‘Have you seen her?’
‘She went to see the race.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Fuck you, baba,’ he said, as I took the steps four at a time.
I had to find the place where Karla would watch a legendary race. My guess was that she’d be drawn to the most dangerous turn on the course: the place where Fate and Death might watch together, with a picnic hamper.
It wasn’t easy to get there. The city was starting on lockdown, and I had to bribe cops at four checkpoints, just to keep my knives.
Inter-communal disharmony can cost lives in the thousands, anywhere in India, even in a tolerant city like Bombay. The cops locked the streets down tight, while a mosque was near to flames, and Hindus were thought to blame.
By the time I reached the vantage point the race was already run, and the traffic cops were responding to reports of a riot in Null Bazaar. A mob is coming from Dongri, I heard police radios saying, again and again in Marathi.
I rode down to the Haji Ali juice centre. I thought that Naveen might celebrate or commiserate the race there, because it was one of the few public places still publicly open.
There were people on the streets as I rode, running toward the Hindu temple, and the Muslim shrine. They’d heard that parts of the predominantly Muslim area of Dongri were in flames.
I had to weave between them, stopping now and then for panicked people who ran directly in front of me on the road. I slithered to a stop at Haji Ali, pulling my bike up some distance from a long line of foreign motorcycles, parked in front. I glanced inside the seated section of the juice bar, and saw Naveen, sitting with Kavita Singh.
I looked back to the biker boy group. There was a slim girl in niqab sunglasses, a red leather jacket, white jeans and red sneakers: Benicia. She was sitting on her bike, a matt black vintage 350cc with clip-on handlebars. The word Ishq, meaning Passionate Love, was painted on the petrol tank.
There were about a dozen people, all of them dressed in coloured leathers, despite the heat. I didn’t know any of them. A head turned toward me. It was Karla.
Karla smiled, but I didn’t know what her eyes said to me. It was either I’m so glad you’re here, or Don’t do anything stupid. I walked the distance between us, and took her arm.
‘I have to talk to you, Karla.’
The boy racers on Japanese motorcycles were looking me over. I was ashes, scratches, and burned-black marks.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘Khader’s house,’ I said. ‘It’s gone. Nazeer and Tariq, both gone.’
A psychic thing, but a thing real enough to make her shudder, forked through her body, jerking her head back in distress. She fell into me and slung her arm around my waist as we walked back to my bike. She sat on the bike, her back to the group outside the juice bar.
‘You look hurt,’ she said. ‘Are you okay?’
‘It’s nothing, I –’
‘Were you there, at the fire?’
‘Yeah, I –’
‘Lunatic!’ she snapped, simmering queens. ‘Things aren’t dangerous enough, without you have to go play with fire? Why am I taking all this trouble to keep you safe, when you take so much trouble to be unsafe?’
‘But I –’
‘Gimme a joint,’ she said.
We smoked. I was listening to the cops, in the police post nearby, talking about locking the whole city down as Plan B, if the rioting spread beyond Crawford market, which wasn’t far enough away from where we were.
I wanted to get her out of there. I wanted to take her home, dirty and all as I was. I wanted to take a shower and visit her in the Bedouin tent.
The biker boys were looking at us. They were hopped up on watermelon juice and someone else’s victory. Young men, with girls to impress: body language, looking for an offence no one committed.
Fire, I was thinking. It’s gone. All of it. Nazeer, Nazeer, Nazeer, they shot you, and burned you, my brother.
‘He’s dead, the boy?’ Karla asked, grabbing a rope of detail, and pulling me from the fire.
‘Yes. I saw him. He was dead, but untouched by the fire. Nazeer shielded his body. Abdullah brought Tariq’s body out of the building, but he had to leave Nazeer inside.’
‘May the universe comfort this young, returning soul,’ she said.
‘Comfort both their souls.’
‘Both their souls,’ she repeated.
‘They were shot, Karla, and their guards have disappeared.’
‘Are you sure?’
For a moment I looked at her as Abdullah had looked at me on the burning street, an extinct legacy in his arms.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Okay.’
A biker boy approached us. I moved around the bike.
‘Are you okay, Karla?’ the biker boy asked. ‘Is this guy bothering you?’
‘No, Jack,’ I said, unamiably. ‘You’re bothering me. Back off.’
He was a nice kid, probably, but it was the wrong moment on the wrong night. And besides, I was talking to my girl.
‘Who the fuck are you?’
‘I’m the guy who’s telling you to back off, Jack, while you can.’
‘Go and sit down, Abhay,’ Karla said, her back turned.
‘Anything for you, Karla,’ Abhay said, his shiny jacket creaking like stairs as he bowed. ‘If you need me, I’m just over here.’
He backed away, glaring at me until he rejoined his friends.
‘Nice kid,’ I said.
‘They’re all nice kids,’ she said. ‘And they’re all going to the party tonight.’
‘What party?’
‘The party that I uninvited you to.’
‘Uninvited me?’
‘You were invited, but I uninvited you.’
‘Who invited me, before you uninvited me?’
She turned her head a little to the side.
‘The hostess, if you must know.’
