Such A Long Journey (12 page)

iv

Gustad opened the envelope with the ivory paper-knife that had belonged to his grandmother. The handle was sculpted into a finely detailed figure of an elephant, and delicate floral designs ornamented the blunt side of the blade, making the whole an exquisitely fragile instrument. He did not use it very often: heirlooms were special, he felt, to be cherished and handed down, not used up like a box of cocoa or a bottle of hair oil. But this was a special letter:

My dear Gustad,

Thank you for your reply. Overjoyed to hear from you. It would be too much for me to bear if our friendship was lost. Could not write immediately because I was away, visiting the border zones. Not a pretty sight. Thought I had seen it all in my time. Especially in Kashmir, the handiwork of the North-West Frontier tribesmen. What I have seen now in my work with RAW is beyond words. (Did I mention in my last letter I am working for Research and Analysis Wing?) This new breed of Pakistani butchers is something else. I tell you, Gustad, everything in the papers these days about the atrocities is true.

But let me get to the main point. All you have to do is go to Chor Bazaar between two and four in the afternoon, any one of the next three Fridays after receiving this letter. Look for a pavement bookstall. There are many in Chor Bazaar, so I have told my contact to display prominently a copy of the
Complete Works of Shakespeare.
And just to be absolutely certain if it is the right one, open the book to
Othello,
end of act I, scene iii, where lago gives advice to Roderigo. The line: ‘Put money in thy purse’ will be underlined in red.

My man will give you a parcel. Please take it home and follow the instructions in the note inside. That’s all. I am sure you will recognize the man, you met him once, many years ago. The Shakespeare thing is just in case he cannot be there and has to use his back-up.

Good luck, Gustad, and thank you again. If anything about all this seems strange to you, just trust me for now. One day, when I am back in Bombay, we will sit with a bottle of Hercules XXX and talk about it.

Your loving friend,

Jimmy

Gustad was smiling by the time he came to the end. Dilnavaz looked at him impatiently. ‘What does he say? Is he coming back? He can stay with us for a few days, we can move the teapoy and put a mattress beside the sofa for him at night.’

‘There goes your express train brain. No one is coming, he only wants me to pick up a parcel. In Chor Bazaar.’

‘Why Chor Bazaar? That’s not a nice place.’

‘Don’t be silly. Because the old name is still used doesn’t mean it’s full of thieves. Even foreign tourists go there nowadays.’

‘But why not just mail the parcel here?’

‘Take.’ He held out the letter. ‘Read for yourself.’ He wondered who the contact was that he was supposed to have met.

‘It all sounds very strange to me. This business of going to Chor Bazaar, and the Shakespeare book. And that, what was that name? Here it is—Research and Analysis Wing. I did not know Jimmy was also a scientist.’

He laughed. ‘RAW is the Indian secret service. Jimmy is no scientist, he is a double-o-seven.’

Through the window, she saw Sohrab approach, and opened the door in anticipation. He’s early today, she said to herself. Then to Gustad, ‘So you are going to do it?’

‘Yes, a friend cannot be let down, I am going to do it.’

‘Going to do what?’ asked Sohrab as he walked in.

Gustad ignored him, but she explained eagerly. ‘Major Uncle’s letter has come. Read, read, tell us what you think.’

‘No one needs your son’s advice,’ said Gustad.

Sohrab glanced quickly down the page. ‘I am surprised Major Uncle joined RAW.’

His words awakened his father’s irritation and bitterness. ‘Genius has spoken.’

Sohrab continued: ‘Our wonderful Prime Minister uses RAW like a private police force, to do all her dirty work.’

‘Don’t talk rubbish again! Jimmy is involved in something top-secret about East Pakistan. Just like that, you say dirty work! God knows what newspaper you have been reading!’ He switched on the light with vehemence. Dusk had a habit of descending swiftly on the paper-darkened room.

‘But it’s true. She sends men from RAW to spy on opposition parties, create trouble, start violence so the police can interfere. It’s a well-known fact.’

‘I read the papers and I know what goes on. Rumours and allegations all the time, and no proof!’ Like a malarial fever his irritation started to rise.

‘What about the chemical election? Only RAW could have done that. She made a real mockery of democracy.’

He snatched the letter from Sohrab’s hand. ‘Another rumour! What do you think, the election was a children’s magic show? All this nonsense about chemically treated ballots, and crosses appearing and disappearing automatically! Mockery of democracy is that people are willing to believe rumours. Without proper evidence.’

‘Lots of evidence was presented in court. Enough for the judges to send the case to trial. Why do you think she transferred them?’ Sohrab appealed to his mother in frustration.

She listened helplessly as Gustad said that the blood in his brain was boiling again. Now the boy was pretending to be an expert on law and politics and RAW. The enemy was at the border, that Pakistani drunkard Yahya was cooking something in partnership with China, and fools like her son went around saying rubbish about the Prime Minister. He lifted a finger and pointed. ‘Better that the genius shuts his mouth before I shut it for him. Before he falls off that high roof he has climbed.’

Sohrab rose in disgust to leave the room. ‘Wait,’ said Gustad, and asked Dilnavaz, ‘Where are those application forms?’

