‘Hello, all and everyone, here and there,’ he said. ‘It is quiet in death. I have been there, and I can tell you that it is very quiet, unless someone kills your high.’
People shouted and cheered, calling out names for the Divine. Dennis took tentative steps. The crowd screamed and chanted. He walked across the balcony, down the steps, onto the road, and then collapsed in the centre of the crowd.
‘Now, this is entertainment,’ Karla said.
‘You figure?’ I asked, watching believers rain tears on Dennis, who was horizontal again.
‘Oh, he’ll get up again,’ Karla replied, leaning against me. ‘I think the show only just started.’
Dennis sat up suddenly, scattering the crowd awaiting his blessing.
‘I have it,’ he said. ‘I know what I must do.’
‘What is it?’ several voices asked.
‘The dead,’ Dennis said, his deep voice clear in the hush. ‘I must serve them. They, too, need ministry.’
‘The dead, Dennis?’ someone asked.
‘Exclusively the dead,’ he replied.
‘But how to serve them?’ another voice asked.
‘First of all,’ Dennis appealed to them, ‘do you think I could smoke a very strong chillum? Being alive again is killing my high. Will someone prepare a chillum, please?’
Dozens attended to that, making the task more complex than required, until Billy Bhasu finally squatted beside the stricken monk of sleeping, and offered him a chillum.
Dennis smoked. People prayed. Someone rang temple bells. Someone else clanged finger cymbals, while a faint voice recited Sanskrit mantras.
‘This guy is a movie,’ Karla said.
She cocked her head over my shoulder to look at Randall, half a pace behind us.
‘Are you clocking this, Randall?’
‘Quite a spectacle, Miss Karla,’ Randall said. ‘Spontaneous canonisation.’
‘You’ve got to give it to Dennis,’ Naveen added. ‘He’s his own universe.’
Dennis struggled to his feet. A palanquin arrived, borne by sturdy young men threading their way through the crowd with shouts and grunts. It was the same bier that carried the dead to the burning ghats, but it had been modified to accommodate a chair, covered with silver imitation leather.
The young men put the palanquin on the ground, helped Dennis into the chair, then raised it to their shoulders and carried Dennis away on their long march to the Gateway of India monument.
Dennis smiled benevolently, blessing upturned faces with the chillum in his hand.
‘I love this guy,’ Karla said. ‘Let’s follow the parade.’
We rode beside and around the procession, winding through leafy streets to the Gateway monument. The crowd of people grew, as drummers and dancers and trumpet players left their homes to join the march. By the end of the procession there were more people who had no idea what it was all about than people who started the parade.
And by the time we rode to a vantage point, Dennis was in the centre of a frenzy that welcomed him home, whether they knew it or not, from years of silent penance.
A hundred metres away in the chambers of the Taj Mahal hotel, men who ruled the Overworld were networking: a pro-business government had been selected by them, and elected by the poor, and successful men were throwing nets into a new sea of commercial corruption.
Five hundred metres away, Vishnu, the head of the newly named 307 Company, after the number in the Indian penal code covering attempted murder, ruled the Underworld in a ruthless purge of Muslims from his gang. The only ones allowed to stay were the ones who told him about Pakistan, and everything else they knew about fallen Sanjay’s schemes.
Abdullah vanished, after the fire, and no-one knew where he was, or what he was planning. The other Muslims from the original Company broke away, gathered again in the heart of the Muslim bazaars in Dongri, and opened closer ties with gun suppliers from Pakistan.
The riots had scarred the city, as they always do: calls for calm from leaders high and low couldn’t still the rills of fear. Beyond the horror of communal violence itself, there was the cold realisation that such a thing can happen at all, even in a city as beautiful and loving as the Island City.
Karla clapped in time with the chanting. Randall and Naveen wagged their heads from side to side, going with the beat. And hundreds of the poor and the sick struggled and pressed through the thickening throng to touch the palanquin carrying Dennis, risen in glory.
