Amriika (48 page)

“Hardly an expert,” Michel said. “I used to follow racing news many years ago.”

He went on to tell them, in some detail, about the kidnapping and killing of Shen-shah, Delhi Delight’s sire, in Ireland in the eighties.

In bed later that night, Rumina said, “Michel was quite taken by the wedding ceremony … all the rituals and costumes and the music.”

“Don’t forget the horse.”

“It
was
a magnificent sight, wasn’t it?”

“You’re
not
going to go on about the horse …”

“What have you against it?”

“Someone should talk about the bride and groom for a change, for Chrissakes.”

“We hardly know anything about them.”

“Precisely. If you hadn’t been flirting with Michel you might have heard their story.”

There, he spat it out, this venom he’d been harbouring.

“You should be ashamed. How could you say such a thing.” A tone of voice, a verdict he’d never heard before, from her.

She turned away, on her side. Her eyes were open, he could tell, he could see one eyelash flickering. She was waiting, and he moved closer, put an arm around her, felt her heartbeat under the breast in his palm.

“I’m sorry.” He wasn’t; but he was terribly hurt and wasn’t sure whose fault it was.

“I was thinking …,” she said after a while.

“Yes?”

“You know Dr. Weinstein wants me to go with him to Kenya and Tanzania?”

“Yes …”

Dr. Weinstein was one of her private students. For years he had watched African wildlife shows on
TV
and video, and finally he took it upon himself to learn Swahili to put some authenticity into his African experience. Rumina had been trying hard to convince
him to go to East Africa himself, and he always told her he would go only if she accompanied him.

“If I went with him, it would be a great chance to go back —I’ve never been back —”

“By all means you should go,” and perhaps meet up with Michel there? “And if I came along too?”

“That would be nice.” Then, softly: “And what have we decided about Michel?”

“Let’s wait till tomorrow,” he told her, caressing her hair, tucking away a strand from her forehead.

He lay on his back, thinking. Soon he became aware of her deep breathing, and he turned onto his side and watched her.

After a while, when he couldn’t sleep, he got out of bed to get a glass of milk, then went and stood looking out the window of the living room. Outside, the street was deserted, two rows of lamps led off to Pier Ave and beyond. In the background, if he paid attention, was the intermittent sound of traffic on Sepulveda a few blocks away; more mysterious, from the opposite direction, the crashing of waves, the constant drumming, endless. The sky was clear.

Staring out at the cavern of the black starry night, he thought that that was surely the resting place of what was constantly being lost, funnelled away from the world; it was the repository of lost time. And so nothing was really lost after all, one had only to be able to visit that world out there and look around. In that world lay all that had been in his life. He recalled walking along an empty street at 4 a.m. with his grandmother, on their way to early mosque for meditation. He would have been ten. Uhuru Street, with a watchman huddled in the shadows every few stores, lamppost
lights dimly glowing, his chappals padding
flippety-flip
on the road, hers shuffling
shrr-shrr
along it. This was the world he left twenty-seven years ago, often dreaming of returning, never quite making it … a world always vivid in his mind, strongly beating in his heart. Africa.

Then there was Ginnie in America. That gorgeous night together, when he lost his virginity. I
loved
you, Ginnie, I loved you … in so many ways. My new-found land — remember that poem I sent you, highlighting the lines. How silly you thought I was, quite rightly so; and then that day, They’ve scooped me out, you said, but still cheerful in the hospital bed, puffed cheeks and bald head inside that wig, so close to death.
Go where your heart takes you, you said, we don’t judge you, it is a joy simply seeing you make your way in the world
.

It was unfair, to have known her so briefly and lost her. They could have talked of so many things had she lived, and laughed whimsically about the past. She would have told him what he was like then — and she would have brought him back to earth now, said something like: Ramji, you don’t owe anything to the world, except to those you love and who love you.…I wonder what she would make of my life now?

He walked towards Michel’s door, paused there for a second. Slowly he opened it, and without a sound, stepped in. There was a light from the window that partially illuminated the room. Ramji stood beside the bed, watched the younger man’s breath coming even and soft. He was in pyjama pants only, and lying on his back, one leg bent and resting sideways, the other drawn up forwards, its big toe, curiously, upturned. In his arms he embraced a pillow. The day’s stubble on his chin, the mouth slightly open.

What dream, what man?

Michel opened his eyes, was staring back at him. “You want me to go from your life,” he said.

Ramji took a long, deep breath, his silence implying assent; then he took a chair, sat down by the bed, and said quietly: “Your father called earlier today — just before you returned from your outing with Zayd. He asked me to tell you that.”

“Oh,” a soft expletive, and Michel continued staring abstractly at the ceiling.

