Manil Suri - The City of Devi

Karun stares at me. “Das? The stubby one with the mustache? He’s the most snake-like of them all—has his fingers in everything, from top to bottom. I wouldn’t be surprised if he personally engineered Moorthy’s disappearance.” He frantically throws off the pillows from the bed, finally uncovering his underwear. “We should have left right away as you said—quick, get dressed.”

I’m fishing my own underwear out from the pile of clothes I’ve assembled when the door lock makes its familiar whirring sound. It opens, and two guards burst in, followed by Das. All three stop and gawk at us, flustered by our state of undress. Finally, Das speaks. “Really, Dr. Anand. I never would have guessed.” His eyes focus directly on what I’m trying to hide. “With a Muslim, no less.”

THROUGH HIS YEARS of forays across beaches and parks, through his entire illustrious career as a shikari, one unsung achievement sets the Jazter apart. Except for that single time with Harjeet, he’s never been caught with his pants down. Which is why Das and company’s appearance is such a shock. I scramble to enrobe myself, even though the secret, so to speak, is already out. Perhaps I should have flaunted things, stared the villains down. Surely Bond would have acted nonchalant, proud.

Despite his attempt at wryness, Das is visibly relieved once we are dressed. He glares at the guards to arrest their smirking comments, then gets very chatty, trying to smooth over the situation, perhaps. “We’d been expecting your friend,” he tells Karun, as if talking about an extra dinner guest. “The guards at the front entrance alerted us, and we saw him looking around through the garden cameras as well.” He turns to me and inquires whether the journey to the dining room went smoothly enough. “We had to figure out your intentions, find out whom you came to see, where you went. Sorry to barge in like that, but the microphone in the room wasn’t working very well.”

He leads us to Bhim’s suite on the third floor with a profusion of “This way’s” and “Mind your step’s,” his manner so collegial that he might be accompanying us to a university colloquium. “You’re lucky Bhim’s here today—he has so many other centers to tend.” The outer room is set up as an office, complete with computers and file cabinets—a secretary informs us we’ll have to wait awhile, Bhim is busy with someone else. “Always a problem when you come to see him,” Das laments.

So we sit there, like in a doctor’s waiting room—one sorely lacking in magazines, but with guards at the ready to ensure we keep our appointment. Das gabs on, about the weather, the city, even the physics Karun researches—interspersed with his babble, I notice crafty attempts to tease out information of more consequence. He’s very interested in our relationship—whether we know each other in a professional, or only the biblical sense. He tries to ferret out who the maiden accompanying me to the annex was, where she might be now, how I got into the hotel. He asks such keen questions about my purported geological expertise that I’m forced to confess my true field is finance. “Why didn’t you say so?” he exclaims. “I could have introduced you to our economists sitting at the very next table. We have other fields here too—Bhim’s been collecting the brightest and best in all of them.”

We wait almost forty minutes. I keep glancing at Karun, wanting to sit closer, to hold him in my arms for comfort, for reassurance. The Jazter has paid no heed to danger all this time, but now that he’s found his love, fear has also found him. With it, an emerging wistfulness about the future, a seeping dread that we may not make it. Karun’s face displays neither the anxiety nor the yearning I feel—I can tell he is meditating to quiet himself.

The door to the inner chamber bursts open, and a pair of Khakis emerge, propping up a man between them. Blood trickles down his brow and around both sides of his nose from a cut on his forehead. “That’s Sarahan, Bhim’s chief commander,” Das whispers. “He looks after practically everything, so much so that I’ve been lending him a hand. I wonder if—” He calls out as the guards go past. “What happened, Sarahan kaka? Are you all right?”

The inquiry revives the bleeding man, who pulls himself free and lunges for the door. But the guards tackle him almost at once. They punch him till he’s quiet, then drag him across the doorstep into the corridor outside.

A buzzer goes off on the secretary’s table. She presses a red button and the sound stops. “Bhim kaka will see you now,” she announces.

BHIM STANDS AT A DESK with his back towards us—the great leader himself, absorbed in the contemplation of his own greatness. Despite myself, I feel a slight frisson—a bit like catching a glimpse of a film star or president. Except one who looks less imposing in person, shorter than expected. Could this be worthy enough a villain for a Jaz Bond script? The room around him is disappointingly bereft of props—no tigers a-growling or skinned on the floor, no map on the wall charting world control. A few more guards, yes, but where are the thumbscrews, the torture rack, the electrodes? “Come in,” he says, and turns around. I look into his eyes: They seem to reveal only affability as windows to his soul.

Then I notice the red on his cuff, the blood on the floor, the baton on the table splintered in two. Das takes it all in as well, and his curiosity spills out. “We saw Sarahan leaving. Did something happen with him?”

Bhim ignores the question. “So you’re the gentlemen they spied snooping around. I suppose I should be honored—people normally try to leave, not get in. Were you hoping to assassinate me? Is that how I can be of assistance?” He turns to Das. “Have you found who sent them? I thought there was only one, not two of them.”

“There is only one, the one on the left. Apparently, he came by himself. Not for you but Dr. Anand, next to him.”

“He came to kill one of our scientists?”

“No, not kill. Just to be with him.” Das shifts uncomfortably. “They seem to be together . Like boyfriend-girlfriend.”

It’s the perfect opportunity for Bhim to display his mettle as a villain. He could laugh derisively, he could rage and froth, he could ham his way through a flamboyant bigotry pageant. Instead, he lapses deep into thought (so cinematically listless), as if sifting through his memory banks for a past frame of reference. “No, I don’t believe it,” he says at last, shaking his head. “It’s too preposterous, they’re up to something else. You surprised them, and this is the first story they could think of to dupe you with.”

“We, uh, found them naked. Both Dr. Anand and his friend. Gaurav Pradhan, that’s what he calls himself, even though he’s really Muslim.”

Bhim’s frown deepens, but eases the next second—a smile begins to play thinly at his lips. “I suppose it could be true, then. The vice of the Pathans—not to mention the Turks, the Arabs and the rest of their tangled sects. Though I have to say I’m startled. Startled and disappointed. You, Dr. Anand—a Hindu, a scientist no less. Do you know how much we’ve spent bringing you here, feeding you, keeping you safe? Is this how you repay our investment?”

“Your investment?” Karun bursts out. “You call kidnapping someone an investment?”

Before he can proceed with his rant, I smoothly cut in. “He’s not to blame. I’m the one after him, forcing myself time and again. He didn’t even notice me, all the days I followed him. He couldn’t have had the slightest inkling I was coming.”

Bhim waves my words away. “It doesn’t matter—all will become clear once we investigate. Das, make preparations for these two gentlemen. They’re probably telling the truth, but we’ll need to make sure, the usual way. I know, I know—I’m doing it to another one of your scientists, you’re sure to protest again.”