Chapter Thirty-Three
There was no moon. Clouds hid, afraid of the dark. Stars were so bright that whenever I shut my eyes they burned sparks on the dark inside. The wind was everywhere, playful, happy to see us out there on the surface of nowhere, and the ship plunged and rose gently, as if swimming through the waves, rather than floating on them.
I’d waited three days in Madras for just such a night, as had the seventy-seven others with me. Those waiting days had shrunk to minutes: minutes before midnight, minutes before leaving the danger of the ship for the greater danger of small boats, on the open ocean.
Waves licked at the prow, streaming in salted mists all the way to the stern where I stood, dressed in dark blue fatigues and jacket, one more camouflaged bundle on the camouflaged deck.
I looked at the stars, as the ship sighed through the waves, drifting between dark night and darker sea.
Most ocean-going cargo ships are painted white, cream or pale yellow above the waterline. In the event of an emergency at sea, such as dead engines or a ruptured hull, they can be seen from far by search and rescue vessels, or aircraft.
The Mitratta, a Panamanian coastal freighter of fifty thousand tons, was painted dark blue, everywhere, and dark blue tarpaulins covered the cargo and rig on the deck.
The captain ran the bridge on instrument lights. The ship was so dark that the forward running lights seemed like tiny creatures, diving into and out of the waves.
Figures huddled together like bundles of cargo, which, of course, we were. Smuggled people smuggle their dreams with them, and they whispered to one another often, but no word could be heard. Their whispers were always just softer than the lush of the waves. Victims of war become masters of silence.
I suddenly needed company. I made my rolling way along the deck to the first of several groups. I smiled at them, teeth in the darkness. They smiled back at me, teeth in the darkness.
I sat down beside them. They began whispering again.
They were speaking in Tamil. I couldn’t understand a word, but I didn’t mind. I was in the bubble-murmur of their voices, the gentle music of it dripping shadows around us on the painted steel deck.
A figure approached, and squatted down beside me. It was Mehmood, nicknamed Mehmu, my contact on the ship.
‘It’s a young war,’ he said softly, looking at the faces of the Tamils near us on the deck. ‘The Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka is an old idea, but the young are dying for it. Can you come with me now?’
‘Sure.’
I followed him until we reached the afterdeck.
‘They don’t trust you,’ he said, lighting two cigarettes, and passing me one. ‘It’s nothing personal. They don’t know who you are, or why you’re in the group. When you’re in a situation that only ever gets worse, like theirs, everyone’s a threat, even a friend.’
‘You stay on this ship for every tour?’
‘I do. We unload the legit cargo, and I go back with the ship to Madras.’
‘I wouldn’t want to do this every month. Those patrol boats we saw weren’t far away, and they’ve got big guns.’
He laughed quietly.
‘You know anything about the Tamil Muslims in Sri Lanka?’
‘Not much.’
‘Pogroms,’ he said. ‘Look it up.’
He laughed, but it was just sadness, finding a different way to his face. He straightened up.
‘The gold and passports you’re bringing will help,’ he said. ‘We have to buy people out of prison, and then we have to get them out of Sri Lanka to tell the world about our situation. For the others, it’s a new civil war. For us, this is a war we never start, but always have to fight. For us, this isn’t a matter of nationality, it’s a matter of faith.’
Faith, again. There wasn’t any pure or noble cause in what I was doing. There was no cause but my own. I was ashamed to think it, standing next to a man who risked his life for what he believed.
The hundred-gram gold ingots I was smuggling had been melted down from jewellery that the Sanjay Company had stolen or extorted. There was blood on it already, and I was carrying it: nothing noble, and nothing pure.
But there was still a stained-glass shard of faith somewhere inside. Mehmu’s sacred mission was a job, for me, it was true, but the same dark vessel carried both of us to the same dark war. And it was a war of one, for me: one man’s freedom from a gang that was once a band of brothers.
Faith is belief without fear, and freedom is one of faith’s perfections. Standing there on that smothered deck, listening to prayers in Arabic, Hindi, English, Sinhalese and Tamil, the stars so bright those tiny suns burned my eyes, I put my faith in freedom, and asked Mehmu for my gun.