Lights shone on the huge Gateway Monument, but from where we stood, the wide archway was just a slender thread: the eye of the needle that the camel of the British Raj couldn’t pass through.
The sea beyond was a black mirror, scattering lights from hundreds of small boats in jagged waves: fingerprints of light pressed on a pane of the sea.
And desperate prayers echoed from the Trojan tower that the British left in the Island City: sounds that moved away, like every sound, eternally.
Every sound we utter goes on forever, continuing through space and time until long after we’re gone. Our home, our Earth, transmits to the universe whatever we shout, or scream, or pray, or sing. The listening universe, that night, in that somehow sacred space, heard prayers and cries of pain, raised by hope.
‘Let’s ride,’ Karla said, swinging onto the back of my bike.
We swung away from the Gateway area slowly, giving Randall and Naveen time. And the crowd chanted louder, cleansing the conflicted signals in the Island City’s air, for a while, with the purity of their plea.
Chapter Seventy-Five
Happiness abhors a vacuum. Because I was so happy with Karla, the sadness in Naveen’s eyes reached deeper into the pool of empathy than it might’ve done, if sadness was still a vacuum in my own heart, as well. The brave love in his affection seemed to have retreated, and I wanted to know if it was recovering, or defeated.
When we returned to the Amritsar hotel, I got a moment to pull Naveen’s sleeve in the corridor behind Jaswant’s desk.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked him.
‘Going on?’
‘Randall is dating the woman you love, and you’re huggin’ him like a brother. I don’t get it.’
He bristled, in the way that dangerous young animals bristle, more from reflex than rage.
‘You know, Lin, there are things that are private, for a reason.’
‘Fuck that, you Irish-Indian. What’s going on?’
He relaxed, sure that I cared, and leaned against the wall.
‘I can’t do that world,’ he said. ‘I can’t even be in that world, unless I’m asking uncomfortable questions, or helping to arrest someone.’
‘What world?’
‘Her world,’ he said, as if they were his words for hell.
‘You don’t have to join her world, to be her boyfriend,’ I said. ‘Randall is dating her, and he lives in his car.’
‘Is that supposed to make me feel good?’
‘It’s supposed to make you realise that when you went on that more-than-a-date with Benicia, you messed it up. You gotta make it right. You earn the love you feel, man.’
He hung his head as if it was the third round of a six-round fight he couldn’t win. I felt bad. I didn’t want to depress him: I wanted him to know that he was Randall, and then some. And I wanted to remind him that Diva knew it, too.
‘Look, kid –’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s okay. I hear what you say, but I’m not fighting this, and I never will.’
‘If you don’t get it out in the open now, it’ll come out with someone else, later on. And that’ll be on you, because you can fix this now.’
He smiled, and stood up straight, his eyes on mine.
‘You’re a good friend, Lin,’ he said. ‘But you’re shaking the wrong bush. I’m a free man, and Diva’s a free woman, a
nd that’s the way it should be.’
‘I said my piece,’ I said, still saying my piece, ‘but I don’t see you quitting.’
‘Every peace is made by somebody quitting,’ he shrugged.
I looked at him, squinting the truth out of him.
‘You practised that for Karla, didn’t you?’
‘Yeah,’ he confessed, smiling. ‘But it’s true, in this case. I’m not going there, Lin, and I’d appreciate it if you don’t go there again either, after this. I really mean it. And I’ve got nothing against Randall. He’s a good guy. Better him than a bad guy.’
‘You got it,’ I said, sadder than he was, it seemed. ‘Let’s go see what Karla is doing.’
Karla was on the carpeted floor with Didier, doing a séance with a ouija board.
‘Oh, no, I cannot continue,’ Didier said, when we walked in. ‘Your energy is so disruptive, Lin.’
‘One of your finest qualities,’ Karla said. ‘Come sit here, Shantaram, and see if we can disrupt the spirits of the Amritsar hotel.’
‘There’s too many spirits in this town that I knew in person,’ I said, smiling. ‘And speaking of spirits, Didier, that box of wine you ordered is sitting on Jaswant’s desk. You’d better get on it, before he taxes it. He loves red wine.’
