The Leaving of Things (33 page)

Clothes lay tousled on the floor of the cabinet, shucked from their hangers; toilet articles were scattered all over the top shelves. On the bottom of the cabinet, I saw the upholstered box—the one in which Pradeep kept his prize money. But the lock was missing, and the clasp turned open. I found the lock on the floor, to the side of the cabinet, and picked it up. It looked like it had been smashed open, with a rock maybe. I laid my camera on the cot then brought the box from the shelf over to the desk and checked inside.

The money was gone.

24

I
heard a scooter rev up and went over to the window. From between the clump of trees that bordered the college building and the hostel, I sighted Vinod in his Harley-Davidson T-shirt, pushing his Bajaj scooter out onto the drive. He zipped closed a satchel, unlocked the bin below the scooter’s handlebars, and stowed the satchel away. He glanced around, as if to make sure he was unnoticed, then climbed onto the scooter.

“Vinod,” I shouted out the window.

He started and jerked his head in my direction. His eyes squinted to get a better look through the trees. Then I saw his mouth part in a quick smile, and from his shirt pocket, he took out a pair of sunglasses and put them on.

“Bye-bye, boss.” He waved his hand then pulled out toward the gate.

I rushed out of the room, along the veranda, jumped the ledge on the far side and through the trees. By that time, Vinod was already at the gate, about to pull into traffic. For a split second, I thought to go back to the hostel,
find Pradeep and tell him he’d been robbed. Or else to find Devasia. But if I lost track of Vinod, I got the feeling we’d never see him—or Pradeep’s money—again. My mind jumped back and forth, and even before I knew what I was doing, my legs were pumping hard toward the gate where my Luna was parked.

Vinod zipped into the road as I jerked the Luna off its stand and cranked the pedal to power up the motor. I revved up the accelerator and pulled into traffic as a rickshaw sped past me, leaving a trail of honking in its wake. Vinod was at the end of the road, past the chai café. I saw him and managed to close the distance between us before he sped on past the university bus stand.

I kept my sights on his baggy black Harley T-shirt. It billowed off his back like a parachute as he rode. He kept low to his handlebars and kept a hard pace past the bicycles and rickshaws and scooters, before he rounded a sharp left at the Vijay Cross Roads. I rode the Luna as hard as it could go, swerved along past a camel cart and a crowd of laborers taking a break from digging a trench along the side of the road.

Vijay rode for much farther and longer than I expected, and I began to wonder if I had enough fuel in the moped to keep going. I didn’t think he was aware I was behind him; I’d kept a good distance and plenty of intervening traffic between us. Once he did glance back in my direction, but I managed to duck out of sight. By now we were past the buildings and scrubby fields that marked the Gujarat University’s main campus and the adjoining Expo grounds, and we’d entered a new subdivision of housing blocks and teeming bazaars and shantytowns. Children flitted in rags alongside the traffic, and women filled buckets or washed
clothes at roadside taps. Scooters bunched close together in the plots of dirt that became makeshift parking lots at the foot of mildewed and soot-stained apartment high-rises. Cows slouched in the gutter, their ears flicking off flies, and more cows huddled in the middle of intersections.

The neighborhoods began to look familiar now. Strangely familiar. I realized that I was heading back into Ghatlodiya on the outer edge of the city. The road narrowed, became more potholed, with shop fronts jammed against each other on both sides. Past this narrow stretch, a large field opened up on one side, separating the road from a row of apartment blocks ranged like gray and dismal bluffs. This was the site of my long-ago monsoon-logged rickshaw-bicycle accident, when I’d gotten a mouthful of rainwater and dysentery as a result. For a second, I wondered if the woman we almost trampled that day was all right; she probably lived in one of those apartments. Dogs and street children scavenged here, and the locals crisscrossed it on scooters, bicycles, and rickshaws in an all-day migration back and forth. Up ahead, past a knot of traffic, I noticed Vinod veering into the field. I followed. Now that we were in the open, with less traffic to hide me, I needed to be extra cautious.

Vinod reached the other side of the field and disappeared in the spaces between the apartment buildings. The buildings loomed up sooty and gray on all sides, forming a labyrinth of alleys and lanes overhung by a webwork of telephone wires. A rooster pecked at the earth, an infant sat in an open doorway from which I could hear a blaring television. These were not the surroundings I had associated with Vinod—they just didn’t mesh with all that talk about America and studying in Florida, San Diego, and New York.

