The Golden House

I told him very little. Only the surface things which everyone knew. Bribery, corruption. Small potatoes. But I think he guessed the big potatoes. I think this was why the debauchery, the drink, the women, the drugs.

  Back home he was not that much of an artist. He had the lifestyle of the artist but not the work ethic. He was a bohemian but in Bohemia they make beautiful glass. He made very little of anything except making love and let me say though you will find it vulgar, excuse me, the drugs do not make one a better lover except in one’s own estimation. So probably he was ineffective also in that department. When he came to America he cleaned up his act. (A snap of the fingers.) Just like that. By this I was impressed, he was a new man, and so everything began to work for him. His talent came out and everyone saw it. I saw it for the first time. I never suspected he had so much talent.

  All three of them shared this ability: to close the book of the past and to live in the present. This is a fortunate gift. I myself am closing the book of the present and living mostly in the past.

  But there remains the matter of the buzzing in Apu’s ears, the voices, sometimes the visions. He had a long history with hallucinogens. You could say if this is how you understand things that they made him more sensitive to what is unseen, that they revealed to him the pathway to the visionary world, opening, what are they? The doors of perception. Or you could say that that is all nonsense. You could say alternatively that he suffered damage. That he too was damaged in the brain, in the heart of himself. Three sons and all with damage in the brain, in the heart of themselves! This is not an equitable fate for a father. This is not just. Nevertheless it has been my fate. Apu saw visions and heard voices. So he was crazy too.

  So I think he knew what I did but also he arranged with himself to un-know. This is why he went back with his woman and did not think about it first. He went back home and died. I think when he died he would have known what killed him and why. He would have known it was the consequence of my actions. This I also understand. The message was sent and I have received it. The darkness is gathering. There is not long before the end. This is why I speak tonight. So that everything can be said.

  There are two things to talk about and they happened fifteen years apart. 1993, 2008. These are the dates.

  In December 1992 Nero was on the Kipling with Zamzama Alankar again. The mosque built by the first Mughal emperor Babar in the northern city of Ayodhya had just been destroyed by Hindu activists who claimed that it stood on the mythological site of the birthplace of Lord Ram, the seventh avatar or incarnation of Vishnu. There were riots in Mumbai. First Muslims rioted then the party faithful of the Hindu extremist Shiv Sena attacked them in return and the police, Zamzama said, were openly partisan, openly pro-Sena and “anti-us.” These riots were in the process of dying down but Zamzama’s rage was volcanic and knew no bounds.

  Last straw, he shouted at Nero. Camel’s back is broken and now the camel must be shot.

  It is not wise to get involved in this matter. Focus on your strong points. Business is good.

  It is not a question of wisdom. It is a question of necessity. And to destroy a holy mosque because of the rumored location there of the origin point of an imaginary being, this is what is unwise.

  They do not think he is fictional.

  They are incorrect.

  Alankar had had contact with concerned persons from a neighboring country. The neighbors felt strongly that action must be taken.

  A plan has been formulated, Alankar said. A major consignment of arms, ammunition and RDX explosive will be sent by the neighbors, by sea to the Konkan Coast in the first week of January. The landing place is Dighi. It will be necessary for you to arrange the suitcases for the coast guard so that a gap will be left in the water through which the consignment will come on speedboats.

  For me, Zamzama? This is not my kind of business. Politics? No, no, no. You must not ask this of me.

  Yes, yes, yes. Your house is so well fortified, isn’t it? I have seen it, the motorized heavy metal gates, the alarm systems, the security guards. Your family must feel safe there. Do they feel safe? They must. Do they sometimes go out of doors? Of course, they are Mumbaikars, they lead a full life. A happy family. Congrats.

  We are old associates, you and I. This is not a way to talk to me.

  You have become so successful, so wealthy, well done. How unfortunate if your workers down tools. How tragic if by chance, a fire.

  So there is no choice but to do it. Very well, it will be done.

  Also there will be a second consignment some weeks later, at Shekhadi. Same drill.

