Narcopolis (17 page)

The khana was back in business the next day. Late in the afternoon, she put on a dress and went to Salim’s to buy Chemical. Bits of rubble and the shell of a burned taxi lay strewn on the street. She noticed there were no dogs to be seen, not a single one. Where had they gone? There were no cattle or birds either. Salim told her he was out of cocaine and to give Rashid his apologies and to tell him that garad was available and would continue to be available. Chemical, in particular, was available in plenty. Why was that, she asked him, where did it come from that it wasn’t affected by what was going on in the city? Salim smiled at her with sudden affection. It had been a long time since he’d had sex with anyone, he thought, much less a woman, and a hijra-woman at that. What the Lala did to him wasn’t sex, it was payment. The Lala took his ass in return for the job opportunity he provided and the pleasure in the exchange was entirely one-sided. Salim could barely remember what an erection felt like, but at that moment he felt affection for Dimple and he would have liked to fuck her, a friendly or nostalgic or tender fuck. Sit down, he said, and I’ll explain it to you. Garad comes from Pakistan. Garad, you know what it means in Urdu? Waste. This is the unrefined shit they throw away when they make good-quality maal for junkies in rich countries. Even the worst junkie in America-Shamerica wouldn’t touch garad. That’s why the Pakis send it here. We buy it happily and ask for more. And to give it a special kick we add more shit to it and call it Chemical. Now you might say this is some kind of special ingenuity, a skill, to take bad shit and make it worse. But I’ll tell you what it really is, we’re katharnak sisterfuckers, all of us on Shuklaji Street, we deserve to die, we’re only happy when our heads are touching the floor and we’re praying to the god of garad. We deserve to die. Dimple told him to speak for himself. I don’t want to die, she said, not today. I’ve got things to do. Tell me why Chemical is freely available when there are no tomatoes in the market. Because, Dimpy dear, the city belongs to the politicians and the crooks and some of the politicians are more crooked than the most crooked of the crooks. Garad sales are protected, it doesn’t matter that it comes from Pakistan. They’ll make speeches about Mussulmans and burn our homes and shops but this is a multi-crore business and in Bumbai money is the only religion. They’re not stupid. Now you tell me something, what are you doing here? Dimple nodded. The world is ending, she said, anything can happen to anyone at any time.

From Salim’s she went toward Novelty Cinema. All along Grant Road, the shops were closed. There were groups of men, always men and always in groups, who stared at her as she walked and she felt a difference in their attention. It wasn’t the usual staring; it was more businesslike, as if they were weighing her for meat, guessing how much she would fetch in the market. Everywhere was rubble and the smoke of recent fires. She saw smouldering taxicabs and trucks. She saw a woman’s slipper, one slipper, in the exact centre of the road. It was in good condition, imitation leather with blue and yellow flowers on the straps. She saw two men who were armed for medieval warfare; one carried a sword and the other a trident. They held their hands to their mouths and kissed the tips of their fingers. White smoke lifted from their cupped palms. They watched her without speaking until she turned the corner. She wasn’t sure where the church was and she hurried down the street until she found it, hidden between a police station and an electrical store. The police station was closed. Why wouldn’t it be, on a day when the city was burning? The police and the dogs, it seemed to her, were always the first to smell trouble and disappear. As she went up the stairs to the church, she had the feeling she was being spied upon. But it was so recurrent these days, the feeling of being watched, that it no longer bothered her. The doors were closed but unbolted and she pushed them open and went into a small room with metal chairs and a statue of Christ Jesus. The only light came from a bulb burning in a cage above the statue, which seemed to float in the air above her, one hand pointed at the ceiling. She smoothed her dress, a long one that hung to her calves. It was the first time in months that she’d worn something other than a burkha. She smoothed the dress and curtsied to the figure. Where had she learned to curtsy? Then she pushed a chair in front of Christ Jesus and took off her shoes and climbed up. By standing on her toes she was just able to reach his hand and place her forehead to his index finger. She noted that his lips were pink and blue, strange lips, like those of someone who had died and been inappropriately made up for viewing. His hair was unwashed and his eyes were tired. There was no hint of a smile on his face, no suggestion that his life was anything other than a titanic struggle. Against what? Against himself, his own cowardice and unworthiness, and, above all, against his shame. She knew his life was a trial from the moment he woke to his last thoughts before sleep, if he slept at all, because there were small bruises under his eyes and it didn’t look like he got much rest. His wounds were dramatic and glossy, movie-star wounds that would not heal, that would stay forever raw, and the circle of thorns on his head dripped blood into his eyes and colourful lips. She felt a sudden gratitude that made her sit down and cover her face with her hands. Then, when she looked up again, she saw the words leave his mouth though his dead lips didn’t move, and the words appeared to her like smoke writing, English words she had no trouble deciphering: Love me because I’m poor and alone like you.