I saw no sign of Vinod, and his tracks were lost in the palimpsest of tire marks in the dirt. The tire trails from motorcycles and scooters had left deep grooves in the lanes, hardened now like dinosaur prints. I heard voices echoing from the upper floors—the clamor of children playing, Hindi music from a radio. Revving up the motor, I turned a corner and rode up a wider lane. I reached the junction at the end and took a look around. Nothing.

Then in the narrow space between buildings, I saw a dark shape dart past on a scooter. I took off again, threading between the buildings, skidded left, and sighted Vinod directly in front of me, pulling farther away. Dust from the scooter clouded the view, but I could see his billowing T-shirt, his shoulders hunched and head low over the handlebars.

I tried to keep up with him, but that was when the Luna began to alternate between a smooth whine and a series of sputtering coughs. I checked the fuel gauge: the needle had settled under the “E.” Shit. Out of gas.
Goddamnit!
The Luna hiccupped and managed to sputter along till the end of the block before the motor simply petered out, and I glided noiselessly for a few yards. I scrambled off, leaned the moped against the side of an apartment building. Vinod couldn’t be far off. I ran as hard as I could up the next lane.

“Vinod,” I yelled at the upper stories. It was all I could think to do, now that I’d lost sight of him. “Vinod!”

I wiped at my eyes and shielded them. The sun hit me hard from its perch just above the rooftops. Then against the glare, not far away, I could make out a figure standing in the opening to a ground-floor apartment patio. A few steps closer, I could see it was Vinod. He stepped off
the patio, his shoulders squared, and moved toward me. As he did, I noticed the satchel in one hand. It bulged with the money. “What the hell you doing here?” he demanded, stopping a few yards in front of his patio, next to his gray, dirt-smeared Bajaj scooter.

I could see his face now as I approached. Flushed, shiny with sweat, eyes wide.

“Thought I’d lost you,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “Why did you take it, Vinod?”

Vinod’s eyes narrowed. “Hm?” He bunched his shoulders together, spread out his arms in a gesture of outraged confusion. “I took nothing.”

“That.” I pointed to the satchel in his hand.

“Vinod bhaiya?” a boy’s voice called out. Against the sun, I could make out nothing but his eyes leering down at us from an upstairs balcony. “Some trouble?”

Vinod waved him away. “It’s okay, Raju. Go on.” But the boy stayed where he was, leaned forward on the parapet.

From inside the apartment, a woman in her forties in a yellow sari emerged, agitated, patting her hair as if she’d just finished pinning it. She wore her hair long and braided, the way my mother used to wear it before we left for America. She took a step onto the patio and stood there, one hand at her hip. “What’s happening, Vinod?” she snapped in Gujarati, thrusting a flat, upturned palm toward Vinod. “What did you do now?”

“You took his money,” I said. “What’d you do it for?”

The woman shot me a glance. “What money?” And she turned to Vinod. “If I find you stole money—”

“Ma, get inside, I’m just talking to my friend here. Everything is fine.” But Vinod’s tone was too agitated to convince her.

Still, she relented and withdrew into the apartment. I heard her muttering, shaking her head dismally, “I’ve really had it with that boy.”

“Give Pradeep back his money,” I said, “and no one will ever hear about this.”

Vinod thought for a moment then let out a short, disdainful laugh. “Tell whatever you want to whoever. Go on. Go on, tell the people at college Vinod is a thief.”

“How’s this going to fly?” I said. “You know Pradeep’ll be looking for his money. Sooner or later, you’ll have to go back and answer for it.”

“Go back?” he looked at me as if I’d just said the most ridiculous thing. “Why would I go back?” He held up the satchel. “This is so I never need to go back. By the time you fools start up in college again, I will be long gone.”

“With Pradeep’s money. Come on, man, he’s your friend.”

“
Pradeep’s
money?” Vinod huffed. “My money.” He stepped back onto the patio. I followed a couple of steps behind and stopped at the opening to the patio. “I’m no thief, American. I took only my fee. My manager’s fee.”