He lifted his sweater to show me the handgun, stuffed into the belt of his trousers. It was a Browning HP, standard issue to Indian Army officers. The penalties for trading in them were severe, which was why the officers who sold them to us charged a premium.
I liked Mehmu, and wished that he could come with me to Sri Lanka. He was a fit, knowledgeable thirty-year-old, fluent in six languages, and had a confident eye. I didn’t like Mehmu’s gun.
‘What’s with the cannon?’
‘It’s a bit . . . conspicuous, I’ll give you that,’ he replied, looking around as he handed me the weapon and a magazine.
‘Conspicuous? This thing is a zebra in a line-up.’
I checked the gun, and flipped the safety on.
‘If you’re gonna get caught with a gun in this war,’ he said, ‘it’s gotta be this one. Any other gun, they’ll go to work on you for a long time, before they drop you from a helicopter into the sea, right about here, actually.’
‘But this gun?’
‘This gun gives you a chance. The Indian Army has the island nailed down, but there’s so many freelancers everywhere now. Americans, Israelis, South Africans, and all of them are working with the Research and Analysis Wing. If the Indian Army catches you with this gun, you can try to pass yourself off as a RAW agent. It’s a long shot, but you wouldn’t be the first that got away with it. It’s the Wild East out there.’
‘So, I carry a big gun, and when they see it, because it’s so big, I talk them into believing I’m working for them, and then actually start working for them, if they let me live?’
‘It happens,’ he shrugged. ‘A lot, actually.’
‘Gimme a little gun, Mehmu. I don’t wanna kill wildebeest. I just wanna make enough noise to give me time to run away. If they catch me, I’ll ditch the gun and deny it. I’d rather do that than start working for them.’
‘But a little gun,’ he mused. ‘I always say, if you have to shoot someone in the eye to kill him, your gun’s too small.’
I looked at him for a while.
‘A small gun?’ He sniffed. ‘It’s right in the eye, man, or it’s like gravel rash, with a little gun.’
‘You don’t say.’
‘I do say. It happens. A lot, actually.’
‘You got a little gun, or not?’
‘I do,’ he mused. ‘If you’d be prepared to exchange?’
‘Show me.’
He took a small box of cartridges and a .22-calibre automatic from his jacket pockets. It was the kind of weapon designed to fit snugly next to lipstick, perfume and a credit card in a purse: a girl’s gun.
‘I’ll take it.’
We swapped guns. I checked the weapon and put it in my jacket pocket.
‘I’d wrap that lot in plastic,’ he said, tucking the Browning into his trousers again. ‘And lock it up with surgical tape.’
‘In case I end up in the water?’
‘It happens.’
‘Uh-huh?’
‘A lot, actually. What is this, your first smuggling run or what?’
I’d smuggled passports and gold to nine countries, but always by plane, and always on Czechoslovakian Airways. The communist airline was the only one in Bombay that accepted payment for tickets in rupees, and checked for weapons, but nothing else. Whatever else you had on you in transit flights, from gold bars to bundles of money, was your problem. And because nobody but Czechoslovakians actually went all the way to communist Czechoslovakia on Czechoslovakian Airways, it wasn’t their problem either.
‘I fly. Back and forth, in seventy-two hours. I don’t do ships.’
‘You don’t like ships?’
‘I don’t like power, on land or sea.’
‘Power?’
‘Power. Absolute power. The law of the sea.’
‘You mean the captain?’
‘Any captain. I think the Bounty was the last free ship.’
Voices whispered hoarsely near the piles of cargo secured to the deck. People began to stand. We saw figures moving back and forth between clusters of shadows.
‘What are they doing?’
‘They’re passing out cyanide capsules, to those who want them.’
‘People do that?’
‘A lot, actually.’
‘You know, Mehmu, the whole morale thing. You’re shit at it.’
‘You want a suicide capsule, while they’re still handing them out?’
‘See what I mean?’
‘You want one, or not?’
‘I’m more your kicking and screaming all the way type, but thanks all the same.’
The commotion on the deck increased. The ship’s first officer strode to the port side with several members of the Filipino crew. They uncovered bundles of rope-and-plank ladders, and began to roll them over the side.
‘Better get below, and get your stuff,’ Mehmu said. ‘I’ll wait for you at the ladders.’