She handed him the lot, grieving. How silly to have hope in green limes. Unless. Unless, as Miss Kutpitia said, something stronger is needed. If the evil, the darkness, is more powerful than she estimated.

Gustad gave the forms to Sohrab, and told him to count the number of places he had been to for a worthless, ungrateful boy, the number of times he touched his forehead and folded his hands, and said ‘sir’ and ‘madam’ and ‘please’ and ‘thank you very much’. ‘Count the forms,’ he said, ‘then throw them away.’

‘OK.’ Sohrab took the forms and riffled them while walking down the narrow passage to the kitchen.

‘Shameless dog.’ Gritting his teeth, Gustad heard the rustle and soft slap of paper against the rusted rubbish-pail. Dilnavaz hurried to rescue the forms from the gloppy stuff at the bottom. She hid them in the arched recess, under the
choolavati,
where coal was stored in the old days before kerosene and gas. The green limes were also collecting there, waiting for a sea burial.

Chapter Seven

i

On Monday, after another torturous night of mosquitoes, Gustad left early for work. Morning was the best time to see the manager, who, according to the staff, was a very stiffly-starched fellow, and not merely because of the hard, unyielding collars he wore regardless of heat or humidity. But Mr. Madon could stay cold and aloof, thought Gustad, and tie silly bows round his rigid neck, so long as he was impartial in matters regarding the bank. And if he wanted to keep his first name a secret, that, too, was Mr. Madon’s own pompous business.

Twenty-four years ago, when Gustad had just joined the bank, Mr. Madon was an assistant manager. It was rumoured that the then manager had found Mr. Madon’s snuff habit quite abhorrent, and ordered him to stop, despite the fact that it was a twenty-two karat gold snuffbox into which Mr. Madon dipped with the utmost style. One thing quickly led to another, and though no one knew exactly what happened, it was the manager who departed under a dark cloud. Mr. Madon immediately ascended the coveted chair.

An old peon who now spent his time in an unhectic corner on a stool as rickety as his person, doing nothing more strenuous than drinking glasses of tea or fetching them for others, claimed to have once overheard the secret first name. The peon, Bhimsen, who never used his own surname (it was not certain if he even had one) would tell of the time when he had barged in accidentally while Mr. Madon and the manager were locked in a pungent quarrel. Accidentally, for one of the two had slammed a ledger on the desk, triggering the bell that was Bhimsen’s summons. But the moment of eavesdropping had occurred so many years ago that though Bhimsen remembered the event, he had forgotten the name.

Mr. Madon’s heart, however, was as kind as his habits were finicky. He was absurdly particular about the arrangement of things on his desk: the calendar, pen stand, paperweight, lamp, all had to be positioned just so. When old Bhimsen was low on funds, he would come to work early, unshaven, and displace things while dusting Mr. Madon’s office. Then the manager would arrive, notice the misalignment, and ring for Bhimsen. Invariably, the perfunctory scolding was followed by a gift of fifty paise for a shave at the downstairs barber, which Bhimsen pocketed before proceeding to the bathroom where his razor was hidden.

‘Half-day off?’ said Mr. Madon to Gustad. ‘This Friday?’ He leaned forward and looked at the desk calendar through goldrimmed glasses. ‘Hmmm.’ He raised his eyes over the gold rims and tapped the snuffbox. ‘Why?’ The snappiness might have seemed rude to someone not familiar with his mannerisms.

Gustad tore his thoughts away from the rich, warm lustre of Mr. Madon’s leather chair. He had envied the occupant while admiring the chair for twenty-four years, and for the first few, had even harboured an ambition to make it his own some day. Very soon, though, he realized there was no room for him in that seat, given the nepotic scheme of things everywhere and the ragged path his own life had taken. He had prepared his story for Mr. Madon. ‘Have to go to doctor. This leg, giving trouble again.’

Last night in bed, while trying out the various offerable excuses for shape, size and credibility, his first plan was to say that his little girl had to be taken to the doctor. But he quickly abandoned that pretext in mid-creation. Fear of the Almighty’s wrath, or something like it, caused him to steer away from making imaginary illnesses befall his children. There was a heavenly host of angels, his grandmother had taught him long ago, who, from time to time, listened to the words and thoughts of mortals, and granted whatever was desired therein. Of course, this did not happen very often, she explained, because it was only a minor host, which was a blessing, considering how carelessly and unthinkingly most people used words. All the same, it was of the utmost necessity to keep one’s thoughts good, lest, at the moment of a bad thought, an angel might listen and make it come to pass.

‘What happened to your leg?’ asked Mr. Madon. The snuffbox was open now.

‘Nothing new, sir, just my accident from nine years ago.’ Rather me than my children. ‘It is causing—’

‘I remember your accident. You were on leave for fourteen weeks.’ He looked at the calendar again. ‘What time?’

‘One o’clock, please.’ Each time Mr. Madon leaned forward, the collar cut deeply into his neck. How did he suffer that day after day? Starch was one thing, plywood another.

‘And you will come back to the office after your appointment?’ The snuffbox moved closer. His index finger and thumb, pinched together, hovered like an insect over the dark brown powder.

