The Setting Sun (20 page)

There’s time to kill before my appointment with Mrs Nanavatty. I consider going back to the Samrat, but can’t face being poisoned again just yet in an auto-rickshaw. Instead I head for the German Bakery to consider my options. As I walk down Koregaon Park Road, I doubt the wisdom of going to Satara. While heading south into the territory of the Parallel Government would be another adventure, the likelihood of finding Bill’s weekly reports seems remote. The Part IVs would
no doubt be interesting, but I’ve already got a grasp of the main events which concern me. And since Bill wasn’t the resident DSP, I doubt he’d have had much input into those. I’m also getting a little anxious about time; it’s more than halfway into my trip. Probably better to head back to Mumbai, and be in a position to ask Poel to chase down the missing files as soon as he returns.

When I arrive at the café, it’s overflowing with blissed-out maroon-robed Oshoites and I head instead to another one across the road. That’s packed, too, with what look like young professionals and students, chatting animatedly on sofas, sipping peppermint-flavoured tobacco through their shishas. I take a table near the plasma screen. It’s showing some English-language news channel and the banner reads ‘Breaking News: Assault on Gaza’. It’s far more serious than I realised from the auto-rickshaw driver. Wave after wave of air bombardments are underway. Modern Empire deals with ‘terrorism’ rather differently than in Bill’s time and it’s reported rather differently, too. Foreign correspondents are corralled on a hilltop some kilometres from the conflict; behind them massive columns of smoke mushroom over Gaza City, rising in poetic slow motion. At least at Guernica and Coventry, the population had a few minutes’ warning of the bombers. Now death comes silently out of cloudless skies, long before the jets’ noise can be heard. A horse-faced Israeli army major insists her country’s prepared to do everything necessary, for as long as it takes, to ‘degrade the assets’ of the ‘terrorist entity’. Nothing about what’s going on at the receiving end.

‘This chair free?’ a man asks, in a northern European accent.

I’m relieved to be distracted. He’s slim and tanned, dressed in loose orange cheesecloth trousers and a pale-blue waistcoat with bulging pockets. Despite a crease-less complexion, his thick copper-gold hair’s streaked with grey. I motion him to put down his crash helmet and bag, a flimsy cotton foldover
worn like a bandolier. He goes to the counter and returns with a plate of stale-looking macaroni cheese.

‘Starving,’ he explains, ‘just got in from Goa.’

‘You came by bike?’ I’m astounded.

He gestures outside. ‘Moped. Before that I crossed over to Madras and back.’

I take to him immediately. Travelling India on a moped sounds pleasingly crazy. He assures me it’s not so bad. The Honda’s extremely manoeuvrable, though he checks the brakes religiously every few days.

‘And I always use earplugs. The truck klaxons, man, they blow you out of your seat otherwise.’

Anders is sixty-two, Swedish, and has fallen into the habit of wintering in Goa. He goes home in spring, spending the warmer months on his boat, moored in one of Stockholm’s harbours. Mostly he eats fish which he catches himself, and saves his pension for winter breaks. He got bored this time and decided to do some travelling. Despite India’s apparently enthusiastic embrace of globalisation, foreigners still can’t buy any sort of vehicle in India, so a local friend did it for him.

‘You certainly travel light.’

He dangles his bandolier from one finger. ‘That’s it. Change of clothes, my documents, toothbrush and a book. What’s that you have there?’

I hold up Gandhi’s
Autobiography
. Anders looks sceptical. ‘Got anything lighter you’ve finished with?’

‘Perhaps back at my hotel.’

On my recommending the Samrat, Anders decides to check it out. ‘I’ve been in some real dumps this trip, man. Like to treat myself every so often to a hot shower.’

He asks what I’m doing in Pune, and I give him an abbreviated version.

‘Sounds amazing,’ he responds. ‘Never really talked to my old man after my parents divorced. Regret it now. Not that he had an interesting life in the colonies or anything, he was
an accountant in suburban Stockholm. But what he felt, how he looked at things, what was important, I never thought of asking before he died. You gotta grab a chance like this, squeeze it for all it’s worth.’