I worked my way around the comparatively empty starboard side of the vessel to my crewman’s berth.
Wrapping the small automatic and the box of ammunition in plastic bags, I sealed them with tape and shoved them into my backpack. I pulled off my jacket and sweater, put on the heavy vest I’d hidden, and dressed again.
The vest contained twenty kilos of gold and twenty-eight blank passports. With an effort, I zipped up my jacket, and paced up and down in the cabin to adjust my step to the extra weight.
There was an open journal on the bed. I’d been trying to write a new short story. I was challenging myself with a difficult subject. It was about happy, loving people in a happy, loving place, doing happy, loving things. It wasn’t going well.
I scooped the journal, the pen and everything else on the bed into the backpack, and turned to leave. I reached out to turn off the light and caught sight of my face in a mirror, set into the door panel.
The reckless truth of travel into countries and cultures far from your own is that sometimes, you’re just rolling with the dice. Fate, the tour guide, can lead any traveller, at any moment of the journey, into a labyrinth of learning and love, or the long tunnel of a dangerous adventure. And every traveller knows those moments in the mirror: the last, long look at yourself before Okay, let’s do this.
I switched off the light, and made my way back on deck.
Lines of people were assembled at the ladders. The first officer gave the whispered command, and the smuggled people began to disembark.
I shuffled forward, last in line. A crewman was handing out life-preserver vests, and helping people to fit them.
Mehmu was standing beside him.
‘Take mine, as well,’ he said, when the crewman fitted me with a vest.
Our eyes met. He knew that if I ended up in the sea, one vest might not hold me afloat, with twenty kilos of gold on my body.
The crewman handed me a second vest, and then gave me a small metal object, and urged me forward.
‘What’s this?’ I asked, when Mehmu and I paused, away from the crowded rail.
‘It’s a clicker,’ he said.
It was a child’s toy, made from two pieces of tin that made a click-clack sound, when it was pressed. I pressed it.
Click-clack.
‘If you’re in the water,’ Mehmu said, ‘stay where you are. Keep together with the others in the water.’
‘The others?’
‘A boat will come back to the ship,’ he continued, ‘and the ship will circle you from a klick or so away, until we get the all clear.’
‘A klick or so away?’
‘When you see or hear anything, use the clicker to let them know where you are. Most people keep it in their teeth, like this, so they don’t lose it.’
He reached out, took the clicker, and held the edge of it in his teeth. My clicker was shaped like a pink dragonfly. He was looking at me with a pink dragonfly in his mouth, and he was sending me into the sea.
‘It’s from a movie,’ he said, handing back the clicker. ‘The Longest War, I think it’s called.’
‘The Longest Day.’
‘Yeah, that’s the one. Have you seen it?’
‘Yeah. Have you?’
‘No. Why?’
‘I think you should take a peek. Thanks for everything, Mehmu. It was nice sailing with you, even if I don’t like sailing.’
‘Me, too. If you run into a chunky girl, thirty years old, about five-five high, wearing a sky-blue hijab, don’t show her the little gun.’
‘You stole it off a girl?’
‘Kind of.’
‘An enemy, or a friend?’
‘Does it make a difference?’
‘Hell, yeah.’
‘It was a bit of both. She’s my wife.’
‘Your wife?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And you love her?’
‘I’m mad about her.’
‘And . . . if I show her the gun . . . she might –’
‘Shoot you,’ he said. ‘It happens. A lot, actually. She shot me once. She’s a fighter, my wife.’
‘Okay, let me get this straight. Chunky, thirty, five-five, blue hijab. Right?’
‘Right. That’s her name, in fact. Her comrade name.’
‘What?’
‘Blue Hijab. That’s her name.’
‘Her name is Blue Hijab?’
‘Yeah.’
‘O . . . kay. Thanks for the heads-up.’
‘No sweat,’ he smiled. ‘I warn everyone about her. She’s so dangerous, I love her to death.’
‘I hear you.’
‘And remember, there’s only one rule on the way to shore. Anyone tries to take your place on the boat, push him overboard.’
‘It happens?’
‘A lot, actually.’
‘You!’ the first officer grunted, jabbing a finger at me.
I walked to the rail, swung over, and started descending the rope-and-wood ladder.