A motorcycle, or I should say
most
of a motorcycle, leaned against the wall in the far corner of the patio. On the maroon-colored fuel tank, I could make out the words, “HARLEY-DAVIDSON.” Chunks of the seat padding were missing, and spare parts—springs, an exhaust pipe, a gearbox—lay scattered on grease-stained rags alongside assorted tools. A few potted plants were lined up along the floor and against the parapet, trying to hide areas of crumbled plaster, and a pair of neglected-looking lawn chairs sat haphazardly in the patio’s center.

Vinod spun around to face me. “Pradeep has got more than one way to get to Bombay,” he said. “He has his talent.
See how many bookings he is now getting, how much money. And why? Thanks to me.” He tapped the satchel against his chest. “You know that I am the one who told him to take part in Diwali festival? Otherwise, he would not have done it. He would not have this”—his shook the satchel at me—“without me anyway.” He stepped toward me till we were face to face. “Pradeep does not need this where he is going.” His voice was calmer now as if he were shifting strategies. “For you and for Pradeep, come on, this is nothing.” He lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper. “But for me, everything.”

“You can’t get to America on three thousand rupees, Vinod. You can get an awful lot of pot with it though—”

At that, Vinod shot a glance back at his apartment then grabbed me by the collar. “You make jokes. But I’m being so honest with you. I am like a friend to you.” His eyes locked in on me, unblinking.

I sensed that we had an audience now: children and housewives across the lane all stopped to stare at us. He must’ve sensed it too and took a step away from me. “You all are gone. On your way,” he said. “But myself … third year start from scratch. No way! Not for me, dost.” He spun one of the lawn chairs around so that it faced me and dropped himself onto it, letting out a deep, weary breath. He kept a hand on the satchel.

“You might actually make it out, Vinod, if you gave yourself half a chance.”

“Here is some real news from the real world, American.” Vinod stared at me, his tone thick with condescension. “When all the assholes are against you, there is no getting out, no winning. No matter how hard you try. Sridharan, D’Souza, your own family”—with each word, he thumped
the satchel against his knee — “there is no winning.” He flipped his hand at me dismissively. “You think you’re some superior bloke. You can come here, talk to me like I’m some naïve villager.” He leaned forward in his chair, eyes fixed on me. There was something in them so unflinching that it was beginning to worry me. “For me, Xavier’s is finished chapter. And you, Pradeep, and all you fools, you are also finished chapter.”

“Have it your way,” I told him, “but not with Pradeep’s money. Look, I can go to D’Souza with this, you want that?”

“So you are D’Souza’s servant now?” he huffed. “Look, Pradeep does not need this money.” He held up the satchel. “His outcome is already known. So why make bigger issue out of this, bhaiya?”

Vinod stared at me through the long silence that followed. Then a smile slanted one side of his mouth, and he lowered the satchel, clasping it in both hands. “I see,” he said. “You want some, huh?” He nodded at me. “Sure, of course. I understand, dost. You’ve gone through so much trouble to follow me here. Why involve anyone else? I will give …” He raised his chin, eyes narrowed, contemplating a bargain. “Five hundred. Five hundred for you.” He unzipped the satchel, clutched the bills inside, and drew them out partway for me to see. “You can enjoy with five hundred.” He zipped the satchel back up. “And you will not see me again. All this is past.”

I could see that no matter how much more I pleaded, Vinod wasn’t going to budge. I turned around and made to leave. “This isn’t over,” I said as I neared the edge of the patio.

“You want trouble?” Vinod said, swiftly rising from his chair, stepping toward me. He nodded, turning something
over in his mind, and then he got very still for a moment. Neither of us said a word. That’s when two things happened: I made a lunge for the satchel, and Vinod pulled out a knife. I stopped and drew back. He’d produced it just like that, in a single movement from the back pocket of his pants. It was a Swiss Army knife. Vinod held up the handle for me to see as he reached in and pulled open the blade. “This is trouble,” he said, nostrils flared. “Got this one from America. Can’t get such good knives here.” Then he waved it back and forth, brandishing it the way I’d seen guys do in knife-fight scenes in the movies. “Eh?” He jutted the blade in my direction. I knew it was for show, but it made me flinch anyway. “Eh?” He did it again. I backed to the opening of the patio. Vinod smirked and came closer till he was within arm’s length—stabbing distance, I thought. He kept the arm gripping the satchel behind his back, out of sight.

“Just give it back, man,” I said. “We’ll figure something else out.”