  The neighbors’ plan required a precise sequence of actions. First there would be killings. In Dongri, the previous fiefdom of Daddy Jyoti who had been driven out of town by his soda-bottle beating, there lived a community of what were called mathadi workers, that is, laborers who carried loads on their heads. These were street sleepers so they were easy to acquire. A number of these head-load workers would be acquired and the dispatching would be done with small knives to the throat to give the appearance of a ritual religious rite. Dongri was an area of high communal sensitivity and the neighbor was confident that the ritual killings would cause the opposition to rise up in force. The opposition was highly organized and had police support but they would face heavily armed resistance. Weapons would be prestocked in flashpoint zones. And there would be grenades and there would be bombs. And then the bombs would incite more opposition crowds and those crowds would be met by automatic rifles and more explosives. And a fire would be lit that would spread across the country and the neighbors would be glad because the bastards would have been taught a lesson.

  God willing, Zamzama said, we will give the bastards one hell of a bloody nose.

  It was the last time Nero ever set foot aboard the Kipling. It was almost time to go ashore but the Z-Company chief had one more thing to say. You and I, he said, maybe we will never meet again. It will not be possible for me to remain in this country after the events that will occur. For you the position is easier. I have always been thoughtful regarding you and there is as you are aware a long chain of intermediaries between us and you have one hundred percent deniability, so I think it will be okay for you to stay put with your wife-family. But maybe just in case you also should construct an exit strategy.

  Zamzama was right. The two men in fact never met again. And he was right about the exit strategy too.

  The events of March 12, 1993, were widely reported and it will not be necessary to go into details. Car bombs and scooter bombs. Bomb in the basement of the Stock Exchange. Three bazaars, three hotels, airport, cinema, passport office, bank, kaboom, kaboom, kaboom. Even Mahim fishermen’s colony, kaboom. Taxi-bomb at the Gateway to India, big fucking kaboom.

  The neighbors must have been disappointed, however. There was considerable loss of life but the hoped-for civil war did not occur. The city and the nation kept their nerve. There were arrests, things calmed down, peace returned. Zamzama Alankar was gone along with his lieutenant Short Fingers, and these two were named Public Enemies #1 and #2. It was widely believed they eventually settled down as guests of the neighbors, and Zamzama continued to run Z-Company by remote control. The neighbors, however, claimed to have no knowledge of the fugitives’ whereabouts.

  In the following years there was a major rift in the underworld. After the attacks the police assault on Z-Company was unprecedented, all the arrangements and understandings fell apart, and the whole edifice came this close to disintegrating. The satphones and online secure communications systems went on working so Zamzama was able to send instructions and rule the roost, but wasn’t it just a little too grand of him and Short Fingers to issue orders from a distance, they weren’t the ones taking the heat. Gradually the distance between the two absentee leaders and the two in situ, Big Head and Little Feet—who had to face gangsterism and terror charges, and the not-proven verdict that allowed them to walk free took five years to engineer, that was five years of life under the hammer
of the law—it caused resentment. At the end of five years Z-Company was still Z-Company, the loyalty of the cadres was still there, but everyone knew there was a Splinter-Z, a group that owed primary loyalty to the dwarf and the guy with the huge shoe size, and though a kind of truce held between those two and the two staying with the neighbors there was, increasingly, little love lost there.

  Nero was invited in for a meeting with Head and Feet. This did not take place on a luxury yacht in the harbor but in a basti deep inside the Dharavi slum, to which he was taken by men who didn’t speak to him and didn’t look like they wanted a chat. Inside the slum dwelling Head nodded at him and Feet pointed a toe at a brick. Sit, Feet said.

  So here’s what we know about you, said Head.

  You’re the dhobi, said Feet.

  What is dirty, you clean.

  Therefore, hard to believe you knew nothing. We knew nothing. That is a matter for us to resolve with the boss. But you? You knew nothing? That stretches our credulity.

  That puzzles our dimaags.

  However. Our brains also know the following, (a) and (b). (A), you don’t like politics.

  And (b), you don’t get involved in religion.

  So, there’s a balance. On the one hand, on the other hand.

  It has been decided to give you benefit of doubt.

  The following is our position. This operation has damaged the Company. From now on it is our intention to disengage from such operations.

  We have put this to the boss and Fingers.

  They are in agreement.

  A fresh start. Return to basics. Not straying from our area of maximum expertise.