Didier scrambled upright and hurled himself through the door.
‘My wine!’ he said, as he fled. ‘Jaswant!’
Naveen walked out after him to help. I walked over to Karla, pushed her back on the carpet, lay down beside her, and kissed her.
‘See how tricky I am?’ I said, when our lips parted.
‘I know exactly how tricky you are,’ she laughed, ‘because I’m trickier.’
Kisses without consequence or expectation: kisses as gifts, feeding her, feeding me with love.
There was a knock on the open door. It was Jaswant, and Jaswant wasn’t a go-away guy.
‘Yes, Jaswant?’ I said, leaning away from Karla to look at him, framing the doorway.
‘There are some people to see you,’ he whispered. ‘Hello, Miss Karla.’
‘Hello, Jaswant,’ she said. ‘Have you lost weight? You look so fit.’
‘Well, I try to keep –’
‘What people, Jaswant?’ I asked.
‘People. To see you. Scary people. At least, the woman is scary.’
Madame Zhou, I thought. Karla and I were on our feet at the same time. I was reaching for weapons. Karla was putting on lipstick.
‘Lipstick?’
‘If you think I’ll see that woman without lipstick,’ she said, ruffling her hair in the mirror, ‘you just don’t get it.’
‘You’re so . . . right. I don’t get it.’
‘I have to kill her, before I kill her,’ she said, turning to me. ‘So, let’s go kill her, twice.’
We slipped from her rooms to Jaswant’s foyer, Karla beside me.
Acid. Karla. Acid. Karla.
I had my knife in my hand. Karla had a gun, and knew how to use it. We edged around the partition wall to see the desk area clearly, and saw two people standing in front of Jaswant’s desk. Jaswant looked worried.
I edged around further. I couldn’t see the man, but the woman was short, thirty and chunky. She was wearing a menacing stare and a blue hijab.
‘It’s okay,’ I said to Karla, walking into view. ‘We’re old friends.’
‘That’s stretching it,’ Blue Hijab said, still menacing Jaswant into his swanky chair.
‘Identity approved,’ Jaswant said. ‘Please go through, Madame.’
She was with Ankit, the concierge of the hotel in Sri Lanka. He smiled and saluted, two fingers against his brow.
I waved back. Blue Hijab had her arms folded. She kept them folded as she scowled Jaswant deeper into his seat, then came to greet me. Ankit was a step behind.
‘Salaam aleikum, soldier,’ I said.
‘Wa aleikum salaam,’ she said, unfolding her arms to show the very small automatic pistol she had in her hand. ‘We have unfinished business.’
‘Salaam aleikum,’ Karla said. ‘And that’s my boyfriend you’re talking to with a gun in your hand.’
‘Wa aleikum salaam,’ Blue Hijab said, staring back at the queens. ‘The gun is a gift. And it’s still loaded.’
‘Just like mine,’ Karla smiled, and Blue Hijab smiled back.
‘Blue Hijab,’ I said, ‘meet Karla. Karla, meet Blue Hijab.’
The women stared at one another, saying nothing.
‘And this is Ankit,’ I added.
‘A distinct privilege to meet you, Miss Karla,’ Ankit said.
‘Hi, Ankit,’ Karla said, her eyes on Blue Hijab.
‘Ankit makes a drink that’s gonna make Randall absinthe with envy. It’s like a liquid portal between dimensions. You’ve gotta try it.’
‘Always a pleasure to prepare the portal for you, sir.’
‘You girls have got so much in common,’ I said, and thought to say more, but Blue Hijab and Karla looked at me in exactly the same not very flattering way, and I unthought it.
‘You marry them,’ Blue Hijab said, ‘hoping they’ll change, and grow. And they marry us, hoping that we won’t.’
‘The connubial Catch 22,’ Karla said, taking Blue Hijab by the arm and leading her back to the Bedouin tent. ‘Come with me, you poor girl, and freshen up. You look very tired. How far have you come today?’