‘Yes, sir, if it is before six o’clock, definitely, sir.’

‘Fine,’ snapped Mr. Madon, and was echoed by the calendar snapping shut. The audience was over. Then, quicker than Gustad’s eye could follow, a trace of snuff was lifted to the right nostril.

‘Thank you very much, sir,’ he said, and limped to the door. As he shut it behind him, the Officers’ Enclave resounded with a series of explosive sneezes. He walked down the corridor, remembering to limp pronouncedly.

Till Friday afternoon he would have to continue the exaggeration. But it was easier than pretending a sore throat or fever. The latter was the riskiest, for Mr. Madon had been known to reach out and feel foreheads with the back of a slyly solicitous hand. If he suspected a blatant fraud, he led the wretch to his sanctuary where, swift as quicksilver, he whipped out a clinical thermometer from his desk drawer and tucked the bulb under the patient’s armpit. The seconds were counted off on his gold Rolex chronometer. Then he held the glistening glass stem for the anxious malingerer to peruse the glinting message. ‘Congratulations,’ Mr. Madon would say, ‘fever all gone,’ and the patient, expressing his thanks to the mercurial miracle-worker, returned quite crushed to the teller’s cage.

Wending his way to his department, Gustad saw Dinshawji clowning around Laurie Coutino’s desk. In the last few weeks, Dinshawji had succeeded in getting acquainted with the new typist, and now visited her at least once a day. But it was not the Dinshawji of the canteen joke-sessions who performed before Laurie. Forsaking his natural flair for humour, he tried to be dashing and flamboyant, or swashbuckling and debonair. The result was a pitiful spectacle of cavorting and capering during which he looked so ludicrous that Gustad was embarrassed for his friend. He could not understand what had come over Dinshawji, making a
kutchoomber
of his self-respect. At times like these, he was glad that although the paths of their working day crisscrossed, Dinshawji did not officially come under the jurisdiction of the Savings Department. Or it would have fallen into Gustad’s greasy, overflowing dishpan of duties to say something about the inappropriate behaviour.

Laurie’s desk was underneath a framed public notice:
Entry of Firearms or Other Articles Capable of Being Used as Weapons of Offence Inside the Bank Is Strictly Prohibited.
Which made it worse, because Dinshawji’s antics were in full view of the customers. With Laurie’s stapler in his hand, he was prancing around, making swooping, coiling, writhing movements of his arm, darting at her with its metal jaws, then hissing and withdrawing. Gustad admired her patience and her svelte figure.

A fellow clerk pointed to the notice. ‘Hey, Dinshu! Your snake is a deadly weapon! Not allowed in the bank!’

‘Jealousy will get you nowhere!’ replied Dinshawji, and everyone laughed. He noticed Gustad watching. ‘Look, Gustad, look! Laurie is such a brave girl! Not scared of my big, naughty snake!’

She smiled politely. Beads of perspiration were visible on Dinshawji’s bald pate as the snake grew adventurous, moving with abandon into regions of daring proximity. Finally she said, ‘I have so much typing to do. This place is always very busy, no?’

Gustad took the opportunity to intervene. ‘Come on, Dinshu. Let Laurie do her work. Or she won’t get paid.’ It was done good-humouredly, and Dinshawji was willing to relinquish the stapler and go with him.

He noticed Gustad limping more than usual. ‘What happened to the leg?’

He welcomed the question. ‘Same old thing. That hip giving trouble again. Just now I was with Madon, asking him for Friday half-day to see doctor.’ When the castle was imaginary, a strong foundation was helpful. They were alone now. He said, ‘Careful, Dinshu. You never know, she might complain.’

‘Nonsense. She enjoys my jokes. Laugh and the world laughs with you.’

He tried a different tack. ‘This is a head office operation, you know, not a small branch. Maybe Mr. Madon does not want the world to laugh in the office.’

Dinshawji became indignant. ‘Bodyline bowling? Watch it, Gustad!’ A foul whiff escaped his mouth, the familiar warning. Something was different this time, he was not just playing his usual Casanova role. Or perhaps he was playing it too well.

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Gustad. ‘You know I am not a management
chumcha.
Only telling you what I think. This snake thing might be too non-veg for a shy girl like Laurie.’

Dinshawji laughed scornfully. ‘
Arré,
Gustad, these Catholic girls are all hot-hot things. Listen, my school was in Dhobitalao area, almost hundred per cent
ma-ka-pao.
The things I would see, my eyeballs would fall out. Not like our Parsi girls with all their don’t-touch-here and don’t-feel-there fussiness. Everything they would open up. In every gully-gootchy,
yaar,
in the dark, or under the stairs, what-what went on.’

Gustad listened sceptically. ‘Really?’

‘But I am telling you, no,’ said Dinshawji. ‘Swear,’ and he pinched the skin under his Adam’s apple between thumb and finger. Then he winked, nudging him with his elbow. ‘You clever bugger! I think I know the truth! Lining Laurie Coutino for yourself or what? Naughty boy!’ Gustad smiled and accepted the attempt at reconciliation.