Cairo

Cairo

  They had been married for three days. But she hadn’t spoken to him. All she had done was sit in front of the computer and follow the revolution in Cairo. Kabir tried to talk to her. She did not pay any attention to him. His words appeared to be as meaningless and indistinct as the hum of the traffic that came in through the windows of their living room.

  Kabir wasn’t used to being ignored. He was a royal. He was a direct descendant of one of India’s most famous Nawabs, the man who had designed and built both of Lucknow’s jewels, the Imam Bara and Bhoolbhulaiya maze.

  His mother had told Kabir on his sixth birthday that he wasn’t like other children, whose parents were clerks, office managers and businessmen. He was a nawab. He came from a family of kings, who ruled India, before India had become a democracy, before India had even become India.

  Kabir was a sensitive child. Centuries might have passed since his ancestors ruled Lucknow. But he still felt their import, faint yet significant, like a footprint of a sparrow on his windowsill. He took his mother seriously when she said that he had to do everything possible to keep alive the ways of his ancestors. By the time he was eighteen, Kabir was proficient in chess, Persian poetry, and sword fighting. The emphasis on staying loyal to the family’s courtly ways also meant that he had never touched a woman.

  He had hoped that this state of celibacy would change after marriage. But here he was, an entire seventy two hours after the event. And his wife hadn’t so much as spoken to him, leave alone reach out to touch him.

  He looked at the computer screen to see a car go up in flames. An angry Egyptian lobbed a stone at a tank. His wife leaned in towards the computer screen. Kabir felt that he couldn’t stay in an apartment with so much unrest.

  He went to his workplace.

  He suffered through the playful jests of his building landlord, tea stall vendor, and office secretary. In their own way, they each teased him about the “seventy two hours of indoor activity” that had followed marriage. Kabir smiled without real feeling.

  He spent the day tackling expense receipts, tax forms and other petty paperwork. When he returned home, his wife had disappeared from the apartment.

  *******************

  Kabir wasn’t a doctor, engineer or for that matter an architect like his famed ancestor. He hadn’t even gone to America for his higher studies. Instead, he had chosen to become a private detective.

  He was a disappointment to his parents.

  But even his father had to admit that his son had done well for himself. Kabir’s offices were in the posh Indira Nagar area of Lucknow. His clients were some of Lucknow’s most prominent politicians, doctors and construction builders.

  The times, they had changed. The Indian economy was growing. Lucknow was flush with money. The city’s middle class no longer had to focus merely on daily survival. They had time to indulge in what the Lucknowites called “extracurricular activities”. Cabernet Francs. Horse races. Extramarital affairs.

  Wives wanted to find out if their husbands were having affairs. Husbands wanted to find out if what people were saying about their wives was true. Parents wanted to find out just how soon their daughter changed from a traditional salwar kameez to a mini skirt after leaving the house.

  They had questions. Kabir was diligent and strove tirelessly to get them answers. His business grew. He prospered.

  Kabir was tall and slim. He took care to dress well. He was soft-spoken yet confident. Even in relatively conservative Lucknow, women displayed their interest in public places. A turned head and a smile. A brush of the sleeve. A number on a napkin. But Kabir had never been interested in taking advantage of the recently lax ways of Indian women. Unlike his friends, he had no desire to indulge in what Indian magazines had begun to call “one night stands”.

  All he had ever wanted was a loving home where people would laugh. Caress each other. Play happy songs on the radio. Like the people did on the advertisements they showed during the holiday season. He wanted to be different from his mother and father, who as far back as he could remember, didn’t spend a second longer than was absolutely necessary in the same room.

  But things hadn’t panned out quite as planned after his marriage. His wife had left him. Kabir wondered where she could have gone. His wife was from Allahabad. As far as he knew, she didn’t have any friends or family in Lucknow. He was sure that she would not dare to go back to her parents. Her father would kill her if he came to know that she had left her husband.

