Such a Long Journey Read online

  ‘Will you forget?’ Tehmul shook his head. ‘Will you tell anyone?’ The head shook again, and Gustad snapped shut the penknife. ‘Good. Now put the money in your pocket.’ He released his neck.

  Tehmul folded the two notes till they were down to a square inch. He pried off his right shoe and tucked the square into his sock, under the heel. ‘GustadGustadthankyou. TworupeesGustad. Tworupeessecret.’ He started backing away slowly.

  Gustad watched him go, sorry that he had to frighten the poor fellow. But it was the only way, nothing remained in Tehmul’s mind except fear. He forgot for a moment that the real problem still sat inside, on black plastic, upon his black desk.

  iv

  The bundles of currency had tumbled when the plastic was unwrapped, and Dilnavaz restacked them. ‘What trouble is Jimmy trying to bring down on our heads, God only knows. Sending all this money in a package, like onions and potatoes.’ She began wrapping the plastic.

  He stopped her. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Packing it. To send it back before there is any trouble.’

  ‘What are you saying, what trouble? You don’t even know whose money it is or what it is for.’

  ‘Trouble does not come with a big advertisement giving reasons and explanations. It just comes. And with idiots like Tehmul-Lungraa watching and blabbing, it comes faster. Take the money to Chor Bazaar, baba, give it back to your taxi-driver.’

  He dismantled the neat stacks. ‘Not a word will pass from Tehmul’s mouth. I have spoken to him.’ He checked the first and last serial numbers in a few of the bundles: yes, there were a hundred notes to each. He counted the number of bundles: again a hundred. And yes, they were all in the hundred-rupee denomination. ‘My God!’ he whispered. ‘Ten lakh rupees!’

  The vast sum, spoken, served to renew her fears. ‘Take it back, I beg you!’ She reached for a corner of the plastic, but he snatched it from her.

  ‘Take it back is the only thing stuck in your head. Makes you forget everything else.’ He began to fan through each bundle. ‘Jimmy said there would be a letter.’

  She joined the search for the letter; the sooner they found it, the sooner this trouble could be sent back. ‘Nice smell,’ she said, bringing her nose closer to the bundle, to the pleasantly sharp odour of new banknotes.

  ‘Very nice. For twenty-four years I have worked with this smell in my nose. Never get tired of it.’ He paused to reflect. ‘Wonderful thing is, five-rupee bundles smell different from ten-rupee bundles. Each amount has its own smell. I like this hundred-rupee smell the best.’ He riffled, and a small folded paper fell out. ‘Here it is!’

  The letter was very short. They read it together:

  Dear Gustad,

  Thanks for going to Chor Bazaar. Now all that remains is to deposit the money in a bank account.

  Since you are savings supervisor, it will be easy to avoid all the rules and regulations about large deposits. But don’t worry, this is not black-market money, it is government money I am in charge of.

  For the account, use the name of Mira Obili, and if you need an address, yours, or my post office box in Delhi. It does not matter, I trust you completely. The only reason for secrecy is that there are many people in our own government who would like to see my guerrilla operation fail. I will send more instructions when necessary.

  Your loving friend,

  Jimmy

  PS Forget Iago’s advice. Ten lakh won’t fit in your purse. Good luck.

  Gustad smiled. ‘I was wondering why Jimmy chose that line.’

  ‘Forget your wondering and help me pack this.’

  ‘Don’t you understand what this is about? He is trying to save the poor Bengalis being murdered by Pakistan.’

  She was exasperated; sometimes he was like a little child, refusing to acknowledge reality. ‘Surely by now it’s gone into your brain that you cannot do this. Unless you want to do dangerous illegal things and lose your job!’

  ‘What about Jimmy? Do you know what dangerous things he must be doing in RAW?’ But even as he tried to imagine Jimmy’s heroics, he knew she was right.

  ‘For him, it is his job, he joined the secret service. Let him do all his secreting and servicing himself, without making us starve to death. That is what will happen if you ever lose your job, remember!’ Then, wishing she had not uttered the words, she added in a subdued voice, ‘Owaaryoo,’ and performed the God-forbid gestures, snapping her fingers three times while sweeping her hand outwards, away from Gustad, to ward off the bad vibrations of that dire possibility.