It was much more difficult than I’d thought. The ladder swirled and swung out over the sea, forcing me to hug ropes and bits of wood like family. Then the ladder slammed back into the unyielding steel of the hull, scraping skin from unprepared fingers.
I came to the last few steps of the ladder. The three boats seemed tiny: pilot fish, hovering against the shark-hide of the freighter.
They were fishing boats, flat and open, like oversized versions of the lifeboats on the deck of the ship, but with a motor. We were still in open sea. The boat I was dropping into was already crowded. It didn’t look safe. I took the last steps, and the smell of fish, oiled into the ribs of the ship, reassured me.
Fishermen, I thought. Fishermen know the sea.
Friendly hands guided me aft, stepping over feet and small bundles. Friendly hands guided others forward. The crew was distributing the weight.
I counted twenty-three people. The crew of the freighter waved all clear, and drew up the ladders. Our tillerman shoved us away from the ship, and moved into open sea under power.
The motor was quiet, muffled by a soundproofed cabinet.
Click-clack.
A boat nearby in the darkness signalled to us. Click-clack. We all turned to see it. Click-clack, somebody signalled back. Click-clack.
‘You know what the difference is, between war and peace?’ the man sitting next to me whispered, a smile in his voice.
‘I’m guessing you’ll tell me,’ I whispered back.
‘In peace time, you sacrifice twenty to save one. In war time, you sacrifice one to save twenty.’
‘Nice try,’ I smiled.
‘You don’t agree?’
‘We don’t sacrifice for numbers. We sacrifice for love, and land.’
‘The numbers in this war, are high enough to make a difference.’
‘You were talking about war and peace.’
‘And?’
‘War has the blood on the outside. Peace has the blood on the inside, where it belongs. That’s pretty much the difference, so far as I’ve seen. War knocks the buildings down, and peace builds them up again.’
He laughed quietly, his lips closed.
‘I’m your contact,’ he said.
‘Uh-huh?’
‘I came with the boat. I’m here to make sure you get where you’re going.’
He was a little younger than I was, short and lean, with a cheeky grin that must’ve won him lips, and cost him slaps.
‘Glad to know you. How long before we make shore?’
‘Not long.’
He handed me a plastic jug and started bailing out the water that lapped into the boat with occasional waves. I joined in. People all along the shallow boat were bailing out. The tillerman laughed softly.
Click-clack.
The sea, that restless sleeper, rolled shoulders of current beneath us. Water splashed into the boat, soaking us in salt. Click-clack.
When the boats reached the shore we jumped out into waist-deep water and struggled for the beach. The boats began to pull away.
We ran for the trees. At the tree line, I looked back at the sea. Some of the slower men and women were still running, scuffing sand as they kicked and ruffled across the beach: a thing of fun, a foot race, maybe, on a sunny day, but a thing of fear that night.
There was no sign of the ship: no light but the stars.
My contact waved to me from another stand of trees. I joined him, and we moved deeper into the jungle. After a while he paused, listening.
‘What’s your name?’ I whispered, when we were sure no-one was following us.
‘No names here, man,’ he said. ‘The less you know, the better. Truth’s a sweet thing, unless someone’s cutting it out of you, and then it’s a very bitter thing. Ready to move?’
‘I’m good.’
‘There’s a truck heading south on the main road. It’ll wait for us, but it won’t wait long. The boats were a little off course. We’ve got a lot of country to pass, and not much time.’
We headed into the surrounding bushes, and in a few minutes we were moving through a swathe of jungle that ran parallel to the coast. Every now and then we glimpsed dark waves through a tree break, but after a while the sea was too far away to hear, and even the scent faded in the stronger fragrances of jungle damp.
My contact led us again and again into a smothering mass of leaves as big as elephants’ ears, to emerge on a narrow path that was invisible until he plunged us into it.
He wasn’t navigating by the stars: we couldn’t see them. His mental map of the jungle was so precise that he never hesitated in his rapid walk.
I lost him, twice. Each time I froze, listening for his step. Each time I heard nothing until he tapped me on the shoulder, and we headed off through the jungle again.
With my backpack and the smuggling vest, I was carrying thirty-five kilos. But the weight wasn’t the problem. To stop the vest from shifting, and accidentally dislodging the tablets, I’d strapped it tightly to my chest and waist. Every breath was a struggle.