When Dimple left, Salim shut the watch shop and went to give his boss the day’s accounts. The Lala’s house was in an alley among a maze of alleys off the main road and it was guarded by young men armed with country revolvers. Salim was thinking about freedom and fear. The city was burning; maybe Dimple was right, maybe it was the end of the world, which meant there was nothing to be afraid of. Nothing mattered. He thought about Dimple and was overcome once more by a wave of affection and melancholy. When he got to the Lala’s room, his boss was in a meeting with other bosses, the men sitting around in their Pathan suits and drinking whisky and tea. He placed the bag of money next to the Lala’s chair and waited until the older man had the bag put away. The Lala was telling his friends about Chemical, telling them it was so strong that his guinea pig, the German junkie Eckhardt, had died while sampling it. The men laughed. The pig deserved it, someone said. He wanted to die, said the Lala, also laughing. Salim had known Eckhardt and liked him. He was always surprised by the German’s fixing technique: he poked the needle into his thigh, right through his jeans, and he used the same needle for as long as he could. The German seemed to like it that people were horrified, even other junkies, though they all watched and they all asked why he did it. His reply was always the same: Come on, isn’t it obvious? Because I cannot find a fucking vein. Eckhardt had a marijuana leaf tattooed on his calf and one day he sliced it off with a barber’s razor because, he said, the tattoo was a Satanic symbol placed there by God to torment him, Eckhardt. The German may have been crazy but to Salim he was always courteous and he was sorry to hear the man was dead. He went back to the watch shop and made himself a smoke, chasing a long line of Chemical on a clean piece of foil. He lit a Four Square and chased the heroin with a hit of tobacco. He was thinking of locking up for the day when the Lala walked into the back office and, without a word, bent Salim over the desk and pulled down his pyjamas. There’s coconut oil on the desk, Salim said. In response, the Lala rammed harder and Salim felt something tear in his ass. The Lala’s hands were on his neck, pressing him down, giant hands that made it hard for Salim to breathe. Then he saw his pocket-maar knife on the desk, a few inches away. He opened it and reached behind him and sliced off the Lala’s dick with two or three quick saws of the blade. At first there was no blood, just shreds of red and white meat, and then a fountain spilled to the floor. The Lala stared at the stump of his penis for a moment before he began to bellow. Salim stabbed the knife into the big man’s neck but nothing happened, the Lala continued to scream. It was only when Salim picked up the strongbox and smashed it on his head that the gangster shut his mouth. Salim smashed until the Lala’s head was pulp. Then he dragged the body into the alley behind the shop. He cleaned the office floor, locked up and went home.

It was the terrible January of 1993; the Lala’s body was one of many lying unattended on the streets of the city. Salim knew it was common knowledge, what had happened to the Lala, because he, Salim, was seen walking away from the shop in bloodstained clothes. He expected a visit from the police but it never came. Four months later, after the city had returned to some normalcy, he was arrested for a robbery he knew nothing about. During the interrogation, which lasted a day and a half, Salim confessed to the murder of the Lala and the contract killing of a movie producer. Then he committed suicide by hanging himself with his belt, all this according to the police report. Though his corpse bore bruises that did not appear to be self-inflicted, he had no family and the body went unclaimed. The policemen who conducted the interrogation were friends and business partners of the Lala. After the interrogation, they didn’t bother to conceal their marked fists and shoes, and later that night, at Topaz, a beer bar frequented by cops, many glasses were raised to the Lala and to the brave men who avenged him.

On Christmas Day, Dimple had gone back to the church. There was a small crowd, poor people from the neighbourhood looking for somewhere to rest without having to worry about being attacked. They looked exhausted. Dimple wanted to pray, but the only prayer she knew was for Mother Mary, which she repeated though it didn’t seem like the right thing to do. On her way home, past empty rubbled streets, she spotted a loose group of men. For some reason they were all on one side of the road, as if there was a line they would not cross. She stopped only when a man stepped in her way, a drunk with a bandanna worn low on his eyes. He was chewing paan and he had a slight smile on his lips. His eyes were so bloodshot she wondered if he had conjunctivitis. He said one word. ‘Naam?’ It was a signal for the others to gather around her, to examine her the way they would a rare bird, a bird with human hands and a woman’s breasts. ‘Dimple,’ she said, looking the drunk man in the eyes. ‘Christian?’ he said. Without hesitating she said, ‘Yes.’ The man spat a stream of juice at her feet and a few red drops hit her sandals. ‘Nikaal,’ he told her with a jerk of his head, and she hurried on. She thought: If I’d been wearing a burkha they would not have spared me, the dress saved my life. But before she reached the corner of Shuklaji Street she heard a shout and stopped and felt the hair on her arms stiffen. They’ve changed their minds, she thought. But they were shouting at a boy on a bicycle. It was Jamal; she understood then that he’d been following her and had been following her for a long time. One of the men took hold of the bicycle and another grabbed him by his kurta. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she saw the look on the boy’s face and she saw that he was trying to pull himself free. Then she heard herself shouting. She was only a foot or two away from the safety of Shuklaji Street but she might as well have been in another country. She shouted: ‘Stop!’ The men looked in her direction. Jamal pointed at her and said something, something decisive, because they let him go. He ran straight to her. ‘Don’t run,’ she told him, ‘whatever you do, don’t run.’ She took his hand and walked slowly towards home.