  People took marriage seriously in her home town. Just last week, the bodies of a newly married couple had been found on the NH1 highway. The man had been beheaded. The woman’s eyes had been gouged out. They were from different castes. Their sin? They had run away from home and got married.

  Kabir opened the Dropbox folder on his computer. He clicked on the video file of the wedding. He skipped to a moment when his wife had met her friend during the ceremony. It was the only time he had seen her smile. He took a screenshot of his wife’s friend and emailed the image to the wedding planner.

  “Hope you are well,” he began his email in a courtly manner. “We want to send her a Thank You, but seem to have misplaced her contact information.

  He knew that the planner would respond promptly. He had helped rid her of a particularly persistent blackmailer with a handlebar moustache. And he was right. She got back to Kabir within an hour of his request.

  The number began with a 011 area code. His wife’s friend lived in New Delhi. When Kabir called, she recognized Kabir even before he had introduced himself.

  “I don’t want to lie to you,” she said. “God knows you’ve already been through so much. She’s here in Delhi.”

  “Is she thinking matters over?” Kabir asked.

  “I’m going to be honest,” she said. “She’s already thought it over. She’s not coming back.”

  “Did she say why?’

  “I asked her. She said that she was never comfortable with the idea of an arranged marriage. She said that love cannot be forced. And she can’t be with somebody that she doesn’t love. I know it sounds silly. But it’s what she believes. She’s applying to several universities in America. She’s planning to move there in September. “

  Kabir knew that his wife’s friend was right. You couldn’t really change what people believed.

  The Sunnis believed that the Shias had their own version of the Quran. The Hindus believed that a monkey had jumped across the Indian Ocean. And his wife believed that love slid over you as unexpectedly as a dream or an eclipse. Or else, it didn’t come at all. There was very little he could do to change that.

  His phone rang. Even as he answered it, he was hopeful that it might be his wife.

  A woman wanted Kabir to find out if her husband was having an affair.

  “I am sorry,” Kabir said. “I’m not taking on any new cases now.”

  But just then a beam of sunlight forced its way into his room through the lily blossoms embroidered on the white curtains. Particles of dust danced energetically in the white haze. A crow cawed on the windowsill. Kabir felt a change come over him. Maybe this was no mere phone call from a prospective client. Maybe it was the universe calling Kabir, asking him to engage with it.

  “I’ll find out what your husband has been up to,” Kabir said.

  It wouldn’t be as easy as some of his other cases. The woman was married to Lucknow’s most famous heart surgeon. It would be impossible to tail him discretely. Like many wealthy men in the heartland, the doctor lived in perpetual fear of being kidnapped. He had arranged for a security detail that included two motorcycles that rode in front and back of the car.

  Kabir looked up the husband on a website listing properties and their owners. The surgeon owned two bungalows. One
was his home. The other was a property on Capper Road. Kabir didn’t have to follow the man. The man would come to the bungalow.

  And sure enough, he saw the surgeon drive up to his second residence that very evening. There was a woman in the back seat of his car. She took off her straw hat and and placed it on her lover’s lap. Kabir was filled with an admiration for the man. He was having an affair under the eyes of an extensive security detail. It was in every way a superhuman feat. It called for an especially high degree of shamelessness.

  He showed the photo to the man’s wife later in the office.

  “I’ve got the bastard,” she said. “I’ll squeeze him by the balls till he coughs out the alimony.”

  Kabir was scandalized. Whatever had happened to Lucknow? It had once been renowned as the city of etiquette across the length and breadth of India. Kabir wondered what his great ancestor would say if he could hear the lady in front of him.

  “What they say is true,” she said.

  “What do they say?”

  “They say that you are the best detective in Lucknow.”

  Kabir waved away the compliment. His hand hit a fly.

  Tell me, are you working on anything else now?”

  “Not particularly,” Kabir said.

  “Low season?”

  “People are behaving well in Lucknow Mrs. G…” Kabir said. “Well, most people are anyway.”

  “Have you ever been to Delhi?”

  “Not in a while,” Kabir