‘What party are we talking about, again?’
‘A special party, and believe it or not, I had to pull strings to cut you from the list. You should feel okay about that.’
‘I don’t feel okay about anything, right now.’
Another biker boy approached us behind Karla’s back, staring at me. The new biker boy was upset about something. I put my hand up, with a hard face behind it, and he stopped.
‘Don’t.’
He backed away again.
‘Take it easy, Lin,’ Karla said, close enough to kiss.
‘This is as easy as it gets, tonight.’
‘They’re friends. Not good friends, and not close friends, but useful friends.’
‘Come with me, Karla.’
‘I can’t –’ she began.
‘You can.’
‘I can’t.’
‘I won, Lin!’ Naveen said, running up to hug me. ‘What a race. That girl is phenomenal, but I won. Did you see it?’
‘Great, Naveen,’ I said. ‘Tell your biker boys to calm down.’
‘Oh, them?’ He laughed. ‘They’re hot-headed, but they just like to ride, man.’
‘Speaking of riding,’ Karla said, ‘I’m two-up with Benicia tonight.’
‘You’re . . . what?’
‘Naveen is bringing Kavita to the costume party, and I’m on Benicia’s back. I hope you’re good with that?’
I was so bad with it, I wanted to pick up motorcycles and throw them at God.
‘You know what,’ Naveen said, watching Karla and me. ‘I’ll just be over there, when we’re ready to roll.’
He backed away a few steps, and then jogged to meet his friends.
‘If I have to get burned or beat up to talk to you, Karla,’ I said, when we were alone, ‘we probably need counselling.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ she said, leaning away fro
m me. ‘Counselling is for people too bored to tell the truth.’
‘That’s funny, coming from someone who won’t tell me the truth right now.’
‘I can’t tell you all of the truth. I thought you understood that?’
‘I don’t understand anything. Are you really going with those people tonight?’
She glanced over her shoulder, and turned back to me again.
‘This party is something different. Do you believe me, that I’m going to this party, and I uninvited you, because I love you?’
‘What I mean is, you’re going to a party, any party, no matter how important it is, after what happened tonight?’
She flared her lips for a second, showing her teeth, locked together. Her eyes opened wide. I knew the look. It wasn’t threatening: it was biting back something that would hurt me. I didn’t care.
‘You knew them, Karla. We’re talking about Nazeer. I don’t know about you, but all I want to do right now is be with you.’
‘It’s hard, what happened to the boy –’
‘And to Nazeer.’
‘And to Nazeer. Sweet Nazeer.’
She stopped, memories of the burly Afghan rubbing at the edges of her resolution. Karla and I both lit the same lamp when we saw Nazeer’s deeply lined face and his fierce, scowling smile, as he opened the door of the mansion.
She took a deep breath, smiled at me, and took my hand in hers.
‘This party really is important, Lin. It will open a lot of secret doors, and it’s gonna let me close a door that I probably shouldn’t have opened in the first place.’
‘What door?’
‘It’s too soon. Please, trust me. Please. Just trust me when I say that this party could give me a chance to walk away from all of this, and live with it, for a long time afterwards, without looking back.’
‘Why is the party so important?’
‘God! You won’t leave it alone, will you? And you won’t trust me.’
‘You give me so little, Karla. And this is a bad night. I’m sorry. I guess I’m a little faith-challenged.’
She looked at me, maybe a little disappointed, maybe simply looking at the disappointment on my face.
‘Alright,’ she said. ‘It’s a fetish party.’
‘And . . . so what?’
‘It’s the first of its kind in Bombay, and the veils will come down on a lot of the people there.’
‘How many veils?’
‘All of them, of course,’ she said softly, her hand on my cheek. ‘That’s why I uninvited you.’
‘What?’
‘I like you the way you are. I love you the way you are. That’s what this is all about, one way and another. I’m not about to compromise that by letting you loose in Babylon.’
‘But you’re going.’
‘I’m not you, baby,’ she said. ‘And you’re not me.’
‘Come with me, Karla.’
‘I have to go, Lin,’ she said. ‘I’ve got things I have to finish. Just trust me.’
‘Everything’s finished. Come with me.’
‘I have to go,’ she said, standing to leave, but I put fingers on her wrist where a bracelet might rest.
‘In case you didn’t hear it, the trumpet blew. The walls have fallen. It’s –’
‘A biblical reference,’ she smiled. ‘Tempting, Shantaram. More tempting than the damn party, but I gotta go.’
‘I’m not kidding. It’s not a time to party. It’s a time to fortify, and defend. It’s gonna get messy. Places are gonna burn. Streets will burn. We should get in some supplies, wait this out, and then find another town.’
She looked at me so lovingly that I was swimming in a river of honest affection, and had no idea how I’d left the shore.
‘It’s the things that make us one, that make us one worth having,’ she said.
I was all out. She was too close. The lights from the hectic drive-in juice bar lit neon fire in her eyes, and I was burning, again.
‘What does that mean?’
‘Don’t give up on me,’ she whispered.
‘But –’
‘Don’t you dare give up on me,’ she said.