  However, in Company business, there are many issues of trust. And our trust in you is, how to say it.

  Compromised.

  Shaken.

  Shot.

  An untrustable trust is untrustworthy.

  It is a distrust.

  However, we have given you benefit of doubt.

  See above.

  Therefore we simply disengage from you. You continue with your life, we with ours.

  But if at any time any single information leaks from you regarding ourselves.

  We will cut off your penis.

  And your sons’ penises.

  And we will put them in your wife’s mouth.

  And I will fuck her from behind.

  While I slit her throat from the front.

  You are a free man. You may go.

  Go fast.

  Before we change our mind.

  That penis thing sounds like a good idea.

  No, no. He is joking only. Goodbye, dhobi.

  Goodbye.

  Fifteen years passed. Fifteen years: a long time, long enough to forget what one wants to leave behind. His sons grew up, his wealth grew too, and the shadow of the underworld, the shadow that rises from below, no longer lay upon his house. Human life continued with its ups and downs. He had his exit strategy in place but there was no need to use it, no need to leave home, no need to tear his world in half and throw half of it away. Fifteen years. Long enough to relax.

  Then it was 2008. And in August 2008, at the airport, as he stood in the immigration line after a business trip to New York, Nero saw a ghost. The ghost was standing in the passport control line next to his own, and its trademark orange hair was gone. Now it was black like everyone else’s. But other than the hair it was obviously him. Public Enemy #2. Nero looked at Short Fingers in wonderment. Surely he would be seized at any instant, gunned down if he tried to resist? His eyes met Fingers’, and he frowned his puzzlement across to the Z-Company megaboss. Fingers just gave him a big thumbs-up sign (with, it must be said, a very small thumb) and turned away. They approached the passport control windows. Uniformed officers carefully scrutinized documents in the super-bureaucratic manner perfected by all minor Indian functionaries. And when Short Fingers was second in line, there was an extraordinary chance occurrence. All the computers in the immigration hall went down, boom! Like that. All the screens black. There followed several moments of consternation as immigration officers tried to reboot their machines, and other officers ran hither and yon. The computer crash was as total as it was mysterious. The waiting lines grew restive. Finally, there was a signal from a senior immigration officer, and the lines began to move, everyone was waved through, manual check only, and Fingers was cleared and gone, and two minutes later, as Nero approached his window, boom!, the computers all came back on. Z-Company had not lost its touch.

  Why had Short Fingers taken the great risk of returning? Why had Zamzama sent him? These thoughts preoccupied Nero deep into the night and at two o’clock in the morning he had his answer because for the first time in a decade and a half his cell rang in the coded sequence that spelled trouble. Three rings, off, one ring, off, two rings, off, answer the fourth time. Yes he said. The voice of Short Fingers in his ear like the claws of the Devil sucking him down into the abyss. One more time, Fingers said. One last time.

  The Western Region of the Indian Coast Guard was divided into five DHQs. DHQ-2 was the Mumbai department and boasted three stations along the coastline, at Murud Janjira, Ratnagiri and Dahanu. Each station had at its disposal a number of offshore patrol vessels, inshore patrol vessels, fast and extra-fast patrol vessels, and smaller, even faster patrol and interceptor boats. Also helicopters and surveillance aircraft. But the sea was a large place and with proper organization it was possible to leave a specified zone unwatched. The number of suitcases required for such an operation was large.

  What is it this time.

  Don’t ask. Just make the arrangements.

  And if I refuse.

  Don’t refuse. The don is in poor health. The neighbors are not the best of hosts. His personal situation is restricted, his finances are running low. He thinks he has little time left. He wants this one last great deed. He has no choice. The neighbors insist. There is a threat of eviction.

  It has been fifteen years. I’ve been out of the game a long time.

  Welcome to the Hotel California.

  I’m not going to do it.

  Don’t refuse. I’m asking nicely. I’m saying please. Please: don’t refuse.

  I see.

