Different Senses (16 page)

“Your niece? Just how many
nieces and nephews do you have, ma’am?”

She smiled. “I use the terms
loosely as you don’t have the exact terms in Kelon.”

“
Right. Look, I might
have the gene for empathy, but I’m not
banis
. I’m Kelon. I don’t
have any special...understanding of your religion or culture. I can
recommend some cops who—”

“
Will you shut up
and
listen
, you
guko
? She’s trying to
explain.”

I glared at Rishabh and got a
blue-eyed snarl back. “Well?”

Sushri Yatin’s hands
fluttered. “The
monuwel
...we can’t ask any of our
people to help. They must not see it. Only I and the guardian of
the Seeker’s house can do that.”

What in sanity’s name was a
“Seeker’s house”? They were using words I understood but not in any
order I recognised. “But a Kelon is safe because we don’t
count?”

She bowed her head. “Yes. But
we need someone like you who will respect its importance.”

“Which is?”

“
I can’t tell you. All I
can say is I would rather lose my hands and feet than to lose
the
monuwel
permanently.”

I never did have much
patience with religious types, and only the fact she was a woman
and had been polite to me since I arrived, stopped me snapping at
her. “Okay, I get that. But what am I supposed to
do
?”

“Retrieve it. Isn’t that what
you do? Retrieve?”

I looked at the sneer on
Rishabh’s handsome, hostile face, and stood. “Yeah, but not today.
Life’s too short. Good day, ma’am. Hope your
monuwel
turns
up.”

Sohan tried to block the door
but I outweighed him and had hand-to-hand training on top of it. A
forceful hand on shoulder and arm, and he moved, wincing. I strode
down the corridor without looking back.

I expected Sohan to come after
me, after all the song and dance earlier, but no one did. No one
bothered me at the chai house, called my phone, or followed me into
the library. No one dropped by the house either—just as well, as my
brother would kill me if I brought work home like that.

But as I left the library,
thinking I might take the long way back home since the weather was
nice, an auto pulled up beside me, the door sliding open. “Get in,
Ythen.”

“Not on your bloody life,
Rishabh.”

He gave me an evil smile. “Get
in or I’ll initiate a complaint regarding your detective license
and your method of attracting clients. I can guarantee you won’t
work for months.”

“On what grounds?”

“On the grounds you didn’t get
into my vehicle. I’m unarmed, of course. Are you scared?” he added
sweetly.

I rolled my eyes, and climbed
in. “You’re damn childish for a lawyer.”

“For a man who continued to use
a term of abuse to my aunt even though she pointedly did not use it
for our people, you’re damn sensitive about slights to your Kelon
pride. Not that I expect anything more from the master race.”

While I tried to work out
what the hell he was talking about, he gunned the engine and tore
along at barely legal speed towards Gateway Park, down by the
river. A popular place for courting couples, but I wasn’t going to
mention that. As he pulled into a parking place, I said,
“‘
Banis’
isn’t a term of abuse.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means...you. Your people.
Indigenous. The Nihan. It’s a nickname.”

“It means ‘albino’, you fool.
The others, the aliens. It’s an insult bestowed by your charming
ancestors.”

“But you’re not albinos.”

“
Didn’t matter to your
colonists. They called us ‘albinos’ and we called them ‘big
noses’.
Chuma.
”

“Fascinating, but—”

“
You
guko
never listen when
we try to tell you this.”

“‘Guko’?”

He smirked. “‘Arsehole’.”

I shook my head. “Here we go
again. If you picked me up to insult me, I’m warning you, I
seriously don’t give a shit what you think of me, Rishabh.”

“
I’m only here,
Jav
,
because my aunt is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and that
fool Harinakshi has convinced her you’re her best, last hope. Which
you might be, but using you makes my teeth ache.”

“You won’t be using me because
I turned the job down. And my name’s not ‘Jav’.”

“My name’s not ‘Rishabh’ but
that doesn’t stop you using it.”

I wrinkled my nose at him,
completely confused. “‘Shardul Hema Rishabh’. What am I
missing?”

“Rishabh is my father. Hema is
my mother. I’m Shardul. Would you like to be called by your
father’s name?”

Every single
banis
I
had ever encountered on the force had been recorded in exactly same
way as any Kelon. We used the last name as a family name. So why
was I only hearing this now? “How am I supposed to know you use a
weird naming system?”

“
How indeed. We only do
it to annoy the
chuma
, of course. Nothing to do
with the fact your administration pointedly refused to accommodate
our traditions.”

I gritted my teeth. “I don’t
want to talk politics with you.”

“
Good, because you’re
clearly incompetent to do so. However, I
was
informed you were an
adequately talented investigator.”

“I can’t help your aunt. I know
nothing about the artefacts trade.”

“
But you know the
wealthy, Sri Ythen. You know thieves. My aunt believes the
monuwel
was taken by accident. I don’t believe in
accidents.”

“How widespread is the
knowledge of this thing’s existence?”

“Limited to a handful of
scholars, the guardian, my aunt, myself and Harinakshi.”

“So we come back to the
likelihood it’s one of your own who took it.”

“Impossible.”

“This is where I get out of the
car, threat or no threat, Shardul.”

He hissed through his
teeth. “It is impossible for one of our people to have stolen
the
monuwel
. The
chuma
do not know it exists. I don’t believe it was
stolen by accident.”

“Those statements can’t be
reconciled.”

“
I
know
. This is what we
need your help for.”

“‘We’? Thought it was your aunt
and your cousin.”

“
I’m using it in the
loosest sense, Ythen. Someone took the
monuwel
intentionally. That
someone is not
udawatha
. Or is not
obviously
udawatha.”