We pushed through a verge of leaves and bushes onto a main road.
‘Gotta save time,’ my companion said, glancing at his watch. ‘We’ll risk a side road, for a while. Much faster. If you see any light at all, hit the trees and hide. I’ll draw it off. You stay put. You got that?’
‘Yeah,’ I puffed.
‘You want me to carry the vest, for a while?’
‘I’m good.’
‘Let me at least take the backpack,’ he whispered.
I slipped the backpack off my shoulder gratefully, and he strapped it on.
‘Okay, let’s jog.’
We ran along the rough side road in a silence so complete that the occasional animal or bird cry was shocking. Every breath strained against the constricting vest.
In truth, a Nigerian gunrunner once said to me, the smuggler only really smuggles himself. All the other stuff that he carries, it’s just an excuse, you know? By the time we reached the pickup point, my excuse was threatening to stop my heart.
‘We’re here,’ my contact said.
‘Hallelujah,’ I puffed. ‘You guys ever heard of motorcycles?’
‘Sorry, man,’ my contact smiled, handing me my backpack. ‘But I think we’re in time.’
‘You think?’ I gasped, resting my arms on my knees.
‘Have you got a gun?’ he asked.
‘Of course.’
‘Get it handy. Now.’
I unwrapped my pistol, as he checked and reloaded his ten-shot automatic. He glanced around and saw the small .22-calibre purse pistol.
‘If you run into a chunky woman, wearing a sky-blue hijab –’
‘I know. Don’t show her the gun.’
‘Fuck, man,’ he grinned. ‘You like living dangerously.’
‘Something tells me that this Blue Hijab leaves a lasting impression.’
‘She’s fine. A great comrade,’ he laughed. ‘Just don’t show her the gun.’
He glanced at his watch again, and stared into the darkness that ate the road where starlight failed.
‘If this goes south, so do you,’ he said, glancing at his watch again. ‘Head due south. This road goes to Trincomalee. Stay in the jungle, as much as you can. If you make it, report at the Castlereagh hotel. You’re booked in for two weeks. You’ll be contacted there.’
‘This is where you get off?’
‘Yeah. You won’t see me again.’
He began muttering indistinctly.
‘What?’
‘A diamond, for a pearl,’ he said.
I waited.
‘We shouldn’t be here, us Tamils. We left a diamond, Mother India, for a pearl. And no matter what we do, no matter how many of us die, it’ll never be worth it, because we gave up a diamond, for a pearl.’
‘Why do you still fight?’
‘You don’t know much about us Tamils, do you? Wait! Did you hear that?’
We listened for a while to the darkness. A small animal moved through the jungle nearby, swiftness hissing through the leaves. The jungle was silent again.
‘I’m fighting the army that trained me,’ he said softly, staring north along the road.
‘The Indian Army?’
At that time, the major military presence in Sri Lanka was the IPKF, the Indian Peace Keeping Force.
‘RAW,’ he replied. ‘They trained all of us. Bombs, weapons, tactical coordination, the whole lot.’
The Research and Analysis Wing was India’s counter-intelligence unit. It held a fearsome reputation throughout the region. RAW operatives were highly trained and motivated, and their By Any Means Necessary status gave them a licence that left a lot of questions where their commando boots landed, and not many answers.
Indian intelligence agents collected information from many sources, including the gangs. Every mafia Company in Bombay knew someone from RAW, openly or undercover, and every mafia Company knew better than to fight them.
‘And now they’re at war with us,’ my contact sighed, ruefully. ‘A diamond, crushing a pearl.’
We heard a noise, maybe the distant grating of gears, and hunkered down in the bushes, staring at the tunnel of the road. Then we heard the unmistakeable grunt and cough of a truck engine, labouring uphill.
The tall, tottering cargo truck rolled into view, and began coasting downhill toward us.
‘Is it ours?’
‘It’s ours,’ he grinned, pulling me up with him.
We walked to the edge of the road, where he waved a small blue-light torch. The truck squealed and creaked to a stop, the engine racing on idle.
As we approached, I noticed that a jeep had been driving behind the truck, lights out, and had stopped in its shadow.
