SARITA
11
GAURAV. IJAZ. JAZ. JAZMINE. WITHOUT HIM, I CERTAINLY WOULDN’T have made it this far. And yet, how to trust someone when even his name is so hard to pin down?
I know he’s hiding something, but what? This much I’ve decided, he’s not on his way to Jogeshwari to see his mother. Even before the suspicious “uncle and auntie” bit, I found it difficult to swallow all the misfortunes he wove around her. And whatever went on between him and Rahim—when I asked him his preference, why didn’t he come clean? Did he need to deny his Delhi love interest so vehemently?
Most revealing of all were his fabrications on the ferry. His declaration that we’d just wed, his stories of our romantic travails. Why spin such reckless tales, what did he hope to gain? Perhaps it just comes to him naturally—the shifty wavelengths at which he operates.
Could he be a terrorist? Does that explain his slippery identity, the weapon he carries? Now that we’ve left the Muslim area, does he plan to infiltrate the Hindus by forcing Karun and me along as cover? Except I’ve seen his inexperience, his visible discomfort at even holding a gun. Surely the Pakistanis must train their agents better, select jihadis made of sterner stuff.
Since the ferry, I’ve wondered if he might harbor a more personal motive. Could our paths have crossed in the past, could something unbeknownst to me link us? The possibility sets my mind abuzz, but never for long. The random nature of our hospital encounter always brings my calculations to a halt.
Swooping through the air at Sequeira’s, I almost saw the pieces coalesce. The way we met, the reason he followed me, what he wanted, who he was. A flash of awareness so quick, so elusive, it vanished before I could hold on. All that remained was the realization I had trusted him too much. That his protectiveness didn’t flow from the pure goodness of his heart. I should have concealed this new insight, not succumbed to the angry laser thrusts that might have tipped him off.
Lying by his side in the Air India seats afterwards, I closed my eyes to shut out his presence. But I kept sensing a seeping curiosity on his part. Not amorous as I may have once feared, but still eerily physical. As if he was appraising me, gauging me, like an outfit hanging on a rack, before trying it on. Or perhaps, given Rahim’s revelation, an outfit meant for someone else. At one point, I could have sworn he leaned over to take a deep breath from my neck.
I squeezed together my eyelids even tighter to think of Karun instead. To imagine the two of us flying in our first-class seats to some exotic island in a faraway corner of the world. Except when I awoke, I knew I had dreamt about Jaz. That the plane had launched us on a journey together into a long and complicated future.
Standing in the hotel corridor now, I feel a sense of unease. What inauspicious presence have I brought to Karun’s door? Why didn’t I try harder this morning to shake Jaz off? I suppose the excitement of nearing the end of my search made me less cautious. The thought that I would soon see Karun, that after we reunited, none of this would matter.
A wave of this same anticipation rises within me as I stand in the dark. “Karun?” I say, and knock harder this time. I hear the stirring inside almost at once. My excitement mixes with nervousness—I still don’t know why Karun left, why he didn’t return, what could be going on between us. The door will open in an instant. Which of my hundred questions will I ask first?
THE MAN PEEPING OUT looks nothing like Karun. His skin is blotchy, his hair graying, and the cloth looping under his chin and around his face is knotted at the top like a cartoon character suffering from a toothache. “What do you want?” he asks.
“I’m sorry. I thought this is where… I’m looking for Karun. Karun Anand.”
“Who?” he says, even though a startled look comes to his eyes. “There’s nobody here.”
He begins to shut the door, but I thrust myself forward to block him. “The music you were just playing. Where did you get it?”
“What music? I didn’t hear anything.”
“And that shirt you’re wearing—it’s not yours.” I push into the room. “That CD player, there—I recognize it. This is his room, isn’t it? I’m his wife.”
The man’s sullenness clears. He hastens to explain he’s the manager, alone at the hotel, in Karun’s room merely to check up on things. “I thought I’d try out the shirt for fun. Just to compare the size. And the CDs—have to make sure the batteries don’t get spoiled in this humidity. All your husband seems to have is ragas. I put one on, even though I don’t really like classical music.” He looks down guiltily at his shoes. Then realizing they also belong to Karun, he scrambles to take them off.
“Where’s my husband?”
“Oh, Dr. Anand? Begging your pardon, but he’s gone. He left, along with our other three guests. It’s been a week at least, perhaps more. I haven’t been too well, so it’s hard to keep track.” He coughs noisily, then makes slurping noises in his mouth, as if conserving any phlegm he might have hawked up. “Would you happen to have a toffee or something? I’m very hungry.”
“He’s been gone for a week?”
“He’d have left even earlier if he could. All of them would have. They tried to get to Colaba but the trains stopped running. Once they footed it to the bridge at Mahim, but the Muslims sent them packing. This time, though, they weren’t trying to get home. This time, the summons came straight from the Devi.”
“The Devi?”
“Well I don’t know which one exactly, what she calls herself—Mumbadevi or Kali or maybe even Ooper-devi. But surely you’ve heard she’s supposed to be appearing at Juhu? Right on the beach, twice an evening—showtimes as regular as a movie. What I need is for her to materialize here and conjure up some food for me. That rascal cook disappeared right after the scientists, so there’s been nothing to eat.” He forces out a pitiful cough, then tightens the knot around his head, as if performing an austerity measure. “Forgive me for rambling—I’m trying to remember the rest about your husband, but the hunger has blanked out my mind.”
I stare at him. This has to be the same Devi ma Madhu and Guddi and Anupam were heading to see, the one for whom they dressed and decorated me. But what interest could she possibly have in scientists? How has she wandered into Karun’s story?
Jaz opens one of the packets of orange biscuits we stocked up on at Sequeira’s and hands over two of them. The manager’s fingers tremble as he stuffs them into his mouth. He masticates noisily, ravenously, then closes his eyes. “A van—the Devi sent a white van with a blue stripe—very luxurious, might even have been air-conditioned, I think. Eight days ago, on the eighth—I can see it now—the day before the bombs reduced the streets to rubble. Except they refused to go, can you believe it? ‘We have to stamp out superstition, not sell out to this Devi character.’ That troublemaker Moorthy, always appointing himself in charge—you know the crusading Madrasi type. He complained from the minute he arrived—sheets not clean enough, too much milk in the tea.”
The manager lapses into silence. Jaz feeds him more biscuits, directly into his mouth one by one, as if inserting coins into a jukebox. “I tried warning them this wasn’t an invitation to some tea party, that the last thing they wanted to do was annoy the Devi, but they paid me no heed. Moorthy sent the driver back quite grandly, to tell her they would come only if she agreed to a public debate. ‘One where we would have an opportunity to unmask any trickery. For the people’s sake, because we’re scientists.’ As if the masses are clamoring to hear what scientists think.”