“Someone mixed-race? Passing as
Kelon? Someone like me with a bit of Nihani blood?”

He sneered. “You may
be
matos
, Ythen, but your genetics don’t make you one of us, or
give you a claim to our culture. Too many
chuma
think it does. They
think it makes them ‘special’.”

“Never met one who did.”

The proof that our family
had been ‘tainted’ by
banis
genes had not been welcome,
and my parents had urged me to keep quiet about it. My twin
brother, Yashi, was a lot more relaxed about it, but his wife,
Tara, didn’t like me talking about it in front of their
kids.

“Who do you think fuels the
trade in our cultural artefacts? Stupid Kelons sticking our
precious relics, our rarest works of art, in their houses because
they look ethnic and interesting, regardless of how great a
sacrilege it is, or how insulting it is to the people of the
Spirit. Using our symbols to make pretty textiles for your women to
wear and decorate your homes. Braiding the hair of your children
because it’s cute without understanding that our braiding patterns
are a mark of clan identity. Cloaking themselves in superficial
imitation of our culture makes them feel less guilty over what your
people have done to ours.”

“Like it or not, your people
are my people too.”

“
A
chuma
man made a baby
on an
udawatha
woman. That doesn’t make her ‘your people’,
Ythen.”

“Watch your mouth, Shardul.
That’s my grandmother you’re talking about. Your community has
plenty of biracial couples.”

“
Being
udawatha
is not about blood, except to the
guko
who see everything in
terms of taint. The
udawathei
are those who walk in
the path of the Spirit and abide by the teachings of the Seeker.
Those who do not, are not
udawatha
, no matter how red their
hair.”

I’d encountered this snobbery
before and I had no interest in it. More than that, it was getting
us nowhere. “I don’t see how I can help.”

“
We need someone to ask
around. If there is a
chuma
who knows of the
monuwel
,
they’ll know why we’re asking about it. You can pose as a buyer’s
representative. Anyone who realises its importance won’t be
surprised at the interest.”

“That’s a crappy plan.”

“Come up with a better one.
We’ll pay you whatever you ask.”

“Even if I prove it’s one of
your own people behind it?”

“It is not.”

I sighed. “Okay. I’ll
give it a week. More than that isn’t fair to your aunt. I’m telling
you straight—I think the chances of finding this thing are so small
as to be zero. And I’m not touching it unless you help me when I
need it—
without
the snideness.”

“I’m a busy man, Ythen.”

“Take it or leave it. I don’t
need the work or the money.”

“Ah yes. What do they pay cops
they throw out of the force for developing empathy these days?”

“More than enough for me to be
able to tell you to shove it up your arse, Shardul.”

He smiled nastily. “You realise
that you’re the victim of your own people’s prejudice against my
people. The anti-empathy laws are designed to keep us out of key
positions. The civil liberties nonsense is a smokescreen.”

I didn’t answer. I’d left the
force—okay, had been forcibly retired—nearly two years ago, but the
wound was still raw. “Whatever. You help, you keep the insults to a
bare minimum, or I say bye-bye. I need some names of potential
buyers.”

“I’ll provide them. You’ll also
need to have some cultural education so you don’t make a complete
fool of yourself. I have arranged a reading list. If you come to my
office tonight—”

“Sorry, no can do. A set of
twins is having a birthday tonight, and if their favourite uncle
doesn’t show with gifts and cake, my name will be mud. Have your
people drop it over to that chai house in the morning. I’ll be
there.”

He tsked. “Do you always
conduct your business in such a public manner?”

“
I find it cuts down on
awkward conversations. Speaking of which, this is over. Take me
back into town or I’ll make a complaint or two myself about a
certain
banis
lawyer and his unethical behaviour. You know
the
chuma
and how quick we are to believe the worst about you
people.”

He started the engine. “I do
indeed. Have no fear. I haven’t slaughtered any Kelon oppressors in
at least six months.”

~~~~~~~~

Nettled by Shardul’s
aggressiveness, it took me until the birthday supper was over and
the excited twins put to bed, before I realised I’d learned more
about the
banis
—Nihan—in a ten-minute
conversation with him than from all the equality training courses
on the force. The police force took equality seriously—or claimed
to, despite the low recruitment rate of indigenous officers. I’d
always assumed the
banis
weren’t interested in
working with the authority of the people they saw as invaders. I’d
encountered versions of Shardul a few times, though he’d been the
most upfront and fearless. But now I wondered just how much of the
lack of interest was caused by the unwelcoming atmosphere. If we
couldn’t even manage to call them by their correct names, what did
that say about the force?

Yashi opened a bottle of wine
for the three of us, and as we relaxed after Tara’s wonderful meal,
I asked my brother about one of his old girlfriends, from long
before Tara had been on the scene. Didn’t stop her giving me a
dirty look, on principle, but there was no real jealousy behind
it.

“Seema?” Yashi said. “Haven’t
thought about her for years.”

“Is she still on Uterden?”

“Sanity, no. She won a
professorship back home. Don’t think she’s been here since before
we were married,” he added, reassuring Tara with a pat on her hand.
“Why?”

“
Just acquired a
banis
client and I could do with talking to an anthropologist. I
suppose I could go to the university and ask around.”

“You could try but Seema always
said the department in Medele U was small and underfunded. All the
main research is on Kelon. You’d think with all the material being
on Uterden, they’d base themselves here, but there’s no real
interest in it here. Maybe it’s changed since her day.”

“
A
banis
client? Why
would you want to work for them?” Tara asked.