He talked to you about this.
Not often, Apu said. But once or twice he made his briberyandcorruption speech. We all heard it a few times and knew it well. Beyond that I did not interfere.
How do you feel now that we’re leaving, so quickly. We met, what, two people. You never showed me where you went to school. We haven’t bought a pirate video. We haven’t been here yet.
I feel relieved.
Why relieved?
I don’t need to be here anymore.
And how do you feel about feeling relieved? That you’re pleased to be leaving? Isn’t that a strange feeling?
Not really.
Why?
Because I’ve come to believe in the total mutability of the self. That under the pressures of one’s life one can simply cease to be who one was and be just the person that one has become.
I don’t agree.
Our whole bodies change all the time. Our hair, our skin, everything. During the course of seven-year cycles every cell that makes us up is replaced by another cell. Every seven years we are one hundred percent not who we were. Why should this not also be the case with the self. It’s pretty much seven years since I left this place. I’m different now.
I’m not sure about the science on that.
I’m not talking about science. I’m talking about the soul. The soul that is not made of cells. The ghost in the machine. I’m saying that in time the old ghost moves out and a new ghost moves in.
So seven years from now I won’t know who you are.
And I won’t know who you are. Maybe we have to start over. Maybe we are inconstant. That’s just how it is.
Maybe.
Cut.
The night was humid. Even the crows were asleep. Sad-faced Mr. Brown and the other reservoir dogs were waiting out front, wearing shades in spite of the darkness.
We dismissed your taxi, Mr. Brown said. It is our duty to bring you to Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, formerly Sahar.
That is annoying of you, Apu said. We don’t need you.
It will be our honor, Mr. Brown said. See, three Mercedes-Benz sedans are waiting. Lead car, your car and backup car. Please. Only the best for you, sirji. S-class Maybach, like a private jet for the road. This is written in the literature. I myself will accompany you in this primo vehicle.
The night city concealed its nature from him as he left it, turned its back on him as he had turned his back on it. The faces of the buildings were grim and closed. They crossed Mahim Bay on the Sea Link but then left the Western Express Highway too early, before the airport exit.
Why are you going this way, Apu Golden asked and then Mr. Brown turned around and took off his sunglasses and no answer was necessary.
It is a business matter, Mr. Brown said. It is not personal. It is a question of one client outbidding another. One client from whom there is no work since a long time versus another, regular customer. Sir, it is to send a message to your esteemed fatherji. He will understand the message, I am certain of it.
I don’t understand, Ubah cried. What message?
Mr. Brown replied gravely: The message says, your actions, sir, made things difficult for us, after we warned you not to act. But after you acted you put continents and oceans between us and we did not have the means or will to follow. But now you have unwisely allowed your son to come. That approximately is the communication. I offer my apologies, madam, you are an innocent bystander, isn’t it, you are collateral damage. It is my great regret.
The cars drove along an unimportant bridge across the Mithi River near the edges of the great Dharavi slum, and in the glistening silver Maybach the music was turned up very loud. Rich people enjoying themselves. What else. Why not. No question of any gunshots being heard. Anyway, the silencer was on.
Funerals happen quickly in the tropics, but murder investigations inevitably force delays. I was at the Golden house every day after the news broke and it seemed that the calamity had stopped time. Nothing and nobody seemed to move except in the room where Ms. Blather and Ms. Fuss were making arrangements for the return of the bodies and even their office seemed to be draped in a cloth of silence. Petya had come home to be near his father, but was mostly closeted with the Australian therapist in the room of blue light. D Golden spent most days in the house too, lost in a corner dressed in black with Riya holding his hand. Nobody spoke. Outside the house, for a moment, the story roared. Frankie Sottovoce was everywhere mourning the death of his star sculptor. The dead woman’s family, tall and graceful, carrying themselves as nobly as royal sentinels, stood behind Sottovoce on television in dry-eyed sorrow. Nero Golden did not appear in public but it was plain to those of us inside the house that something had broken in him, that the message he had received was not one from which he would easily recover. On the other side of the world also there was both noise and silence. There were policemen and autopsies and journalists and all the siren sounds that follow a violent death but those who had known the family before its departure for New York remained invisible, no word from any of them, as if the silence had fallen over the Goldens’ lost world too, like a shroud. The unidentified woman who had greeted Apu in the hotel lobby with cries of “Groucho!”—she was not to be seen. The other women he had spoken of, his three former loves, the circling exes, did not appear to mourn him. It seemed that the city had turned its back on the departed, both the expatriates and the deceased. If Mr. Brown and his associates were arrested we did not hear of it. The news fell out of the headlines. Groucho was dead. Life went on.
The two dragon ladies at the Golden house, as expected, proved more than equal to the task of bringing the bodies home speedily once they had been released by the Mumbai authorities. A reputable firm, cumbersomely named IFSPFP—International Funeral Shipping Program Funeral Providers—was engaged and quickly made all the correct preparations for transportation, including sealer caskets and USA-approved shipping containers. They did the paperwork, acquiring certified English translations of the death certificates and written authorization from the local authorities to remove the bodies, and found an early shipping window so that Apu and Ubah could return to New York City as promptly as possible. On the tarmac of JFK a sad parting occurred. Frankie Sottovoce and the Somali artist’s family took possession of Ubah’s body and carried it away to be buried according to their practice. Apu came back to Macdougal Street.
It was a strange and broken farewell. The sealer casket was not opened. The body had not been embalmed and so state law did not permit open-casket viewing. When Nero refused to permit any form of religious ceremony to be carried out and specified cremation rather than burial, the IFSPFP funeral director bowed his head and suggested he leave the family for an hour and then return. Later he would bring back the cremains. Or he would dispose of them if that was what was preferred. “No,” Nero said. “Bring him back.” The funeral director inclined his head once more. “If I may,” he said softly. “There is no law in this state that says where you may keep or scatter ashes. You may keep them in a crypt, niche, grave, or in a container at home, as you think best. If you choose to scatter them, do so as you please, but refrain from placing them where they are obvious to others. Cremation renders ashes harmless, so there is no public health risk involved. Scattering on private land requires the landowner’s consent, and it is wise to check local ordinance zoning if you wish to scatter on public lands. If you wish to scatter off the coast or out of New York Harbor you need to bear in mind Environmental Protection Agency regulations regarding burial at sea—”