‘Not so far, today, but twenty-one hours yesterday, and the day before that,’ Blue Hijab said before her voice faded, and Karla shut the door.
Jaswant, Ankit and I were staring at the closed door.
‘That’s one very scary woman,’ Jaswant said, wiping sweat from his neck. ‘I thought Miss Karla was scary, no offence, baba, but I swear, if I’d seen that woman in the blue hijab coming up the stairs in time, I’d have been in the tunnel.’
‘She’s okay,’ I said. ‘She’s more than okay, in fact. She’s damn cool.’
‘I noticed a liquor store not far from here on our arrival, sir,’ Ankit said. ‘Might I presume to buy the ingredients for your special cocktail, and prepare a portal or two for you, while we await the ladies?’
‘Buy?’ Jaswant said, throwing the switch and opening the panel to his survival store.
He threw the next switch, and the lights began to flash. His finger hovered over the third switch.
‘You know, Jaswant –’ I tried, but I was too late.
The stomp and shake jive music of Bhangra banged from the desk speakers.
I looked at Ankit as he inspected the goods in Jaswant’s secret store. His grey hair had been cut to Cary Grant sleekness, and he’d grown a thin moustache. A thigh-length, navy blue tunic with high collars and matching serge trousers replaced his hotel service uniform.
He looked over Jaswant’s goods with a scholarly eye: a debonair affair examining baubles in adultery’s window.
‘I think we can work with this,’ he said.
Then the Bhangra got to Ankit, and he backed away from the coloured window and started to dance. He wasn’t bad: good enough to get Jaswant out of the chair and dancing with him until the end of the song.
‘Want to hear it again?’ Jaswant puffed, his finger over the switch.
‘Yes!’ Ankit said.
‘Business before pleasure,’ I essayed.
‘That’s true,’ Jaswant conceded, coming around to the secret window. ‘Let me know what you want.’
‘I need to do a little chemistry,’ Ankit said. ‘And I believe that you have all the right chemicals.’
‘Alright,’ I said. ‘Let’s get these drinks under way. We’re in for the night. Karla and I have nowhere to go, and all the time in the world to get there. Do your stuff, Ankit.’
Bottles poured, lime juice filled a beaker, coconut dessicated, bitter chocola
te was grated into powdered flakes, glasses appeared, and we three men were just about to test the first batch of Ankit’s alchemy when Karla called out to me.
‘Start without me, guys,’ I said, putting my glass down.
‘You’re leaving the cocktail party before it starts?’ Jaswant objected.
‘Save my glass,’ I said. ‘If you hear gunplay while I’m in there, come and rescue me.’
Chapter Seventy-Six
I found Blue Hijab and Karla sitting cross-legged on the floor near the balcony, the carpets around them a pond of knotted meditations. There was a silver tray with rose and mint flavoured almonds, slivers of dark chocolate and chips of glazed ginger, beside half-drunk glasses of lime juice. Red and yellow lights flashing at the signals below blushed their faces softly in the darkened room. The slow overhead fan fretted incense smoke into scrolls, and a slow breeze reminded us that the night, outside, was vast.
‘Sit here, Shantaram,’ Karla said, pulling me down beside her. ‘Blue Hijab has to go soon. But before she does, she’s got some good news, and some not so good news.’
‘How are you?’ I asked. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine, Alhamdulillah. Do you want the good first, or the not so good?’
‘Let’s have the not so good,’ I said.
‘Madame Zhou is still alive,’ Blue Hijab said. ‘And still free.’
‘And the good news?’
‘Her acid throwers are finished, and the twins are dead.’
‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Can we back this up? How come you know about Madame Zhou? And how come you’re here?’
‘I didn’t know about Madame Zhou,’ she said. ‘And I wasn’t interested in her. I wanted the acid throwers. We’ve been hunting them for a year.’
‘They burned someone you know,’ I realised. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘She was a good fighter, and she’s still a good comrade and a good friend. She was on leave in India, from the war. Somebody hired those two acid throwers, and they made her face into a mask. A protest mask, I suppose you could say.’