I explain my dilemma over Satara.

‘Satara, you gotta go, no question,’ he declares. ‘You’re meeting people here who knew your father. Maybe the same will happen down there. Perhaps there’s some old constable who worked with him?’

What an idiot I’ve been not to think of that before. Modak may be the only survivor from the officer cadre of the IP, but that was minuscule compared to the other ranks.

‘You’re on a roll, man, go with the flow.’ He smiles at my doubtful expression. ‘Mind you, personally I’d prefer to spend time in Pune.’

I explain I haven’t seen much apart from Yeravda, not even the local attraction, the Osho commune.

‘I dropped by just before I came here. Thought I might spend New Year there. I hear the parties are wild. Get most of my chicks on the internet at home. Shame that’s not so well developed yet in India.’ He grins wolfishly. ‘Goa’s full of hotties. But with AIDS it’s too much of a lottery. Should have started coming thirty years ago. Want to come for a drink?’

I decline, citing my appointment with Dhun.

‘OK, maybe see you later at the Samrat.’

As I leave the café, I make the decision to head for Satara. Anders is right. Who knows what I might turn up there? Besides it’s entirely possible that Poel may be away until the New Year. In any case, Satara’s only a few hours away, so I won’t lose much time if Rajeev calls me back from there. Go with the flow; I repeat the mantra as I step into the road to hail an auto-rickshaw.

Mrs Nanavatty’s is even more modest than the Modaks’, a two-bedroom flat in a small development one block in from
the reeking river which drags its viscous carcase through the north-east of the city. I’m met at the door by a striking woman with short dark hair who tells me she’s Mrs Nanavatty’s daughter, Erna. It’s difficult to judge her age, and I’m wary after my experience with the Modaks. Mrs Nanavatty, however, is clearly very old. She’s tiny and stooped, face deeply lined behind pebble glasses which make her toffee eyes look huge. She has piled-up thick grey hair and wears a wrap over one shoulder like a toga, half concealing a blue silk top. A faint scent of cardamom hangs in the air.

‘Come in, my dear, so pleased to meet you. I couldn’t believe it when Kiron phoned me to tell me you’d come. Do call me Dhun. Now I’m ninety-four, so you’ll have to speak up.’

Her eyes are much younger, almost playful as she motions me to a white leather armchair in the cramped living room. I feel much more at ease than at the Modaks’.

‘A peg?’

It takes me a moment to remember she’s using the Raj-era term for a shot of liquor. I ask for fresh lime-soda instead. Erna bustles out to the kitchen. No servants here. I slowly realise why the room feels claustrophobic. It’s crammed with game trophies, of the kind familiar from childhood, antlers on the walls, a leopard skin hanging. In one corner is a pair of elephant tusks, thick ends capped with engraved brass. Jammed between the glass coffee table and the sofa is a display cabinet. The familiar IP sword sits next to another I don’t recognise.

‘My son’s,’ Dhun explains, ‘just retired from the army. Lieutenant-General.’

Husband and son stare down from portrait photos on the wall. Mr Nanavatty’s resembles the official one of Modak in Rajeev’s book. His black-and-white face is strong and bony, the expression frank, a touch of irony in the half-smile. The son’s picture is full colour, and shows him receiving further medal to add to the impressive collection adorning his resplendent dress uniform.

‘It was taken when R.K. relinquished Northern Command. He was in charge of Kashmir and Jammu.’

Clearly being non-Hindu has done her son no harm.

Once Erna returns with the drinks, Dhun asks about me and my trip. She expresses concern about the Modaks. In poor health, with their sons overseas, to her they seem very vulnerable now.

‘So how did you know my father?’ I ask when the preliminaries are over.

‘I first met him right here in Poona, one Police Week. It must have been soon after the war started.’

‘Police Week?’

She nods. ‘A lovely event. Part formal inspection, part
bandobast –
that’s dress parades – part public relations, to show off what we were about. But very social, too. There were balls and drinks and sports events. Everyone came up from the districts and the training school. It was the highlight of the year. I met your father at the governor’s ball. He was a striking man, very charming. Keki and Bill got on from the start, despite Keki being a fair bit senior. They shared an interest in
shikari.’

