Riot (31 page)

“I understand all that,” he interrupted me. “My question to you, Miss Kadambari, is: Would she be able to go to college?”

“My parents can't afford to send her to college,” Kadambari said. “They live on what I earn at the HELP project.”

“That wasn't my question,” Rudyard said with that note of impatience that executives so often mistake for efficiency “If she could go, would she want to? Would she get in? Would she be able to cope?”

“She was the top student in her high school class,” Kadambari said.

“Great,” Rudyard said. “Now here's what we'll do. I'm going to sign over a thousand dollars worth of traveler's checks to you tomorrow. That should be more than enough to cover your family's expenses while she's in hospital. And for every year that she's in college, I'll set aside money for her tuition fees, books, and living expenses.”

Kadambari seemed stunned, but even she could not have been as stunned as I felt. This was not a gesture I would have thought Rudyard capable of.

“Your sister's going to have a future, young lady,” Rudyard said. He left unspoken the thought, Unlike my daughter.

“Rudyard, that's a wonderful thing to do,” I said, a new respect for him in my eyes.

“It's what Priscilla would have wanted, Kathy,” he replied.

It was the first time in years that he'd called me Kathy.

 

note from Priscilla Hart to Lakshman

September 29, 1989

As you know, I'm leaving town on Tuesday morning. My flight back home from Delhi is on Thursday. I guess I'll never see you again.

It's been so hard, Lucky. There are a hundred things I've wanted to say to you, to ask you. But you've never given me the chance, and we may never have the chance again.

I'm going back to the Kotli for the very last time tomorrow. How many Saturday evenings I've spent there with you! Do you remember, last month, when you wrote to me and said you'd be there after I'd walked out on you — and I came to see you because I couldn't bear not to? That all seems a hundred years ago now, Lucky. But it's now my turn to ask the same thing. Will you come tomorrow, for old times' sake? I just want to see the sunset one last time with you, and to say goodbye properly. I don't want to leave Zalilgarh feeling that the last word I had from you was that awful letter.

I'm sure you can do it if you want to. I know your wife and daughter are usually at the temple Saturday evenings. It's not much to ask, is it, Lucky?

Don't let this note put too much pressure on you, Lucky. If you think it's too painful for you, or disloyal to your family, or whatever, don't come. Think about everything and decide for yourself. I'll be waiting.

I know you're a decent and honorable man. Whatever you do, I know you'll do the right thing.

Yours as ever, P

251

 

from Lakshman's journal

October 3, 1989

I haven't slept for three nights. The riot is over now; tensions are calming, though God knows when they will erupt again. I have abandoned the camp cot in the police station and returned to what I know as my home. But the horrible finality of Priscilla's death keeps me awake in my own bed.

I
completely forgot
. It is as simple as that. I read her letter; I mentally upbraided her for having been so oblivious to the real life of Zalilgarh that she forgot there was a major Hindu procession on Saturday; but I planned to go to her afterwards. There was never any question in my mind that I would go to her, for that one last embrace, the final goodbye. But of course I didn't plan on a riot, and once it began I forgot everything else, even her, waiting for me at dusk at the Kotli.

When Guru came to give me the news I doubled over as from a blow to the stomach. If I had had any food in me I would have been sick, but I experienced a retching of my soul instead. He put a hand on my shoulder and thrust something at me with his other hand.

“We found it by her body,” he said gruffly. “It's not entered in the log. You can have it.”

I looked stupidly at the foolscap volume, spattered with her blood. Priscilla's scrapbook.

It was the only thing of hers that I'd ever have. I clutched it as a drowning man clutches a floating plank from his unsalvageable ship. “Thanks, Guru,” I managed to say.

And then, for the first time since my father's death, I wept.

 

Katharine Hart and Lakshman

October 14, 1989

KH:
I'm really sorry to bother you again, but it was important that I see you alone. Without – the others.

VL:
Of course. How can I help you?

KH:
There's something about Priscilla's life here that's not very clear to me. That bothers me.

VL:
Yes?

