Ubah began in her unflappable manner to giggle. On the way here, she said, I thought, India, I’m going to be shocked by the poverty, it’s maybe even worse than back home, or as bad but different, anyway it’s going to take an adjustment. I didn’t realize we would be walking into a Bollywood movie the moment we hit town.
Cut.
When they got back to the hotel after dinner there was a gentleman waiting for them in the lobby, silver-haired, aquiline of profile, dressed in a cream suit and cricket club tie, holding a Borsalino hat in his hands. He spoke the English of the English gentleman class though he was not an Englishman.
Excuse me, I’m so sorry. Would you mind awfully if I, I hope you will not think it an intrusion if I make so bold as to request a very few minutes of your time.
What is this about?
Might we, could we possibly, in a more discreet setting, could I make so bold as to request, perhaps? Away from eyes and ears?
Ubah Tuur actually applauded. I think you set all this up, she said to Apu. To entertain me and fool me into thinking that it’s like this all the time. Of course, sir, she said to the man in the cream suit. It will be our pleasure to welcome you into our suite.
Wipe.
In the suite. The man stood awkwardly next to the glass case containing Ravi Shankar’s sitar, fiddling with the brim of his hat and refusing offers to be seated.
I am sure you will not recognize my name, he said. Mastan. I am Mr. Mastan.
No, sorry, don’t know that name, Apu said.
I am not a young man, Mr. Mastan replied. God has granted me over seventy years. But almost half a century ago when I was a young police officer in the CID, I had one might say a relationship with an associate of your father’s.
Another associate of an associate, Apu said. Quite a day for them.
Forgive me for asking, said Mr. Mastan. Did your esteemed father ever tell you about his associate, the man he referred to jokingly as Don Corleone?
Now Apu was very silent, so profoundly silent that the silence was a form of speech. Mr. Mastan nodded deferentially. I have often wondered, he said, how much your father’s sons knew about their father’s business dealings.
I’m an artist, said the artist. I did not concern myself with finances.
Of course, of course. This is only natural. The artist lives on a higher plane and is unimpressed by filthy lucre. I myself have always admired the bohemian spirit though, alas, it is not in my nature.
Ubah noticed that, having digested the words “police officer” and “Don Corleone,” Apu was listening very intently.
May I tell you about my own connection to your father’s associate, the don? Mr. Mastan asked.
Please.
In a phrase, sir, he ruined my life. I was pursuing him, sir, for his various serious crimes and misdemeanors. If I may say so, I was hot on his trail. Also, being young, I had not yet acquired the wisdom of the city. I was unbribable, sir, and incorruptible. No doubt many great men would have described me as a hindrance, an obstacle preventing the wheels of society from being well oiled and running smoothly. And perhaps that is so, but that then is who I was. Incorruptible, unbribable, an obstacle. Your father’s associate spoke to less intransigent persons in the upper echelons and I was removed from the case and banished. You are familiar with the poet Ovid, sir? He displeased Augustus Caesar and was exiled to the Black Sea and never returned to Rome. This also was my fate, to languish for years without hope of preferment in a small town in the mountains, in Himachal Pradesh, known for the mass production of mushrooms and of red gold, which is tomatoes, and for the fact that in mythological times it was the exile place of the Pandavas. I too was a little Pandava in my mushroom and tomato exile. After many years my luck turned. As fate would have it a local gentleman whose name I will not introduce here saw in me an honest man and so I left the police force and began to oversee the mushroom and tomato crop to prevent loss through smuggling. In time, sir, I departed the mountains and became successful in the field of security and investigation. I give thanks to God that I did well. Now I am a retired individual, with sons working in my stead, but I keep my ear to the ground, sir, that I do.
Why have you come here to tell me this story, Apu asked.
No, no, sir, you are mistaken, and it is I who am to blame because I have spoken too much and prolonged what should have been a briefer encounter. I came to tell you two things. The first thing is that although I am no longer a policeman and Don Corleone who ruined my life is no more, I am still one who quests for justice.
What does this have to do with me?
Regarding your great father, sir. He is high, so much higher than I could ever dream of being, but even in my old age, with God’s help and the force of the law I will bring him down. He was the associate of my nemesis the don and complicit in his actions and he is the one who remains and therefore.
You came to threaten me and my family. I think you have outstayed your welcome.
No, sir, again I have said too much and strayed from the point. I did not come to threaten. I came to warn.
Of what?
A family that has been too much involved with the dons, Mr. Mastan said, and then without so much as a word of farewell it ups sticks and departs. Such a family may have left behind, in this town, persons with hurt feelings. With hurt feelings and business that is incomplete. With, perhaps, thoughts of having been left in a bad place owing in part to your esteemed parent’s actions. These persons with hurt feelings are not big men like your father. Or perhaps a little big in their own area but, in the world at large, small. They are not without some force in the locality but it is a local force. He is maybe beyond them now. But you, innocently or foolishly or arrogantly or foolhardily, you have returned.
I think you should go, Ubah Tuur said. And once Mr. Mastan had bowed and taken his leave, she said to Apu, I think we should go too. As soon as we can.
It’s garbage, he said. He’s just a bitter man trying to get his own back. It’s an empty threat. No content.
I want to go anyway. The movie’s over.
And all of a sudden he stopped arguing. Yes, he said. Agreed. Let’s go.
Cut.
George Harrison played sitar on “Within You Without You,” “Tomorrow Never Knows,” “Norwegian Wood,” and “Love You To.” The flights all left in the middle of the night so when they were packed and ready it was dark and they sat in the darkness and imagined George and Ravi Shankar sitting where they were sitting, making music. For a while they didn’t speak to each other but then they did.
I’ll tell you something my father told me when I was a young man, Apu said. My son, he said, the greatest force in the life of this country is not government or religion or the entrepreneurial instinct. It is briberyandcorruption. He said it like one word, like electromagnetism. Without briberyandcorruption nothing would happen. It is briberyandcorruption that oils the wheels of the nation, and it is also the solution to our nation’s problems. If there is terrorism? Sit down across the table with the terrorist boss and sign a blank check and push it across the table and say, put as many zeros as you like. Once he has pocketed the check the problem is over because in our country we understand that there is honor in briberyandcorruption. Once a man has been bought, he stays bought. My father was a realist. When one works at his level then some don or other will inevitably knock on your door, either offering a bribe or requesting one. There is no way of keeping your hands clean. In America it’s not so different, my father told me after the move across the oceans. Here also we have our Chicken Little, our Little Archie, our Crazy Fred, our Fat Frankie. They also believe in honor. So maybe the worlds are less different than we pretend.