Along the sidewalk was a line of parked taxis with their doors open and the legs of sleeping drivers stretching out of them.

"Shall I give the money to Mr. Gupta tomorrow night unless I get a message otherwise?" Mr. Mittal offered.

"If we accept, I'll come by." I knew Mr. Gupta would not want any witnesses to him directly receiving money.

We walked in silence till we neared his car. "This is a good price, Mr. Karan. I say this not to make you sell but because I don't want you to feel cheated." Mr. Mittal opened the Ambassador's trunk and took out a box with a ribbon around it. It was a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label. I had never seen this before. "Thank you for your help," he said, and handed me the present.