Then the lift rose.
‘The moment we get home, there will be news of Radha, just you see. He’ll call and tell me where he is.’
A small sickly figure, coughing from its diaphragm, opened the door of Anand Mehta’s flat on the thirteenth floor. Manju could see that the room behind him was dark, except for a table-lamp, where Mr Mehta sat holding a glass filled with a golden liquid.
‘They’re here, Anand,’ the man with the coughing fit said hoarsely.
‘Come in. Rakesh, you sit right here. I’ll handle these people.’
Manju pushed against his father, to force him to enter the room.
Anand Mehta got up and walked about the dark room with the glass in his hand, sipping from it as he glanced at Manju and his father; the coughing man who had opened the door sat on the beige sofa and ran his fingers up and down its leather arms.
Manju and his father stood.
‘Where is this famous thug and terrorist of yours, Radha Krishna? The police haven’t found him yet. Rakesh, this is the younger boy in the sponsorship. He must be a criminal too. You watch out for your wallet.’
‘Sir, I come to you shamed and publicly humiliated that my son has attacked his fellow cricketer. There is a saying in our language, he who steals an elephant is a thief. He who steals a peanut is also a—’
‘Shut up!’
Anand Mehta pointed a finger at father and at son. He put his glass down on the silent television. A cloth-covered object sat on the TV; unwrapping it, Anand Mehta picked up his cell phone, which he read, and then covered it again in the white cloth.
‘I took your idea, you fuck. I covered my phone in a hankie. Keeps the germs away, you said. What about the big fat germ known as Mohan Kumar? Do you know what this Deennawaz Shah’s uncle wanted from me? 75,000 rupees in compensation. 75,000. Tommy Sir brings that man here and tells me, please pay him. Otherwise he’s going to file an FIR against Radha for assaulting his nephew. They had to put Deennawaz Shah in hospital, your boy hit him so hard. After which, still crazy, he tried to strangulate him right there, and would have done so, if the others hadn’t … I’ve been paying and paying and paying you people for years.’
Joining his palms together, Mohan Kumar tried to bend down and touch Anand Mehta’s shoes.
‘Don’t touch me. Go back. Go back. I’m sick of being fucked and fooled around by you. Bloody Mexican bartender thinks he owns the whole fucking bar.’
The sickly man on the sofa cracked his knuckles.
Now Mohan turned, and reached for the shoes of the man with the loud knuckles.
‘Don’t bow to him, bow to me,’ Anand Mehta shouted. ‘I own this bar.’
‘Don’t shout at my father.’
‘What?’ Mehta looked at the boy.
‘My father is not very strong these days. It’s not his fault, what Radha did today. It’s not Radha’s fault, either.’
‘You talking to me?’
Anand Mehta put his hand on Manju’s head, and rubbed the boy’s hair. He kept his hand there.
‘Say what you said again. Say what you just said, a second time.’
Manju looked at the dark carpet. A violent coughing from the sofa dragged the carpet back and forth.
‘You listen to me, golden boy. I’m dealing with the mafia in Dhanbad. Do you understand? Rakesh here is an IAS officer’s son. He’s helping me handle mafia there. I don’t even want to think about cricket, I don’t even want to think about Mumbai anymore. Why? We’ve got a power plant near Dhanbad and we’re turning it around. Do you know the operating capacity? Four hundred thousand units of electricity a month, and current operating output zilch. When we turn it around, we make six crores a month. Do you know how much money that is, you fuck? And you make me waste my time here? Of course there are problems. Of course. Everyone in the district has lined up for a bribe. Instant the plant starts working, it gets worse. The phone will ring every hour. Hello, I am your Member of Parliament. I’m sending fifteen men from my village. Employ them or I’ll murder you and fuck your wife. You understand what this means? If I say jump, you jump. And right now I’m saying, you and your brother have fucked me over enough. Where is that criminal boy now?’
Manju said, ‘I think he is on his way to our village, sir. They will hide him from the police.’
‘Fuck.’
Anand Mehta’s face had become darker and older, and made Manju remember the night he had invaded their home.
‘Sir’ Manju could smell, all the way in the pit of his stomach, the liquor on Anand Mehta’s breath. He had to speak or retch. ‘Sir. Sir. Sir. I don’t want to play cricket anymore after today.’
The air-conditioning was working strongly, and Manju rubbed his forearms up and down.
‘I did this thing to my brother today. I won’t play after this. I want to stop and study forensic—’
‘Shut up!’ the two men said together, and then Anand Mehta informed Mohan Kumar: ‘I’m the one who says shut up in this room.’
The sickly man coughed a bit; Anand Mehta pointed a finger at Manju.
‘Golden Boy: in one minute I’m going to tell you, do something, and you will bloody well do exactly that.’
He opened a cabinet and took out a bottle and poured two full glasses.
Mohan took one glass, emptied it and put it down. Anand Mehta’s finger pointed at Manju, and then at the second glass.
But Manju said, ‘No.’
‘Do you want me to tell the police where your brother has gone?’
Manju picked up the glass, closed his eyes, and drank. His small body convulsed.
Anand Mehta smiled.
‘And there’s a bill to pay. For this scotch. Good Indian scotch. Nothing is free for you people anymore. It’s my bar. Start paying me.’
Mohan Kumar took out his wallet, and held it out, and Anand Mehta removed the only large note, a hundred-rupee bill, from it.
•
When they finally made it outside the building, Mohan saw his Manju bend over, stick out his tongue like a happy jackass, and vomit on the pavement.
The gates had closed behind them.
‘Let’s go to the police, Appa. Let’s both go to the police right now,’ Manju said, as he wiped his lips clean. ‘He made me drink that. Right in front of you. And you did nothing.’
Mohan Kumar said nothing; his shirt stuck to his body.
Manju came close and examined his immobile father. He saw no eyes, no lips, no features; and he realized that for all these years, his father had not had a face. All these years, there had been no secret contract with God, no scientific method, no antibiotics and no ancient wisdom: just Fear.
Manju turned and observed: not one adult walking around him in the night had a face.
•
‘The first point we have to establish is this. Did Javed tell you, or did he not tell you that exactly this kind of thing would happen to you if you kept playing cricket?’
Leaving his father before the gates of Anand Mehta’s housing society, Manju had crossed the road to a grocery store with a yellow pay-phone. The store-owner had a black tear-like birthmark running from his eye to his nose, giving him the look of one born to sorrow; he flicked through a copy of the Mumbai Sun, entirely indifferent to Manju, who stood beside him sobbing on the phone.
‘… don’t be a bastard. Tell me what I should do, Javed. Just tell me.’
‘Bastard? You’re calling me a bastard? I shouldn’t even talk to you. I told you, you keep playing cricket, I’ll stop talking to you. And I keep my word.’
‘Javed, everything bad that happened today, what Radha did, this is all my fault. You don’t know the story. You don’t know half the story.’