My contact led me to the jeep. I glanced into the back of the truck and saw fifteen or more people sitting on bales of cotton.
‘You’re in the jeep,’ my contact said. ‘You’re a journalist, remember? Can’t have you travelling with the common folk.’
My cover name was James Davis, Canadian, a stringer for Reuters news agency. My passport and accreditation were impeccable: I’d made them myself.
We shook hands, knowing that we’d probably never see one another again, and that one or both of us would probably be dead within the year.
He leaned in close to me.
‘Remember, check in at the Castlereagh, keep a low profile, you’ll be contacted within forty-eight hours. Good luck. May Maa Durga be your guardian.’
‘And yours.’
He broke away to clamber up the tailgate of the truck and onto a cotton bale. He waved, and smiled at me.
For an instant, it looked exactly like the throne of sacks in the courtyard of the Cycle Killers, but with ghosts of war, instead of hired assassins.
I took the passenger seat of the jeep, shaking hands with the driver and the two young men sitting in the back.
The truck pulled away and the jeep followed. My contact’s face hovered in the swaying shadow, carrying him south. His eyes held mine.
People who abhor crime, as I do, often ask why men who commit crimes, as I did, do such things.
One of the big answers is that the low road is always easier, until it crumbles away beneath desire. One of the small answers is that when life and freedom are at stake, the men you meet are often exceptional. In other lives, they’d be captains of industry, or captains of armies.
In the jungle, on the run, they’re friends, because a friend is anyone prepared to die beside you. And men who’ll die beside you without even knowing you are hard to find, unless you know a lot of cops, soldiers or outlaws.
The truck turned onto a side road. Shadows closed over my contact’s face. I never saw him or heard about him again.
We rode on for twenty minutes, and then the driver stopped the jeep in a clearing, beside the road.
‘Get your passport and papers ready. We’re going through a few checkpoints. Sometimes they’re manned, sometimes, not. Things have been quiet here, for a while. Put this on.’
He handed me a dark blue flak vest with the word PRESS on the chest. The driver and the two men in the back donned flak vests, and the driver stuck a white square bearing the same word on the windshield.
We rode on past scattered cabins and shacks, and then the first large houses. What seemed to be the light of a forest fire on the horizon was the bright city, only ten kilometres away.
We passed through three unmanned checkpoints, slowing to a crawl each time, and then speeding up quickly. Skirting the city, we reached the coastal vantage point of Orr’s Hill, and the Castlereagh hotel, in just under an hour.
‘Damn lucky,’ the driver said, as he stopped the jeep in the driveway. ‘There’s a Bollywood actress doing a show tonight for the Indian troops. Guess they couldn’t tear themselves away.’
‘Thanks for your help.’
‘Don’t mention,’ he smiled. ‘May Jesus be with you, comrade.’
‘And with you.’
The jeep backed out of the driveway and sped away. The local contacts had been a Muslim, a Hindu, and a Christian, and they’d all used the word comrade. My contacts were always black market hustlers: men you knew how far to trust. The comrades were a new touch. I wondered what other surprises Sanjay had in store for me. I shouldered my backpack, and looked up at the gabled prow of the Castlereagh hotel.
It was in the white colonial style that colonial white men built for themselves, wherever they could steal gold. The gold in the vest, strapped to my chest, was coming back home to one of those colonies, and I couldn’t get rid of it fast enough.
I paused, and did a name check. A smuggler has to live in a new fake name and accent for a while, before using it. As a fugitive with a price on my head, I collected accents and practised them whenever I could.
I’m James Davis. James. My name is James Davis. Maybe not. I’m Jim Davis. Was I Jimmy, as a kid? Jim Davis, pleased to meet you. No, please, call me Jim.
When I found the fake name I could trust, I found my way into the new life I had to live for a while. The problem was simplified by war for my companion, my contact, who’d ridden away as a shadow in the back of a truck. When he wasn’t with those he loved or trusted, he had no name at all.
I climbed the granite and tile steps, crossed the wooden veranda and tapped on the filigreed glass of the main door. In a few moments, the night porter opened the door a crack.
‘Davis,’ I said, flipping easily into a Canadian accent. ‘Jim Davis. I have a reservation.’