She kissed me. She kissed me so truly that she was already gone when I opened my eyes.
She ran to join the biker boys. They were revving their engines. She climbed up behind Benicia.
The Spanish racer girl pulled on a full-face helmet and shut the visor: a black curve of lights where her eyes had been. She took her privacy seriously, and you can’t object to that. But Karla was on the back of her bike, and I wanted to object to that. Benicia leaned over to grip the low-slung handlebars, and Karla leaned in close to her.
Then she sat upright and look around, her eyes finding mine without searching. She smiled.
Don’t give up on me.
She folded herself against Benicia’s back.
Kavita got up behind Naveen. He made an artful loop in front of the juice bar, and pulled up beside me.
‘Why aren’t you coming, Lin?’ he asked, as the other biker boys revved their engines.
There was a fire, I was thinking. People died. Nazeer died. Parts of the city are locked down. But he was happy. He was a winner. I couldn’t take that away.
‘Have fun, Naveen. I’ll see you in a couple of days.’
‘Sure thing.’
He started revving his engine.
‘Behold, the Uninvited,’ Kavita said, as Naveen prepared to leave. ‘What thing, inside you, was too terrible to invite to a weekend party, Lin?’
Naveen thumped the gas and skidded off under clutch, and the biker boys followed him.
Karla threw her arms wide, as Benicia roared away.
Don’t give up on me.
I was burned, scratched, beat up, covered in ashes, and alone with the dead in a city going into lockdown.
Don’t you dare give up on me.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
I rode back to the Amritsar and climbed the stairs, one at a time, my body heavier than will.
‘You were right, Jaswant,’ I said, as I passed his desk on my way to my room. ‘I need a shower.’
‘I told you so! And there’s no hot water, now, and the whole city is going crazy, so serves you right, baba, and goodnight, sleep tight.’
I sat at my desk, opened my journal, and wrote what I felt and what I’d seen that night. Ash from my hand and arm smudged the pages. My left hand, pressing the journal flat, made fingerprints, perfectly arranged and deeply defined, while my right hand described the scene of the crime.
Black ink flames ran across the pages. Flames reflected in a policeman’s eye, flame reflecting chrome-blue off a wall of bicycles, neon flames from motorcycle exhausts and steel boots, scraping rebel sparks from the righteous roundabout of revenge.
When I couldn’t write any more I took a bottle and hit the shower prison style, with all my clothes on.
I drank some, and washed my dirty clothes, peeling them away one textured leaf at a time, and drank some more, and washed my dirtier body, my skin sour with the scents of fear, and her non-identical twin, violent fear.
They were shot. Killed. Burned. They’re dead.
Clean and dried and naked, I closed the curtains, banning the day to come, locked all my locks, put weapons around the room wherever I thought I might need them, played music on my bad sound system, said a prayer of thanks for my bad sound system, and I paced.
When you do enough time in a cell, you learn to walk, because walking stills the voice inside, calling you to run.
Don’t you dare give up on me.
I walked. I drank some more. The music got louder, or maybe it just sounded louder. I was riding a Bob Marley wave to a brighter shore, and I wanted to look at Karla’s smile, and I realised that I didn’t have a photograph o
f Karla.
I searched everything I had without success, and decided that a joint might help. The joint found lots of interesting stuff I didn’t know I had, including a friendly cricket that didn’t sing, which I relocated to the balcony, but there was no picture of Karla.
I was getting a little high, and the first thing I wrote in my journal, after the fruitless search, was a question.
Is Karla real?
I wrote a lot of other things. I recited poetry. When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I began, and I got to like him with friends possessed, when someone seemingly possessed started banging on the door.
I went on with my war dance for the dead, and the banging stopped, and the drumming in the music thumped me around the room, and I could write again.
I wrote pages of notes on Nazeer. Departed loved ones never leave the heart, but the living picture of them fades, paled in memory’s river. I wanted to write Nazeer, before I couldn’t. I wanted to write those eyes, so often like the eyes of an animal, a hunting animal, unknowable and capable of anything: those mountain eyes, born in sight of the planet’s peak, that were so seldom lamps inside the cave of his tenderness.
I wrote the humour, hidden in ravines of his grimacing. I wrote the shadow that covered his face in any light, as if the ashen end was stamped on his face from the beginning.
I wrote his hands, those Komodo claws, the dark earth of early labour years branding them for life: Martian canals of lines and wrinkles on his knuckled fingers, some of them as deep as cuts from a knife.
I wrote Tariq. I wrote about the little beads of sweat that broke out on his lip whenever he was pretending to be someone else. I wrote the precision in his movements, as if his life was a tea ceremony that never ended.
And I wrote how handsome he was. There was a handsome man already growing in the awkward boy: a face that would make girls think about him at least twice, and a brave eye that would challenge every man he met.
I tried to write him, to keep him, to save him, and Nazeer, in words that might live.
I wrote until something ran out, or everything ran out, and I reached that place where words stop and thinking stops and there’s only emotion, feeling, a lonely heartbeat sounding through colder depths of the ocean inside, and I slept, dreaming of Karla, pulling me from a house on fire, her kisses burning love on my skin.