  Reluctantly, he began putting the package together. She helped him stack the bundles. ‘I gave him my word. In my letter I said he could rely on me.’

  ‘It was before he told you what he wanted. To ask for a favour without telling what favour is not nice.’ She brightened. ‘I know. Refuse it in a way that won’t look bad. Write to him that you lost your bank job.’ She caught herself too late and performed the owaaryoo again. ‘No, no, don’t say that, say you got transferred to some other department, different duties. So you cannot do deposits.’

  He considered her plan and liked it. ‘You are right. That way he won’t feel I let him down.’ He pushed the unfinished package to one side of the desk and wrote the letter.

  There was a knock. Dilnavaz ran to the bedroom and came back with a sheet, throwing it over the heap of money before opening the door. It was only Sohrab. ‘Thank God,’ she said and removed the sheet.

  ‘Oh boy!’ said Sohrab. He started to laugh at the sight of so much money. ‘Daddy robbed his bank?’

  Gustad turned to Dilnavaz with a face black as thunder. ‘Warn your son right now, I am in no mood for his senseless jokes.’

  She knew it was not an empty ultimatum when he spoke in that tight low voice, as though his throat were choking. She cautioned Sohrab with a look. ‘Money is from Major Uncle, but we are sending it back.’ She handed him the note, as well as Gustad’s reply. ‘It’s too risky for Daddy.’

  He read it and said, ‘How childish, this anagram.’

  She did not know the word. ‘Anagram?’

  ‘You take a name, mix up the letters, and form a new name. Mira Obili is an anagram of Bilimoria.’ Gustad pretended not to listen. He verified the letters mentally, however. Sohrab fingered the bundles of currency and toyed with the notes. ‘Jimmy Uncle says this is government money, right? So let’s spend it on all the things government is supposed to do. Wouldn’t it be nice to fix the sewers in this area, install water tanks for everyone, repair the –’

  Gustad sprang from his chair without warning and aimed a powerful slap at his face. ‘Shameless!’ Sohrab managed to deflect the blow. ‘Talks like a crazy rabid dog! My own son!’

  Shaken and bewildered, Sohrab turned to his mother. ‘What’s the matter with him these days? I just made a joke!’

  ‘You know what the matter is,’ she said quietly, and silenced him as he tried to say something. He left the room, trembling with emotion.

  Gustad continued wrapping the package as though nothing had happened. But he could not pretend for long. ‘Changed so completely, it’s hard to recognize him.’ The disquiet about the strange parcel, disappointment with Jimmy’s unseemly request, now mixed with the other, deeper sorrow, of filial disrespect and ingratitude. The pernicious mixture filled his mouth with wormwood. ‘Who would have thought he would turn out like this?’ He pulled on the twine and it snapped. She patiently knotted the pieces together.

  ‘Every year at exam-time we fed him seven almonds at daybreak.’ His bitterness turned to the past for nourishment. ‘With holes in my shoes I went to work, so we could buy almonds to sharpen his brain. At two hundred rupees a kilo. And all wasted. All gone in the gutter-water.’ She put her finger on the string to hold it in place while he tied the knots. ‘Remember,’ he said, loud enough for Sohrab to hear inside, ‘I kicked him once to save his life, and I can kick him again. Out of my house, this time! Out of my life!’

  She extricated her finger
from the tightening knots in the nick of time. O God, no, please no! Please don’t make him talk like this! The lime juice will work, I know. It must work, or what will happen?

  ‘It is too late to go back today to Chor Bazaar,’ she said. ‘Will you go next Friday?’

  He accepted the change of subject: ‘No, not Chor Bazaar,’ and explained the new arrangement. But Ghulam Mohammed had said he was leaving Bombay for a week. For the duration, they agreed to hide the money in the kitchen, in the coal storage alcove under the choolavati.

  v

  Darius returned from cricket practice just before dinner-time, and so did the mosquitoes. Gustad said not to dally, to shut the door before the nuisance filled the whole house. Darius dropped a bundle of newspapers to the floor, received another pile from someone in the compound, and said, ‘Bye.’

  ‘Who was that? Where did you get all the papers?’ asked Gustad, swatting mosquitoes left and right.

  ‘Jasmine. She gave me the papers,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Who? Say loudly, I cannot hear!’