He waved me inside, locking the door securely, and led me to the reservations desk, where he copied my passport details into a ledger that was half the size of a pool table. It took a while.
‘The kitchen is closed, sir,’ the attendant said at last, closing the book a page at a time as if he was making a bed. ‘There are very few guests at the moment. The season proper begins in three months. But there are cold snacks, and I can mix you a very nice drink, if you like. The house special.’
He walked across the large hotel reception area and switched on a lamp beside a comfortable, linen-covered couch. Moving nimbly, he crossed the room again, and opened a door leading to the bathrooms.
He switched on another light, and plucked a towel from the rail.
‘If you’d like to freshen up, sir?’ he said.
I was hungry and thirsty. I didn’t want to spend half an hour or longer creating a safe hiding-place in the hotel room for my golden vest. So long as I was wearing it, the vest was safe.
I accepted the towel, washed my face and hands, and then sat down on the couch, where a place had already been set for me.
‘I took the liberty of preparing a drink, sir,’ he said, placing a tall glass in front of me. ‘With coconut, fresh lime, a bite of ginger, a dash of bitter chocolate flakes, and a few secret ingredients of my own. If it’s not to your liking, I’ll prepare another of your choosing.’
‘So far, I’m happy to let you do the choosing, Mr – may I know your name?’
‘Ankit, sir,’ he replied. ‘My name is Ankit.’
‘A nice name. The Complete. I’m Jim.’
‘You know Indian names, sir?’
‘I know Indian names, Ankit. Where are you from?’
‘I’m from Bombay,’ he said, placing a tray of sandwiches in front of me. ‘Like you.’
He was either my contact at the hotel, or he was an enemy. I was hoping for the contact. The sandwiches looked good.
‘Wanna sit down?’
‘I can’t,’ he said, speaking softly. ‘It wouldn’t look right, if someone came in. But thank you, anyway. Are you okay?’
He meant, Did you bring any trouble with you? It was a fair question.
‘I’m good,’ I said, dropping the Canadian accent. ‘We passed through empty checkpoints. We were lucky. There’s a movie star in town, entertaining the troops.’
He relaxed, allowing himself to lean on the back of an armchair.
He was a little taller than I was, thin, perhaps forty-five years old, and had thick, grey hair. His eyes were sharp, and he was fit. I guessed that his confident, graceful movements had been learned in boxing, or some other martial art.
‘I made veg, and non-veg options,’ he said, gesturing toward the tray of sandwiches.
‘Right now I’m hungry enough to eat the napkin option. Mind if I go ahead?’
‘Eat! Eat!’ he said in Hindi. ‘I’ll fill you in, while you fill yourself in, so to speak.’
I ate everything. The cocktail was good, too. My contact, Ankit, a Hindu from Bombay in the middle of a war involving Buddhists, Muslims and other Hindus, was a good host and a valuable resource. While I ate, he listed the requirements for my two- or three-day role of journalist.
‘And most importantly, you have to report to the checkpoint every day before noon, to get stamped,’ he said in conclusion. ‘That’s a must. If you’re here for a few days, and they see a single day missing, you’ll be detained. Have you ever had the feeling that you’re not wanted?’
‘Not recently.’
‘Well, if you miss a day, and they catch you, you’re going to feel like the Universe doesn’t want you any more.’
‘Thanks, Ankit. Doesn’t anyone in this war have a sense of humour? The Universe doesn’t want me any more? That’s such a depressing thought that I insist on one more of your special cocktails, immediately.’
‘Just don’t miss that checkpoint,’ he laughed, returning to the small bar in the lounge area.
He went back to the bar several times, I guess. I lost count after the third time, because everything after that was the same thing, somehow, like watching the same leaf float past on a stream, again and again.
I wasn’t doped. Ankit was a damn good bartender: the kind who knows exactly how drunk you don’t need to be. His voice was soft, kind and patient, although I had no idea what he was saying, after a while. I forgot about the mission, and the Sanjay Company.
Flowers so big I couldn’t put my arms around them tried to press my eyes closed. I was tumbling, slowly, drifting, almost weightless, in feathered petals.
Ankit was talking.
I closed my eyes.
The white flowers became a river. It carried me to a place of peace, among the trees, where a dog ran toward me, frantic with happiness, and pawed at my chest happily.