KH:
Well, I may as well plunge right in. In one of her letters to me she mentioned that she'd met someone she was quite – attracted to. Someone in a position of authority here.

VL:
And?

KH:
I wondered if it might have been you.

VL:
Good God, Mrs. Hart! I'm flattered, I suppose. But I'm overworked, overweight, and married. It couldn't have been me.

KH:
I'm sorry if I've been impertinent in any way. Rudyard – Priscilla's father – doesn't know about any of this. Nor does the journalist, Mr. Diggs. I'm not trying to embarrass you, Mr. Lakshman. I just want to understand everything I can about my daughter's death.

VL:
I wish I could help you, Mrs. Hart. But there was nothing between us. If you will permit me to say this, sometimes it is best not to assume we can know everything. Your daughter led a good and admirable life. She worked for others; she was popular and well-respected. She died a tragic, senseless death. You know the old Greek adage, the good die young. That was all there was to it.

KH:
But there was more. There was something else, something that might explain why she was there, in that out-of-the-way place. Perhaps it had to do with some aspect of her life we don't know about.

VL:
Perhaps. But does it matter what we do not know? Any attraction she may have felt to anyone did not kill her. Communal passions that she had nothing to do with, did.

KH:
I suppose you're right.

VL:
I am, Mrs. Hart. And now, if you'll excuse me, I have work to do. I wish you a safe trip back home.

 

Gurinder to Lakshman

October 15, 1989

Why the hell did you saddle me with that bunch, yaar? Bloody demanding Americans. They want this, they want that, they want to see the exact spot where we found her, what are the details of the police report, why did the postmortem omit this or that. I'd already given the journalist Diggs more than enough of my time. Then the fucking Harts on top of it, it was all too much.

And that mother of hers! Went on and on about the missing scrapbook. She knows it exists, she says. Well, ma'am, perhaps it does, I respond, but it's not up my fucking ass. No, I don't really say that. But I finally have to show her the whole pissing inventory in the bloody logbook of every item found at the murder scene. No scrapbook. That quieted her.

We've already spent more time on this visit than on everything to do with all the other riot victims, dead and injured. What is wrong with us, that we give so much importance to a bunch of foreigners? I'm glad they're leaving tomorrow, I tell you.

That bloody Hart, with his patronizing airs, as if he knows India so well from having tried to sell his bloody Coke here. What has he ever done for India, or for a single Indian? We don't need your pissing soft drinks, I nearly told him. We've had lassi and nimbu-paani for a thousand years before anyone invented your bloody beverage. Just as well we kept you out. The frigging East India Company came here to trade and stayed on to rule; we don't want history to repeat itself with Coca sucking Cola. We don't need you, mister. We can get pissed on our own, thank you bloody much.

And Diggs. Poking around the bloody embers of the riot like a bloody commission of enquiry. All for some thousand-word piece in which he'll use two sentences of the two hours I gave him. I liked him at first, even took him home for a drink last night, told him some things I haven't told anyone from the press before. Off the frigging record, of course. Feeling a bit ashamed of my garrulousness now. Why are we so sucking anxious to oblige these bloody foreigners, Lucky? Some flaw in the national character? I wouldn't have given an Indian journalist a fraction of the stuff I gave this man, and he won't even use it. Maybe that's why.

Anyway, you?ll want to know what I told them. I told them what seemed to have happened. The Muslim bomb-chuckers, running away from the house where I'd fired at them, came back to the Kotli to seek refuge — all except the motherlover we'd caught. They found Priscilla there — or she found them, it's not clear. They killed her to protect themselves.

Of course, none of them will admit it. They swear her body was there when they arrived. And of course we didn't catch them there. When the interrogation of the other fellow revealed their use of the Kotli, we went there the next day to look for evidence of bomb making, and found Priscilla as well. The others weren't there; we rounded them up from their homes on the arrested bugger's evidence. At least one of them, the municipal driver, Ali, looks like he's capable of anything.

And in case you're wondering, I didn't offer them any speculation on why she might have been there.