  He repeated the name fearfully, and Gustad was furious. ‘I warned you not to talk to the dogwalla idiot’s daughter. What is that fat padayri up to, anyway, giving you newspapers from her house? If he comes here again to complain, even your mother won’t be able to save you from the terrible punishment I will give.’ Then Gustad’s full attention was devoted to the mosquitoes. He suggested to Dilnavaz that she consider sewing mosquito nets for their beds. He could easily make a frame over which the nets would hang like a canopy. ‘In Matheran,’ he said, ‘my father took the whole family for a vacation when I was very small, and the hotel had mosquito nets for every bed. It was wonderful, not a single bite all night long. Never in my life have I slept so beautifully. At dinner-time there was no nuisance either. The manager used to put a dish –’

  He stopped, electrified by the memory. ‘Yes! That’s it! Quick get a big dish. The biggest we have.’

  ‘For what?’ asked Dilnavaz.

  ‘Just bring it, I will show you.’

  She ran to the kitchen and ran back. ‘How about this German silver thaali? It’s the biggest.’

  ‘Perfect,’ said Gustad, clearing the dining-table. He placed the round shallow dish under the bulb and filled it with water. When the surface grew still, the light bulb’s reflection steadied and shone brightly, tantalizingly, under water. Then the mosquitoes started to dive in. One by one, abandoning the real bulb, they plunged, unswervingly suicidal in their attempts to reach the aqueous, insubstantial light. Somehow it was a greater attraction than the one hanging from the ceiling.

  Gustad rubbed his hands in satisfaction. ‘See? That’s how the hotel manager in Matheran used to do it!’ Even Dilnavaz watched gleefully as the vicious little insects were roundly vanquished.

  ‘Now we can eat in peace,’ said Gustad. ‘Let them come. As many as want to. We have water enough for them all.’ The surface was covered with little twitching brown specks. He emptied the thaali down the drain, refilled it from the drum, and was ready for dinner.

  But Sohrab refused to leave the back room and come to table. Dilnavaz pleaded with him not to make matters worse. When she told Gustad, he said, ‘What is it to me?’

  They ate without Sohrab, while the mosquitoes continued to dive, some with such force that they caused tiny splashes. For the first time in weeks, dinner concluded without a single mosquito falling in anyone’s plate.

  *

  Two days later, while Gustad was at work, Sohrab packed a few of his things and left. He told his mother that he had made arrangements to live for a while with some college friends.

  Dilnavaz refused to accept it, said no, it was impossible, this was his home. She started to weep. ‘Your father wants the best for you, he is just upset right now. You cannot go away because of that.’

  ‘I’m fed up with his threats and everything. I’m not a little boy he can hit and punish.’ He promised to visit her once a week. When she saw nothing would change his mind, she wanted to know how long he would stay away. ‘That depends on Daddy,’ he said.

  In the evening, she told Gustad what had happened. He hid his surprise and hurt, and blandly repeated his harsh words from two nights ago: ‘What is it to me?’

  NINE

  i

  Two things swirled and spun through Gustad’s mind the following week while he said his prayers at dawn, swirled like the whirling wind-tossed leaves fallen in the compound: Roshan’s enervating diarrhoea, and the forbidding package in the dingy choolavati. There was a third thing, but that, he pretended, did not exist.

  The pills were powerless this time, both Entero-Vioform and the more potent Sulpha-Guanidine. Why? My poor child, missing school day after day. And Jimmy, of all people, asking me to do something criminal. The wind was strong, Gustad nudged and settled his black prayer cap. After last night’s brief shower, a light-hearted reminder of the approaching monsoon, the vinca’s leaves were green and fresh. He never ceased to wonder at the vinca’s endurance, surviving in the small dusty patch, year after year, despite the fenders of cars that ripped and clawed at its stems, or children who tore wantonly at its blooms.

  He crouched to pick up an empty Char Minar packet entangled in the branches and heard a car approach. Without looking over his shoulder he knew it was the Landmaster. Inspector Bamji’s police duties called him out at all hours. Sometimes, if Gustad was up reading late at night and heard the car, he would smile and picture Soli Bamji rushing with his magnifying glass to find clues. People had named him Sherlock Bamji many years ago. Once, there had been a particularly gruesome murder, and Bamji, in the course of neighbourly chitchat, was asked how the police had solved the case. Without stopping to think, he replied, ‘Elementary, my dear fellow.’