‘Hunting?’

‘Yes. There was a rule in those days at the PTS that every probationer had to go into the hills alone and bag a kill before they graduated. It didn’t have to be big game, though there were plenty of tigers and leopard round Nasik in those days. Keki gave your father advice on where to look. They hunted together later, once or twice.’

‘That’s funny, because he became a game ranger in Africa.’ Looking at all the trophies, I wonder if I’ve made a faux pas.

But Dhun smiles. ‘Yes, he and my husband used to write to each other long after your father moved to Tanganyika. Bill said that if Keki wanted to come out and hunt, he just had to find his fare and everything else would be taken care of. Keki so wanted to go, but he hummed and ha’d and put it off
and put if off and then the dreadful news came about the aircrash.’ She looks at me with melting eyes.

‘Your father was so young. Keki was terribly upset. He always said Bill was one of the finest men he’d known, and kept kicking himself for not having taken the opportunity to visit before. We were all devastated. I used to correspond with your mother after that. We never met, of course, but after Bill was killed I wrote to say how sorry I was and she wrote back and after that it was mainly at Christmas. Once she went to New Zealand, however, we lost touch. What happened to her?’

As I explain how she died a few years ago in Australia, I have a sudden vision of my mother in Gorleston-on-Sea, poring over the pale-blue aerogramme smothered with exotic stamps, explaining it came from a former colleague of Bill’s who’d been posted to western India.

‘That would have been us. We were in Assam in the late 60s and early 70s. During the Naxalite trouble. Keki was transferred to try and squash it.’ She smiles ruefully. ‘There’s always some terrorist trouble in India.’

‘Where did Bill and he work together?’

‘In Ahmedabad. They were helping to set up the Home Guards.’

‘Wasn’t the war over by then?’

‘Yes, but the new provincial government wanted more police auxiliaries. Everyone could see law and order was going to collapse. There was already trouble between Jinnah and Gandhi and Nehru. It was clear the Muslims would break away. There was lots of communalism, it had only been suppressed by the war.’

‘It was a training post?’

Dhun nods. ‘But there were so many riots, your father and Keki were often called out. It got very vicious: home-made bombs and acid and some of the rioters had arms.’

‘Do you recall my father being wounded?’

She reflects a moment, before shaking her head. ‘You know, everyone was getting injured. The police were completely outnumbered, caught in the middle of mobs who wanted to get at each other. Sometimes they had to call the army in. But the police took the brunt. Without them, it would have been much worse than it was.’

‘Imagine what it’s like to be attacked by an angry mob,’ Erna interjects.

I recall Modak’s comments earlier. ‘Terrifying.’

‘Keki always said your father was one of the bravest officers he knew,’ Dhun continues, as if she hasn’t heard.

This is more like it. I feel my spirits lifting. ‘Was Bill still in Ahmedabad during Partition?’

Dhun ponders. ‘Do you know, I’m not sure, I’ve a feeling he might have been transferred before Independence. But the last time I saw him, I remember him saying it was a terrible mistake, Partition, that it’d just give the green light to the extremists. And he was right, look what happened. All those death trains and the rapes and killing of children. And we’re still at each other’s throats sixty years later. With nuclear weapons now.’

‘Kiron thought he might have been posted somewhere on the coast.’

‘I can’t be sure, my dear. Have you checked his Service Record?’

I explain the dead end in that respect.

We talk for another hour or so, but Dhun can add little to what she’s already said. A lot of the time that Bill and Keki were in Ahmedabad, she remained in Pune for the children’s schooling. She glances fondly at her daughter. I can hardly believe Erna’s in her seventies. With her dark hair and unlined cheeks, she doesn’t look any older than Anders. It’s conceivable Bill could have played with her as a child, hoisting her onto his shoulders as he later did me. Before I can ask, Erna explains how, after school, she worked long years in a clothes
export company in Mumbai before retiring to Pune to look after Dhun. I infer that she never married, and wonder why not. When I tell them I’m planning to go to Satara, Erna jumps up.