There was a brief silence between them, a moment of anticipatory stillness, and then Ramji said, in the same tone of voice as before, “How many of you were involved in that bombing?”

Michel took a moment to reply, then said, “Three.”

He turned his face and Ramji saw a look of helplessness on him.

The other two who were involved with him were Shahin and Sadru, university students in Detroit. Sadru’s father owned a hardware store, through which they obtained the nitrites. And Michel had blasting caps, a timer, and other paraphernalia left over from an assignment he had undertaken during his Movement days.

“So,” Ramji said, “you had set off a bomb before?”

“Yes. A pro-Iranian newspaper in Toronto.”

“And casualties?”

“None, it was Sunday.”

And the same thing for the bookstore bombing — Michel’s voice rising in pitch: no casualties were intended, the dead woman — Jeanine Summer — worked at his uncle’s store, she had taken the week off and was supposed to have gone on holiday with her boyfriend and child.

He was now sitting up in the bed, his voice earnest and pleading: “I swear — we didn’t mean to kill … just to teach the town a
lesson for its hatred.” He was looking crumpled and very much defeated.

“You should give up your plans for escaping,” Ramji said, “and turn yourself in. Your friends and family can then arrange a good defence. There’s no escape in any case, you should know that — they’ll find you wherever you go.”

There was a pause, then Ramji said, “Rumina. She believes you’re innocent.”

“I know.”

They discussed a course of action, sat together in silence in the partial darkness of the room. Afterwards Michel lay back in bed, eyes open. And some time later Ramji came to with a jerk of the head, realizing he had finally dozed off. Michel was stretched out full length on the bed, sleeping.

A
nd then finally it was over. He would never be able to say, later, if the conclusion could have possibly, by different management, turned out better or worse. He had forced the outcome, somewhat. Was it out of some belief in justice and accountability; or plain common sense; or fear for himself and those he held close; or the jealousy eating into him? In the most important decisions, in matters that involved his innermost spirit, Ramji had never been able to be unequivocal; his inner life had always been steeped in ambiguity and doubt. He had never belonged to any one place entirely, not stood behind a cause or movement without reservations; when he left a judgemental, jealous God for the cold thrill of reason, he still could not do without portents and symbols, always yearned for moral certainty. The upside to this nature was a partial immunity to betrayal and failure. And so his friend Shawn’s reversal, or Darcy’s diminishment from an awesome and principled god to a weak old man; the realization that Lucy-Anne had lied to him in his room — all these came with a sense of shock, yes, and pain, but sufficiently muted. Only in his current love had he been able to become so totally
passionate and absorbed and hopeful. Events, nevertheless, plotted out its demise with the precision of a theorem.

It was the day of the Shamsi Friendship Walk, which had been organized with much anticipation and fanfare by the Community, to collect money for Third World causes. Some two thousand spectators had gathered at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena to watch the almost five hundred participants of the walk. There were people from as far away as Washington, D.C., and Vancouver — friends, well-wishers, Community leaders. On the green field, a stage had been set up for all manner of diversions: a middle-aged rock band playing hits of the sixties; the president of the national Community Council giving the V-sign with both hands, reminding one of Richard Nixon in his heyday, urging people to walk, walk, walk; a jokester; a group of bare-chested Indians dancing their version of African
ngoma
. Colourful outfits and brilliant track shoes dazzled the eye. Naseem guided her Golden Club with a baton from shade to sun, drinks to bathrooms, to keep them in fine form before the walk. Among the elderly Ramji noticed an obviously uncomfortable Darcy, perhaps itching for a scotch. And the press had once again stood up Naaz, and she was fuming, clipboard in one hand, a pen-whistle and a camera round her neck. She looked ravishing, and seemed to be getting into a number of jostles and tight squeezes, through no fault of her own; and men seemed to go out of their way to greet her, hoping presumably for cheek contact.

Ramji had come to the walk by himself. He did not think it wise for Michel to spend time at the festivities, where some people might recognize him. But he did not want to leave Michel alone,
either, so he asked Rumina to stay with him. By this arrangement he was also making amends to her for his suspicions and his outburst of the previous evening. During their conversation in the night, Michel had agreed that Ramji would take him to a police station the next day, Monday, in the company of a lawyer. There were a few lawyers in the Community, and Naaz could be prevailed upon to use her influence in acquiring the services of one. Earlier in the morning, Michel’s father had called. Ramji had picked up the phone and explained to him what had been decided. Mr. Aziz had sounded stunned: “Are you sure?”

“It’s the only way, Uncle, believe me,” Ramji told him.

Michel and his father had then spoken. Rumina had been out of earshot. Ramji had not yet told Rumina about that decision, or indeed about Michel’s confession in the night. She was up early and he had not had a private moment with her after that. But he was sure that Michel would tell her, and that perhaps was best.