I see you don't want to talk. Just one thing. I'm glad you listened to me and shut up about your precious Priscilla. The last thing you needed for your career, not to mention your marriage, was an article in the New York fucking Journal about the slain American girl having an affair with the district buggering administrator. The dung would truly have hit the punkah then, Lucky, and you could have kissed goodbye to your future. You might as well have resigned and run off with Blondie the way you nearly did.

Okay, okay, I'm sorry I just don't get it, but I know she meant a lot to you. So does this country, Lucky. You've got work to do here. The riot's over. She's gone, as she would have been gone anyway. It's time to turn the page.

 

Ram Charan Gupta to Kadambari

September 25, 1989

How very interesting, young lady.

So our do-gooding district magistrate is having a little fling on the side, is he? With this white woman, you say? That could be very useful information indeed, my dear. Tuesdays and Saturdays? My, you are thorough. Very diligent of you.

You are a good girl, Kadambari. A good Hindu girl. Here's a little something for your trouble. No, that's all right, my dear. I insist.

 

Mohammed Sarwar to Lakshman

October 14, 1989

Well, I got more than I bargained for on this visit. A full-scale riot. Two people killed on my street. And firsthand evidence of police excesses committed during house-to-house searches in the Muslim bastis. My uncle, Rauf-bhai, is the sadr of the community. He's helped you manage this riot, keep the peace. Even he wasn't spared, Lakshman. His house was broken into and trashed by the police search team. They took the TV and radio, poked holes in the mattresses, smashed some furniture. I live in the house; my research notes were picked up, scattered, trampled upon. Randy Diggs, the New York Journal-wallah whom I know from Delhi, wanted to meet me, and I couldn't even invite him home. How ashamed I feel. Of everything. Of everything that we are.

Of course you'll take action, Lakshman, I have no doubt. But how could you allow such a thing to occur in the first place? What kind of country are we creating when the police response to a riot simply sows the seeds of the next one?

Iqbal said it best, as always: “Na samjhogey to mit jaogey aye Hindostan walon / Tumhari dastaan tak bhi na raheygi dastanon mein.” “If you don't understand, O you Indians, you will be destroyed. Your story will not remain in the world's treasury of stories.”

 

Ram Charan Gupta to Makhan Singh

September 30, 1989

The bastard. This is the way that Lakshman treats us, after what the Muslims did to us last night? Makhan, I am so angry about what has happened to your son Arup. Such a handsome boy, too, and just before his wedding. But don't worry, Makhan. We will have our revenge. On the Muslims, and on the bastard who gives them such free rein.

Yes, we will revenge ourselves on Lakshman too. I understand your rage. It is these Muslim-lovers who make such attacks on our good Hindu boys possible.

But don't do anything foolish and hotheaded. He is the DM, after all. Do you want the wrath of the entire government on your head? No, there is a simpler way You can catch him with his pants down. Literally.

Apparently he has a secret assignation every Tuesday and Saturday evening. At the Kotli. He is alone there. With a woman. The American woman we have seen cycling around town. But he's completely alone, in a deserted place. No guards to protect him.

That would be a good place to teach him a lesson, Makhan. And his woman too.

And you know what day it is today? Saturday! March in the procession, visit Arup in the hospital, have your bath, perform your prayers, and go to the Kotli when the sun sets. Revenge is sweeter when you have had time to savor it.

 

from Katharine Hart's diary

October 16, 1989

I am sitting next to Rudyard, yet again, on a plane, for the last time. He has been both diminished and redeemed by this trip, manifestly dwarfed by the complexity he encountered in India, humbled by the memory of his own failure there, and yet that deeply compassionate gesture. I felt sorry for him as he stumbled about trying to cope with his grief and his inadequacy, and I realized I've never felt sorry for him before. I find it curiously liberating.

I had to see Lakshman. It was him, of course. He confirmed it out of his own mouth. That phrase from Priscilla's letter — “in his own words, he's overworked, overweight, and married.” He couldn't resist using it again. But I could see what Priscilla might have seen in him. And he's not that overweight either.