  The inevitable followed. Everyone knew Soli was not a private investigator, nor did he smoke a pipe. And whereas the archetype was always elegantly correct in speech and diction, Bamji was fond of verbal colour and ribaldry. But he was tall and thin, with a gaunt face and high forehead, and this, together with those ill-chosen words, was sufficient glue to make the name stick permanently.

  Bamji beeped and stopped. ‘Hullo, bossie! Hope you said a prayer for me.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Gustad. ‘Crime is calling you very early today?’

  ‘Oh, nothing much. But seriously, bossie, it’s going to be a big problem if the maader chod municipality cuts our compound in half. How will my car get in?’ Good, thought Gustad, serve him right; Bamji was one of the worst offenders when it came to inflicting wounds on the vinca. ‘You think the landlord’s petition will be strong enough to bugger the municipal arses?’

  ‘Who knows? My feeling is, when government wants something, it gets it, one way or another.’

  Inspector Bamji adjusted the rearview mirror. ‘If the bastards break down this wall, it will completely fuck up our privacy. You better pray every morning, bossie, for the good health of our wall.’

  That reminded Gustad. ‘Have you noticed how much it stinks, and all the mosquitoes?’

  ‘Naturally, with the amount of piss that flows there. Every sisterfucker with a full bladder stops by the wall and pulls out his lorri.’

  ‘Can’t you use your authority to stop it?’

  Inspector Bamji laughed. ‘If the police tried to arrest every illegal pisser, we would have to double-triple our force.’ He put the Landmaster in gear, waved goodbye, and hit the brakes again. ‘Almost forgot. When that Tehmul-Lungraa came with the petition, he was talking some nonsense. About seeing a mountain of money in your flat.’

  Gustad feigned laughter. ‘How I wish.’

  ‘I said to him, Scrambled Egg, don’t tell lies. Then I gave him one solid chamaat across his face.’ ‘Poor fellow.’

  ‘If his nonsense reaches the wrong ears, it would simply cause trouble. Temptation for bad elements. You don’t want thieves to come looking for imaginary money.’ He drove off.

  That Tehmul. How to seal his drooling, babbling li
ps? Thankfully, Soli did not believe him, and others would also assume that Tehmul was gibbering as usual. Tonight I will warn him again. When he is loitering in the compound.

  But when Gustad returned from work in the evening, the compound was deserted. He came out thrice before dinner, and was thwarted each time by Tehmul’s absence. He tried once more, after changing into his pyjamas. It was almost ten o’clock and still windy. Bits of newspaper and ice-cream wrappers had been blown into the bushes. Should I go up to his flat? But the older brother might be there.

  A window opened noisily, and Gustad looked up. It was Cavasji, his white hair shining. He inspected the sky, cocking his head from side to side like an exotically plumaged bird. ‘Monsoon is coming, so You be careful! Year after year, Your floods are washing away poor people’s huts! Enough now! Where is Your fairness? Have You got any brains or not? Flood the Tatas this year! Flood the Birlas, flood the Mafatlals!’

  When Cavasji was a young man once, he used to be called Cavas Calingar because he was round as a watermelon. But as he grew older he lost weight drastically, which made his height seem to increase, week by week, month by month. Tall he grew, and thin as an ancient prophet, as severe as a soothsayer, while his hair turned into a gleaming white halo. And the nickname was shed for ever, forgotten like a dry, shrivelled scab.

  His daughter-in-law ran down the stairs to Gustad. ‘Sorry to disturb you at night,’ said Mrs Pastakia, ‘but the subjo in Motta-Pappa’s garland is very dry. Please can I get some more?’

  Gustad fetched his pruning shears. He disliked Mrs Pastakia intensely, but tolerated her for the sake of Mr Pastakia and his old father. She was as inquisitive, short-tempered and manipulative as her husband was high-minded, upright and patient. One wondered how the two had managed to stay together so long and raise five children. Of course, Mrs Pastakia blamed all her shortcomings, including her occasional ill-treatment of old Cavasji, on her migraine. This invisible assailant struck at convenient intervals, sending her to bed for the day, where she suffered in silent agony and caught up on her back issues of Eve’s Weekly, Femina, or Film-fare, and Mr Pastakia did the housework after coming home from office. He must have the soul of a saint, thought Gustad, to have endured her these many years.