  On November 23, 2008, ten gunmen armed with automatic weapons and hand grenades left by boat from the hostile neighboring country. In their backpacks they carried ammunition and strong narcotics: cocaine, steroids, LSD, and syringes. On their journey they hijacked a fishing boat, abandoned their original vessel, brought two dinghies aboard the fishing boat and told the captain where to go. When they were near the shore they killed the captain and got into the dinghies. Afterwards many people wondered why the coast guard had not seen them or tried to intercept them. The coast was supposed to be well guarded but on this night there had been a failure of some sort. When the dinghies landed, on November 26, the gunmen split up into small groups and made their way to their chosen targets, a railway station, a hospital, a movie theater, a Jewish center, a popular café, and two five-star hotels. One of these was the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel, where Nero’s wife, in the aftermath of a quarrel with her husband, was in the Sea Lounge eating cucumber sandwiches and complaining about her marriage to her friends.

  I can’t speak, Riya said.

  Don’t speak.

  You helped the gunmen enter the city, the ones who killed your wife.

  There is no need to speak.

  And then you fled. You and all your sons.

  There is a little more to say. After what happened the body of the gangster Short Fingers was found dumped on a street in Dongri. He had been killed with short knife cuts to the throat. His former associates Big Head and Little Feet were angry at the attack, which placed the Company and its operations in jeopardy once again. This was their message to Zamzama Alankar. Later, Apu also was the victim of their rage. They were sending me a message. The message said, we know you helped, and this is our reply. These are the names the man Mastan is coming to give me. These names I already
know.

  So you are responsible for your son’s death as well as his mother’s.

  What I did, I did to save their lives. I compromised myself to protect them. I am the king of my house but I became a servant. The laundryman. The dhobi. But you are correct. I failed. You accuse me and I am guilty of it and fate has punished me by taking my children. One child dead at the hands of my enemies, one by his own hand, one at the hand of a madman, but all three are my punishment and my burden to bear forever, yes, and their mothers too. I have been taught the lesson and I have learned it. The dead bodies of my children and their mothers weigh on my shoulders and their weight pushes me down. You see me crushed, daughter, like a cockroach beneath destiny’s heel. You see me crushed. And now you know everything.

  And what do I do now, now that I know everything?

  It will not be necessary for you to act. Tomorrow morning at 9 A.M. sharp the angel of death is coming to take tea.

  What would it mean if the Joker became the King and the she-bat went to jail. Outside the Gardens the giggles were becoming louder, sounding more like shrieks, and I didn’t know if they were screams of rage or joy. I was simultaneously exhausted and scared. Maybe I was wrong about my country. Maybe a life lived in the bubble had made me believe things that were not so, or not enough so to carry the day. What did anything mean if the worst happened, if brightness fell from the air, if the lies, the slanders, the ugliness, the ugliness, became the face of America. What would my story mean, my life, my work, the stories of Americans old and new, Mayflower families and Americans proudly sworn in just in time to share in the unmasking—the unmaking—of America. Why even try to understand the human condition if humanity revealed itself as grotesque, dark, not worth it. What was the point of poetry, cinema, art. Let goodness wither on the vine. Let Paradise be lost. The America I loved, gone with the wind.

  I didn’t sleep well that last weekend before the vote because my mind ran on thoughts like these. Riya called me at 5 A.M. and I was wide-eyed and staring at the ceiling. You have to come, she said. Something’s going to happen and I don’t know what it is but I can’t be here alone. The old man had fallen asleep at his desk, slumped forward in his chair with his forehead against the wood. Her night had been as sleepless as mine. But she was not a Catholic priest in a Hitchcock movie and she needed to share with somebody the burden of what she had been told, of the secrets that were now also hers. I went to meet her and we sat in the Gardens before dawn and she talked. What should I do, she said. What is there to do, I replied. But I already knew the answer because I was bursting with creative excitement; the story had rescued me from the depths of my nocturnal despair. It was the missing piece I’d needed, and it gave me the dark heart of my movie, the big reveal, the point of it. Art is what it is and artists are thieves and whores but we know when the juices are flowing, when the unknown muse is whispering in our ear, talking fast, get this down, I’m only going to say it once; and then we know the answer to all the doubting whys that plague us in our night terrors. I thought of Joseph Fiennes as the young Bard in Shakespeare in Love, jumping up from the desk at which he’s writing—what? Romeo and Juliet?—and doing a little private pirouette and telling himself without vanity or shame, “God, I’m good.”