What had he said to the men? Jamal wouldn’t tell her. But from then on he always greeted her when they met on the street or the staircase, which to her was a great thing, an achievement, something, finally, to be proud of.

It was around this time, while the city killed itself and the smell of charred flesh hung in the air, that Rumi told her he’d killed someone, or almost killed someone. He had had to drop his uncle to the airport and on the way, in Bandra East, he was stopped for running a red light, he said. It was the first time he’d been stopped in years. The cop asked for his driver’s licence and of course he wasn’t carrying it, that day of all days he’d left it at home. Instead of objecting or arguing, he simply handed over a note and thanked the man in Marathi. It was like paying a fine. His uncle stayed silent through this. But when Rumi started the car, Angre went into a tirade. He said, Paying a bribe is the worst thing an Indian can do. You are perpetuating a system of negativity by condoning a corrupt model that has brought this country to its knees. His uncle was the CEO of the business, a veteran public speaker, who could bullshit for hours into a microphone in front of a roomful of people. He was skilled at this kind of thing. He said, Your generation is reaping the rewards that your elders sweated and sacrificed for. I was a young man during the freedom struggle and I know the sacrifices my parents made, I know how simply and frugally we lived. Above all we believed in truth and I am deeply saddened to see the way you took those notes out of your pocket and gave them to that man, as if you were buying a ticket to the cinema. For the rest of the ride, a good forty minutes, there was silence in the car. At the airport, his uncle took his case and walked away without saying thank you or goodbye. There would be hell to pay. His father, who was the poor relative in the business, would go on about how Rumi had jeopardized the family’s future by bribing a cop in his uncle’s presence. Here Rumi paused for a moment and asked a number of questions that were not addressed solely to Dimple. And what about his own future? He was on the rebound. His marriage was over. Leaving his wife meant leaving her family business. Which meant going back to his father’s company, where he was given plum
assignments
such as driving his uncle to the fucking airport. Only a question of time before the shit hit. What would
happen
to him? He’d be fired, of course. And then? Where would he go? What would he do for money?

It was late, past ten, but the traffic was still heavy on the road from the airport back into the city. The day’s emissions had settled into night-time mode, a toxic dust cloud that sat on the tarmac and flavoured the air with the taste of industrial effluents. He wound the window down and took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the usual acrid metal of Bombay. He drove fast all the way to Bandra, where, stopped at the traffic light, he saw a man sleeping under the flyover, his head and body wrapped in a sheet. He looked like a corpse ready for burning, or a pile of rags ready for the incinerator. Beside him were his possessions, bundled in bedsheets, and nearby a fire had been lit. Rumi didn’t notice the man in office clothes until he was at the passenger side window, saying something about a flat tyre. When Rumi looked down at his tyres, the man reached into the car, snatched his wallet from the dashboard and ran the other way. Rumi left the car where it was, unlocked, and took off after the guy. ‘It was all reflex, yaar,’ he told Dimple. He ran easily, in time to the music in his head, wah-wah and echoey vocals,
If I don’t see you in this life, I’ll
see you in the next one, don’t be
late
. His vision and smell were so acute he could smell the thief’s breath and the heavy odour of his sweat. His peripheral vision was tremendous. He saw a cockroach on the wall of the flyover. He saw the sleeping man, his cooking utensils and the bricks on which he’d made a meal. He knew the bricks were still hot, knew it without touching. He was moving, no, he was being moved: he was pure body. He stopped running and moved sideways, silently, in a crouch, with his hands hanging. The thief squatted in an unlit area under the flyover. He was going through Rumi’s wallet and putting things into his pocket when Rumi poked his shoe into the man’s side, poked hard and said, ‘Up, sisterfucker.’ The man jumped, his hair wild, a construction worker or a homeless guy in ill-fitting office clothes, not defending himself until he was kicked in the stomach. Then he was punching wildly in the air because Rumi kicked him again, well-aimed kicks to the stomach and chest. And then, he told Dimple, he took the hammer out of his waistband and held it in the two-handed grip he’d practised many times. He already knew the sound it would make, the exact sound of metal sinking into the man’s cheek, the sound of bones breaking. All this he knew; what he was unprepared for was the joy that shuddered up from his hands into his brain, and, as he turned, the first thrilling glimpse of the sleeping man’s face, who was awake now and burbling in fear, begging Rumi not to hurt him.